DIY BRIDGE spreaders

[jefflarmain]

Hey Yall

Building a DIY bridge hammock from a dutch hammock (11 footer) and ideas on where a good place to get the spreader bar is? thought of just using wood then if breaks I can replace with green wood. INPUT?

[biggy]

You can use hiking poles like a lot of us do. Mountainsmith make some that require no modification to work.

[jefflarmain]

Cool I have some Leki poles from when I did hadrans wall thanks

[Eidson]

Dutch also sells the spreader bars.

[Slider]

I recently got a pair of trekking poles from Amazon for $15 for the pair, brand AGPtek (I'm assuming not top of the line) Have set my bridge up 4 times now with them and they seem like they are going to be fine.

And if you look at the 2nd pic in my recent post "took a few pics of my DIY bridge".... I think you can zoom in and see the poles pretty well, I have them extended out to about 46" too.

[BrianWillan]

Hey Yall

Building a DIY bridge hammock from a dutch hammock (11 footer) and ideas on where a good place to get the spreader bar is? thought of just using wood then if breaks I can replace with green wood. INPUT?

I went with the low tech and readily available solution and used 1" diameter hardwood dowel from the local big box hardware store (Home Depot in this case). I carved notches in each end so they would fit between the corner rings on my bridge hammock. They work well. The only drawback is that they are 1 piece and a little hard to backpack with.

Cheers

Brian

[WV]

I tried 5/8" dowels for home experiments, but one broke eventually, so I switched to 3/4". I weigh 150 lbs., so Brian's suggestion of 1" dowels is probably better. Trekking poles are best for on the trail. Use TeeDee's trick of putting a small dowel inside the largest section of the trekking pole to act as a stop and keep it from collapsing during the night. Some flip-lock type poles may seem strong enough to resist collapsing, but every now and then they slip.