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I researched this online and spoke with
a very helpful person at a gear manufacturer.

The input I received indicated taking a 10 inch
piece of 900 pound dacron and finger trapping
both ends towards the middle leaving the very
center thinner and the rest thicker.

I do not have any line that I know to be 900 lb
dacron... I have some dacron line and various nylon
lines that are the same thickness. I have made one
tailagte alreadly and it seems right...but here
is my question:

How crucial is the line's thickness and material?

My thoughts are the tailgate must fit through the cat's
eye on the C line, be long enough hold all of the red
lines, and be thick enough to hold 2-3 wraps of the
rubber band.

Is this correct? Thank you guys for your input!

NOT crucial. a thicker line will take maybe one less wrap. a thinner maybe one more wrap. the line wont break and if it does, well it for sure served it purpose first. The thinner line might fall out, it might not. you can wrap the crap out of a tailgate with any rubberband, no problem and you can also just go with out.

you could go through the process of making yourself a tailgate or you could PM me your adress and I will send you one.

Unclepotatohead - bored as hell in class.

10 inches seems too long, to me.

Tailgates are super easy to make. If you want, I can send you 10 feet of 900 pound dacron (is your address still the same?), so you can make as many as you want.

And masking tape is better than any dacron and rubber band. Don't make this too complicated...

Yeah masking tape does seem the
easy no muss no fuss way of constricting
the tail BUT I live in Florida where the
humidity is like a shower stall daily and
I heard that wet masking tape not only
leaves goo on your lines but can alter
the force needed to break it.

I only use tape for slider up jumps, but that blue painters tape is awesome. Its like $3 for a big role, and it wont gum up your lines.

Thanks all for the replies guys!
Just another example why this site is
a great resource for us newbies

______________________________________
So on slider down jumps you use a tailgate
and on slider up jumps you use blue tape.
Is this so the tailgate can't get caught in
the big mesh holes on your slider?

Hmm, I've used blue tape when painting and
tailgates on slider down --- still have not had
the opportunity to do a slider up jump yet.

Tape also has the advantage of being more adjustable.

A properly placed tailgate should be as high as possible to catch the lines but no fabric. Placing it lower increases the likelihood of a hangup. This means that the tailgate should be moved whenever you customize your DBS (to match the new DBS). Unfortunately, most people don't do this. Additionally, if you are using the tailgate slider up, your slider down setting will be too low, increasing the chance of hesitation and hangup.

Tape avoids this issue, because you can slide it up to the highest possible point every time, even if that point has moved because of a changed brake setting.

10 inches. marks at 2, 5 and 8.

900lb dacron.

thanks Marty....you da man!

When I was in a high-humidity environment, I used the paper VHS labels from the dz. You can use any tape really, just make sure there is a weak point in the system. For example, you can take a couple layers of paper and the smallest piece of any kind of tape, making sure that the weak point is the paper.

Also, with tape, you can not only control the red tailgate lines, but also add another single thickness wrap higher up on just the control lines.