Cinch Buckle with stock Speer- suggestions please

[BillyBob58]

I have been venturing out into the world of Speer, having used ONLY my HH on backpacking trips and weekend car camps. I have never actually slept in the Speer. The Speer knot works great, unless you need to adjust sag or centering, which I seem to need to do freq ( don't have a structural ridgeline yet).

So, I decided to give this a try, and I welcome advice or tips. It's basically my HH cinch buckle set-up in reverse, and saves me having to cut the webbing on the Speer. ( There is a lot of excess rope just while experimenting)



Is there any reason why this shouldn't work or should cause a problem? It seemed to work great today. I only have it on one side for now, but I can tell it is going to speed up sag adjustments by a factor of 10. What is really great is that I can quickly make minute adjustments, which has me rethinking the whole structural ridgeline thing, though I will probably still do it. One large advantage I found using this without a structural RL is: Zero problems uncinching a tight buckle, whether you have weighted it or not. Because, obviously, you do not tighten the heck out of it like I do the HH. You leave a lot of sag in there, so any adjustment you want to do before or after laying in it is super easy. And it sure was a beautiful day to test this out on a several mile hike at Trace State Park! I came around a curve in the trail and was 20 feet from a deer enjoying his breakfast. Later after hanging, I just lounged around for about an hour in the shade. Sweet!


But after the first use, I already see what I will do differently. I think I will tie a foot or 2 of rope from the buckle to one loop of a hugger, and leave the biner in the other loop, then just reach around the tree and clip the biner either back into the first loop ( if there is room with the rope fig 8 lashing), or around the rope, as I normally do around the webbing I added to my HH. Any reason why that won't work? I thought about abrasion from the biner to the rope, but that shouldn't be any worse than what you already have from the rope in the buckle, should it. Or the rope may end up rubbing on the tree. Would the rope be able to handle that tree abrasion like webbing can, or would I be more likely to damage the rope?



I can see it might be quicker and smoother ( maybe lighter?) to do it just like I did with my HH: hammock-rope-buckle-webbing-biner. This is reverse: hammock-webbing-buckle-rope-hugger-biner. And it would save me the weight of the hugger, but I like a little more length any way, or if it bugged me I could cut a few feet off the webbing. But to go the original way I would have to cut the webbing off of the Speer, and I just don't feel like doing that at the moment. I never cut my rope to the HH, I just untied it and replaced it with something shorter.

I'm about 2 steps from joining you boys who have switched from HH to top loaders. I have found that with plenty of sag, the Speer can be really comfortable, and no net and other top loader benefits are wonderful. But I've got to keep it warm, so that means figure out a way to adapt my SuperShelter to it, or get a PeaPod or UQ, or convert to my SPE.

Or, I could just cut the net off my HH and replace with removable netting. Big step for the likes of me!

Opinions and sage advice re: this suspension alteration, please?

[FanaticFringer]

Here's a suggestion. You could untie the Speer knot at the hammock end and slide the webbing off. This is what I did with my Speer. You then have a loop already sewn. Whip the ends of the hammock. www.tothewoods.net/HomemadeHammock2.html
I used the standard whipping. It worked great and I gained quite a few inches of extra length in my hammock versus the Speer knot. Then just use the hammock-rope-buckle-webbing-biner method.

[angrysparrow]

Your method looks like it should work well.

For my Speer, I simply untied the stock webbing/knot and replaced it with a typical Cinch Buckle arrangement (hammock->spyderline->cinch buckle->webbing->biner). I had to tie the whipping knot a couple of times to get it as comfortable as it was originally, but it was just a matter of trial and error on a lazy afternoon.

[FanaticFringer]

Your method looks like it should work well.

For my Speer, I simply untied the stock webbing/knot and replaced it with a typical Cinch Buckle arrangement (hammock->spyderline->cinch buckle->webbing->biner). I had to tie the whipping knot a couple of times to get it as comfortable as it was originally, but it was just a matter of trial and error on a lazy afternoon.

Yep mine is just like that exept for the whipping versus the knot.

[BillyBob58]

Well, now, here is something totally knew to me: You can untie the Speer knot after you have been laying in it? I wouldn't have thought it possible. In fact, seems like I remember in Speer's book him warning about getting it right before you lay in it much, cause you wouldn't be able to untie it. But oh well, if you guys did it I guess it can be done! Good to know. And apparently it's not terribly hard to get the knot (whipping?) back like it was. Though the approach I have taken is simple and quick, I may take that approach you guys did. Because if I had rope coming off the hammock, the only thing preventing me from using my SuperShelter would be the lack of side tie outs, and I might could figure out a way around that. I MIGHT be able to use it with the webbing- I haven't tried yet- but the openings on the end of the undercover are a little small ( one is anyway) and I'm not sure I could get webbing thru it. An underquilt or PeaPod would be nice, but using my SS would save me considerable bucks.

Thanks for the tips guys!
Bill

[Shadowmoss]

Add side tie-outs with a couple of grip clips? That's my next test with my Treklight double. If you look around, and think out of the box, usually you can figure out a way to attach whatever needs to be attached (and how to detatch whatever needs to be detatched...)