Can you buy pure dyneema fabric? Why are all of the fabrics on the market composites instead of just dyneema?

I'm looking into buying some dyneema fabric. All of the fabrics I can find online, for example those on ripstopbytheroll.com, are dyneema composites, consisting of dyneema either woven into some other fabric or laminated onto some other face fabric. Why are dyneema fabrics sold as laminates or other composites instead of just dyneema? Slings are most or all dyneema as far as I know so I would think it's possible.

What do you intend on using it for?

I found this:

http://www.julytextile.com/100-dyneema-woven-fabric-p51.html

Dyneema itself is a fiber that is then woven or laminated into a fabric. It's also known as ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). Dyneema slings are woven out of those fibers

Alex Fischer wrote:

I'm looking into buying some dyneema fabric. All of the fabrics I can find online, for example those on ripstopbytheroll.com, are dyneema composites, consisting of dyneema either woven into some other fabric or laminated onto some other face fabric. Why are dyneema fabrics sold as laminates or other composites instead of just dyneema? Slings are most or all dyneema as far as I know so I would think it's possible.

It falls apart and is unsewable/glueable unless it's made as a hybrid. I've used pure woven dyneema cloth in composite engineering and it appears in cut-proof clothing etc but as a fabric it would be appalling.

Alex Fischer wrote:

I'm looking into buying some dyneema fabric. All of the fabrics I can find online, for example those on ripstopbytheroll.com, are dyneema composites, consisting of dyneema either woven into some other fabric or laminated onto some other face fabric. Why are dyneema fabrics sold as laminates or other composites instead of just dyneema? Slings are most or all dyneema as far as I know so I would think it's possible.

The dyed portion of the sling is nylon and the white is the Dyneema in a sling.  Dyneema can not be dyed.  Dyneema is a brand name and you could also look for Spectra.  Depending on what you are doing ROBIC may be another option.

Kelty used to make packs of pure Spectra

The cloth used to be available for do it your self

It is very slippery and could make a friction reducing haul bag/sleave

Bear resistant food bags have been made too

Killian Penile artery wrote:

What do you intend on using it for?

I found this:

http://www.julytextile.com/100-dyneema-woven-fabric-p51.html

I want to make an ultra durable cave suit. I want to use dyneema both for its abrasion/cutting resistance, as well as the low friction making it easier to slide along tight/grabby cave passages.

Jim Titt wrote:

It falls apart and is unsewable/glueable unless it's made as a hybrid. I've used pure woven dyneema cloth in composite engineering and it appears in cut-proof clothing etc but as a fabric it would be appalling.

This is good to know, thanks. My understanding is dyneema slings are almost entirely (>80%?) dyneema since only the small colored part is nylon. Those are sewn together and don't seem to fall apart. Is there not a way to work with 100% or almost 100% dyneema fabric like they do with slings? Any idea what type of equipment would be needed to sew it?

Andrew R wrote:

The dyed portion of the sling is nylon and the white is the Dyneema in a sling.  Dyneema can not be dyed.  Dyneema is a brand name and you could also look for Spectra.  Depending on what you are doing ROBIC may be another option.

Yeah, looking at the colored portion of slings, they must be >80% dyneema right? The highest portion of dyneema I was able to find in fabrics you can buy the yard is 45% so I was looking for a higher percentage. I will look into Spectra and ROBIC thanks.

I find the slipperiness desirable for what I want to use it for (cave suit that allows easily sliding along grabby/tight cave passages). Does anyone know if any of the composites maintain that slipperiness? I would think not, since the face fabric is something other than dyneema.

Alex Fischer wrote:

I find the slipperiness desirable for what I want to use it for (cave suit that allows easily sliding along grabby/tight cave passages). Does anyone know if any of the composites maintain that slipperiness? I would think not, since the face fabric is something other than dyneema.

Lots of vendors offer fabric sample swatches you can order if you want to see what it's like

Alex Fischer wrote:

I want to make an ultra durable cave suit. I want to use dyneema both for its abrasion/cutting resistance, as well as the low friction making it easier to slide along tight/grabby cave passages.

Dynemma fabric is water resistant which does not lend itself to being breathable.

