First DIY Hammock, have a few questions.
Okay, starting my first DIY project. I've been lurking for a couple weeks now, and running searches on everything I can think of to understand this. Basically, I've not tried hammock sleeping and decided to build a cheap one and try it out.
As with all good ideas, it has gotten out of hand.
My intention is to follow Knotty's design to start with. Then I added Grosgain. Then I added a bugnet. And a zipper. Now I need to sew it with my thread injector, but not sure how best to add the extra material. (Not to mention getting cold feet over using all the materials on my very first run.)
Questions:
1. For an attached bugnet, is it possible to sew it in to grosgain on one side, attach a zipper on the other side, and just gather and hem the head and feet with some form of elastic to keep it against the head and foot? Roll the edge and use a drawstring? Or should I sew it into the the head and foot? My basic though is that I can just toss off the netting if I dont need it?
2. Should I add grosgain to the edge of the netting by the zipper, or just roll the edge and sew directly to the zipper?
3. When sewing tree straps, is there a method that is recommended? I've seen a lot of methods, but cannot find (via the serch function) any guide or discussion. I have 4000lbs 1" straps, and using a 100% polyester thread. Will 4" overlap sewn with a box-shape and an "X" through the middle be best?
Not sure how I am going about the netting. I might hold off on all the extra's and just do a basic model. See what I can learn on the first attempt. Heck, I don't even know if I'll like hanging.
Last thing, I don't have enough AmSteel for a fixed ridgeline. Any massive risk by trying paracord to test a fixed ridgeline while testing out for a night? I have the AmSteel for the whoopie lines, but only 25' total, so only enough for connecting to the tree straps.
Thanks to everyone for the massive amount of awesome information on this site. It's really saying something that I could attempt something this far out of my depth of understanding, and only have a few small questions. This is a really amazing community.