You guys have inspired me to take up DIY gear and I'm working with some Xenon 5300 for a winter tarp. In working with the fabric, I've noticed that it has a "grain" where if you pull along or across the fabric, it has almost no stretch, but if you pull at a 45 degree angle, it stretches quite a bit. From Jellyfish's video, this occurs in silnylon fabrics too and I think it's inherent to the fabric due to the weave.
I was following Dutch tutorials for cutting the reinforcement patches for the tieout points and the patterns it suggests to tile the triangles and have the grain run through the top tip of the triangles. Considering the grain of the fabric, this makes sense for the ridge line and the 4 corner tieout points. I think this will mean the forces will be distributed relatively evenly between the two layers of fabric.
For the door tieout reinforcements, the grain of the two layers of fabric aren't parallel or perpendicular so one layer will stretch while the other layer takes up the stress.
I threw together an image to show what I mean.
What are your thoughts on the fabric grain direction? Does it matter?
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