Cottage Vendor

Beside Lightheart and Tarptent, can anyone else name some cottage vendor(s) that sell tents?

six moon designs (good stuff. I like my lunar solo)
zpacks (hexamid shelters... super light)
mountain laurel designs (tarps, pyramid shelters, netting bivies)
hyperlite mountain gear (tarps with inner net tents)

Six moon designs has a pretty wide range of options from poncho tarps up to fully enclosed 1 or 2 person tents. The other guys mainly deal in expensive cuben fiber tarps but have some fully enclosed shelter options.

http://sixmoondesigns.com/tents.html

http://www.kifaru.net/shelter.html

http://www.mountainlaureldesigns.com/shop/index.php?cPath=47

http://www.bearpawwd.com/index.html

Thanks, you guys. I'm kind of more interested in lesser known shelters that are efficient and hopefully cheaper than known brands.

There is also Big Sky:

http://bigskyproducts.com/

but I would do some research. I think in the past he had some quality issues with his manufacturing and did not deal with it in a customer friendly way. I also saw a recent review that was pretty glowing.

YAMA Mountain Gear and Locus Gear.

Big Sky had delivery problems a few years ago, due apparently to too many orders that they couldn't fill and they were taking money and not shipping the tents for months, if at all. That may be in the past. The site now says they won't charge your credit card until they ship your purchase. I have no personal experience with them, but their tents look interesting.

Any of these vendors still make their tents (other than the custom orders) here in the US? Seems like to keep the prices competitive, everyone has gone overseas.

Last time I talked to Judy of Lightheart Designs (over a year, maybe two years ago) she had moved her "standard" tents to being made in China --- just too many orders for her to keep up with. And I presume no credible price-for-the-quality alternatives in the U.S. But if you ordered anything at all non-standard, which at that time included alternate fabric type, or color, or design features --- then she still sewed the tent herself. Which OTOH likely meant a longer waiting period, but one should expect that for a custom tent.

I have no idea about the others, and you probably just have to contact them individually to find out. For that matter, I don't know if it's the same story still for Lightheart.

In a way I think it's kind of a good sign when a cottage vendor moves production to China or similar, because it's a sign that their not-well-advertised product is too successful for local production to make sense anymore.

I certainly do understand (and share) the desire to keep jobs in the U.S.; I can only say to that that few or none of us really know all of the dynamics for the cottage vendor. I've met several cottage vendor owners/founders, and not found a one that didn't seem like really nice people.

Lightheart's custom tents are made in the good ol' USA! It's also cheaper than some of the ones made abroad.

Lightheart Gear's standard (not custom) tents, the Six Moon Designs Skyscape (except the cuben fiber version) and all Big Sky tents are made in China. All others are made in the US.

I believe that at least the first two firms disclose this info on their websites. I know that SMD did when they first started the Skyscape.

The ones I have looked at that are made in the US announce that fact somewhere on their websites. I know that Tarptents are sewn in Seattle, while Mountain Laurel Designs and ZPacks have the sewing done in their own facilities.

Judy just posted on Whiteblaze that she's started a new business (Excelsior Sewing LLC), a small factory where local folks sew gear for Lightheart gear and some other small gear companies (she didn't give names of any others).

So Lightheart tents are no longer being outsourced at any rate.

Great resources. Looking at the cuben duomid by MLD