The old Spectra fabric that the Kelty packs were made from were slippery durable and very light 

The fabric was coated on one side to make it sewable

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_polyethylene

https://sectionhiker.com/keltys-ultralight-backpack-an-introduction-to-the-cloud/

Andrew R wrote:

Dynemma fabric is water resistant which does not lend itself to being breathable.

That is actually fine since this would be used in caves that are very wet with constant 100% humidity, so breathability doesn't do much.

There is a lot of comments in this thread from people who have not actually worked with the stuff or misconstrued which fabric you were talking about and should have just refrained from posting.

You can buy plain woven 100% dyneema/spectra/UHMWPE fabric. For example, aliexpress. It is used in composite materials and body armor. Tons of different weights available, unfortunately you will not have a good idea of what it actually feels like in your hand until you get it, which could take a month. Fabric weight is a good thing to know, but it doesn't give you the full info on how tightly woven it is. Many are not that tightly woven. IE 200 gsm from two different suppliers, or even 2 different batches from the same supplier may have drastically different tightness of weaves. You will want as tight of a weave as possible.

Regardless of the weight and tightness of the weave, it will unravel very easily. Flame sealing edges does not work very well, the fibers will quickly shrink from the flame, but at different rates, pulling and distorting the edge of the fabric. If you wanted to for instance reinforce the bottom of a pack you were making, you would want to leave a much greater seam allowance on the UHMWPE, and better still, fold it over once or twice, sew that folded edge down a few times, THEN sew it in. You also have to keep in mind that there will be diagonal stretch / shift, but absolutely 0 in the x/y directions. As well, because the fibers are so slippery, it is easy to work for instance a ball point pin tip thru it, the fibers will move out of the way with a bit of wiggling. Cutting it is a pain. You will want special shears. Very good Milwaukee ones from the hardware store with micro serrated edges work OK, like their "48-22-4040" model, but you probably wont be cutting more than about a half inch or so at a time. Better ceramic shears specially make for it will probably work a little bit better. A laser cutter or hot knife cutter may work very well if the edge distortion effect doesn't cause issues.

Being so slippery it will tend to fray/slip out of sewn seams regardless of what you try to do, and attempts to glue or otherwise bind it to another fabric or in seams, will probably not work well. For clothing use I'd try to go as light of a weight as possible, which would probably be about 140-200gsm. I have not looked for a while, but I remember that being the lighter end at the time. Buying enough to make full clothing from it would be pretty expensive and to try to keep it from unravelling at the seams, the seams would have to be pretty bulky compared to similar seams in clothing... but reinforcement patches, should be pretty doable as an alternative to full on clothing. I'd keep in mind the inherent diagonal stretch. I woouldn't recommend trying to use something like D40 for patches, its very very stiff and the ripstop grid would just add friction, the the dyneema strands will catch and the tension will break the polyester strands.

You can see some pics of a pack constructed with D40 for all major panels, plus 200gsm plain woven UHMWPE as a reinforcement patch over the D40 on the bottom as well as some wear and tear pics here: imgur.com/a/G36hh

Dyneema is hydrophobic... but that is not a problem here. An inherent DWR if you will.

A coated but not laminated fabric, if you could find it, may be nice to work with and not fray so easily, but breathability would still be poor, probably similar to trying to wear a 400d coated pack fabric as clothing. If you could find something about 200gsm weight that was tight woven, and had a high-ish dyneema content, but still a lot of polyester, that may work better and not fray so easily at the seams... but if you caught part of the fabric on a sharp crystal, it would pull, the polyester would snap, the dyneema wouldn't, and it would distort the weave of the fabric annoyingly. Like what happens with everyones synthetic sun hoodies, but much worse.

You can buy "cooling" shirts made with a high dyneema/spectra content, but they will not be as durable as what you are looking for. You can buy various denims with high dyneema contents, they would be durable, easy to sew, heavy, heavy when wet, not low friction against rock, and still expensive. Rockywoods fabrics had several options, including ones with a bit of stretch, but I believe they are moving a bit away from carrying them.

There are several fabrics that contain dyneema that people are confusing with what you are looking for... none of these are breathable, so you would absolutely not want to use them.

