Wow!Now that is a hammock I want to make....
Are there any definitive how-to instructions on making that most awesome looking hammock?!?
Wow!
Are there any definitive how-to instructions on making that most awesome looking hammock?!?
That's looking real good and much more simple. I think you may be on to something.
Stoikurt
"Work to Live...Don't Live to Work!"
two more things Grizz.
It looks like you aren't even attached to the lower webbing. Is it contributing in anyway hung like this?
Did you take a photo with hlh not in it?
I might have to test this myself.
Scott
"Man is a stream whose source is hidden." RWE
That is really cool. From my experience with the tie-outs as spreaders, you've gotta have a lot of force on those. So, now that you've done it with and without spreader bars, which method do you see as more promising? Which is more comfortable? Which is lighter? Which is easier to make? Which is easier to set-up? Is there an overall winner in your opinion?
I know its early in the game, but I'm curious as to your take on where you'll spend your time developing this thing -- spreaderless or with spreaderbars? I'm partially curious because I want to get my boy-scouts to each make one of these. Right now we have about 15 boys who are sold on the idea (It'll be fun to count how many of them sew through their fingers
Turkeyboy
Not much time today for HF...I have a job....imagine....mixed up priorities for sure.
Scott- getting in and out is easy, now that it's low. The only thing the lower webbing is doing here is taking away another couple of inches of hammock width I would otherwise have. No photo of the empty hammock. It's still up in the yard, can get one tonight.
Chump_Monkey : thanks for the enthusiasm! a couple of weeks ago I wrote a tutorial on making the bridge hammock, it's one of the "articles" you can get to from the HF homepage. That gets you the body. You'll have to troll the last week or so of posts on the thread to pick up on the suspension. It's easy.
Stoikurt : thanks. In my experience it is the nature of "research" to go after one problem (in this case the lowered spreader), learn something, which takes to to another way of thinking about things and new problems....that's the fun of it.
turkey_boy : your questions are the hardest. This is all so preliminary. The tied down model has a very different feel to it. I want to sleep in it before passing judgement. My biggest concerns for it are the need to be able to sink long stakes. Means suitable ground, and suitable instrument for persuading the stake to go into the ground that deep. The spreader bar approach is easier to set up, but with my hiking poles as bars gives less spread, but also less ground clutter. While I have hiking pole spreaders now, I haven't pushed the envelope there to see how far I can push the spread. Even with v0.1 I was thinking about the possibility of a spreaderless suspension, but not then thinking about being so aggressive is spreading it out. Going forward I'll want to be able to do both. For your scouts, if you can bank on being able to find 3' lengths of 3/4' or larger diameter trail sticks, then the spreader approach is the one to go with I think. Use rings on the corners of the hammock, and lash the sticks on.
Gotta run, duty calls.
Grizz
Well after 61 pages I may have missed this. It seemed like it was going to be an obvious experiment but then it didn't happen but seemed to come close with the dual suspension photos...I'm going to ask another question here Grizz....
Did you ever consider using dual spreaders on each end? One low (or even "very low, like at the "bottom") and one at the top corner height?
I suspect that that would A) reduce the compression on each spreader, and B) give a flatter lay without really making a shallower hammock. Finally it can be used to get the sides closer to "vertical" like they are in a suspension bridge.
A) gets addressed because then each spreader is carrying a separate load, the lower one carries the compression from having the occupant lying on the fabric and the upper one carries the compression from the angled suspension lines.
All that said the final most recent mods showing the spreaderless version hung low looks really sweet. I'm watching this progression and when I have finished a few of my other projects I'll consider starting this one. (I have a canoe in the family room)
even technocrats have to have lunch sometimes...
Yes, I did, because as you say, it is an obvious question to ask when you've a dual suspension sitting right there staring at you. I've been following my nose, and it sniffed that with the sidewalls of the hammock above the lower lines coming up taut all by themselves up to the lower corners there was little "comfort" benefit in doing anything further with the upper lines, this led to focussing on "shallow" hammock rather than "lowered spreader bar" hammock, and you know the rest.Originally Posted by Rapt
I did know and consider at the time that using dual spreader bars would, if tuned, reduce the compression on the lower set. The aesthetics and practical issues of two bars at an end weren't appealing though, and with a limited time budget it wasn't a path I followed.
But as I have this dual suspension body just sitting there what I will try out is to use my hiking poles extended as far as I can on the top suspension line, then use tie-outs on the lower line to pull out the sides some. What would be ideal this way is that I get a wider spread than I can get with just the poles alone and their length limitations, but also don't need such long stakes because the tension on those lines is less. We'll see.
canoe in the family room would not work in our houseI suspect that that would A) reduce the compression on each spreader, and B) give a flatter lay without really making a shallower hammock. Finally it can be used to get the sides closer to "vertical" like they are in a suspension bridge.
...
All that said the final most recent mods showing the spreaderless version hung low looks really sweet. I'm watching this progression and when I have finished a few of my other projects I'll consider starting this one. (I have a canoe in the family room
But thanks for the insights and we'd be delighted to have more people with bridge hammocks sharing ideas!
Grizz
Last edited by GrizzlyAdams; 09-06-2007 at 13:53. Reason: remove extraneous vowels
Grizz, have you tried using a single stake on each side?
One holding both the head and the foot end.
Or is that just gonna be too much force?
Scott
"Man is a stream whose source is hidden." RWE
exactly, it would only be necessary when tightening the lines did not raise it high enough by itself. i think the shallower the curve the tighter the lines have to be to raise the middle enough.
i will see if hanging it a bit tighter will raise it enough, but it seems like it puts alot of stress on the suspension to hang it with as little end to end sag as possible. do you guys hang your's really tight like that?
i was limited to how tight i could hang in the garage, and i was also playing with a full fabric spread length. both of these contributed to the sag, but hopefully a tighter hang outside will fix the problem without having to adjust the curve.
I haven't. I'm afraid that would be rather much for the snow stake.
Don't know if a 12" spike would hold or not, or one of those lighter 10" yellow plastic jobbies.
If the tie-outs are 4' in length measured on the ground, and the hammock is 8', and the single stake is centered also at 4' out, then each line needs 1/sin(45 degrees) = 1.41 more force on it to get the same pull. Means the stake has 2*1.41 = 2.8 times the force on it that a single does.
There is advantage to reducing the number of big stakes needed though. But those snow stakes are light and strong. I think I would rather carry 8 of those at 1 oz each, and use 2 per corner than carry 2 big ones. And I just discovered that there is an 11-3/4" version of the snow stake too---I've got the 9.5" version.
Grizz
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