• Dyneema composite fabric / cuben fiber - dyneema fibers flat laid in x/y direction and laminated together with whatever plastic. Zero weaving. Inherently waterproof, very light, strong for the weight. The expensive plastic bags thru hikers use... and some of the much thicker and very different bulletproof fabrics as on aliexpress, the heavier stuff is completely unsuitable for bags.
• Dyneema composite fabric hybrid / cuben hybrid - same as above, but with a usually polyester face fabric of 50 to 150d laminated on for additional abrasion resistance.
• WPB Cuben - flat laid x/y direction dyneema, but the plastic laminated on is a WPB material. Ultralight, ultra expensive rain jackets.
• D40, DX40 - laminated fabric stacks where the heavy face fabric has a bunch of dyneema in, but a bit of polyester as well so that it is easier to bond to. IE polyester in 1 direction, dyneema in the other, dyneema ripstop grid. Optional X-ply grid of dacron/polyester, some waterproof plastic film, and typically a light fabric inner layer like 50d for some internal abrasion resistance.
• Way expensive improved versions of the above... as used by Cilogear and HMG. Typically the plastic film itself is cuben fiber and the face fabric has a higher dyneema content. X-ply may be something other than dacron, such as kevlar for higher stiffness. Perhaps no inner fabric so that cuben tape (double sided VHB tape, with one side applied to a strip of cuben fiber) can be used for seam sealing.
• Similar fancy laminates, such as what Tufa Climbing has just ordered, "Ultra 400TX - LE" https://www.instagram.com/tufaclimbing/
  
  Edit: here is a fabric that may be similar to what you would want to use... except they are out of the breathable version. ripstopbytheroll.com/collec…

Does anyone know what Cilo used for their Woven Non Woven packs? Or a source for their new MOB fabric?

Nolan Yahok wrote:

Can you buy pure dyneema fabric?

• Not very often, not a huge market of people willing to spend north of $150 a yard for fabric

Those Gucci/north face cotton socks were $279 so I wouldn't underestimate how much people will pay for even 6" of fabric. 

Jake S wrote:

Does anyone know what Cilo used for their Woven Non Woven packs? Or a source for their new MOB fabric?

Sourced straight from a DSM approved manufacturer and they're just not interested in sending you a few meters, the sad reality is, no one here will be able to get a hold of some decent pure dyneema fabric, what Jim has been using has probably been developed and optimised for ballistic performance which is why it sucked to sew.

If you want some ballistic grade UHMWPE fabric you can get some from AliExpress. 

You might look at Challenge Ultraweave, which I think might be what Cilogear is making their MOB packs out of? Alpine luddites are using it, as are a bunch of UL cottage people. It’s a 2/3 uhmwpe 1/3 polyester woven face fabric laminated to a layer of tpu for waterproofing/stability. It’s pretty slippery, really abrasion resistant and not super expensive. I think it’s being sold as Diamondhide somewhere.

dot conn wrote:

You might look at Challenge Ultraweave, which I think might be what Cilogear is making their MOB packs out of? Alpine luddites are using it, as are a bunch of UL cottage people. It’s a 2/3 uhmwpe 1/3 polyester woven face fabric laminated to a layer of tpu for waterproofing/stability. It’s pretty slippery, really abrasion resistant and not super expensive. I think it’s being sold as Diamondhide somewhere.

The Ultra has a recycled polyester film backing.  Ripstop by the Roll actually carries a 100% UHWMPE weave called Venom that is coated on both sides with TPU.  That said, I believe TPU is an environmental travesty and doesn't make a ton of sense as you can weld TPU, but UHWMPE is highly susceptible to heat.

You can buy the Ultra fabrics, branded as Diamondhide at Rockywoods Fabrics.

Josh Kornish wrote:

The Ultra has a recycled polyester film backing.  Ripstop by the Roll actually carries a 100% UHWMPE weave called Venom that is coated on both sides with TPU.  That said, I believe TPU is an environmental travesty and doesn't make a ton of sense as you can weld TPU, but UHWMPE is highly susceptible to heat.

You can buy the Ultra fabrics, branded as Diamondhide at Rockywoods Fabrics.

Oh ok - I think I was conflating the Ultra and the Venom stuff. 

Andrew R wrote:

Dynemma fabric is water resistant which does not lend itself to being breathable.

Breathability is mostly based upon fabric construction methods and the way components are layered... Dyneema can be better or worse than nylon or pe fabrics... Just depends on the manufacturers goals.