Hi all --
After reading Risk's single pole hammock test (see link below), I decided to use similar configuration to make a portable hammock stand.
http://www.imrisk.com/hammock/singlepolehammock.htm
Today I bought 3/4" galvanized pipe in two 4' sections, attached each to a 2"x4" and was successful in hanging my hammock from both poles. Here are a couple of images to show how I did it.
It worked very well; I weight 200 lbs and have a 40 lb backpack in the hammock. With that combined weight of 240 lbs I rocked in the hammock for several minutes and everything held steady.
While the pipes stayed in placed I noticed that I could move the pipes toward the stakes rather easily which means if one of the pipes were bumped the system could collapse while under load. Given this, I added attached guy lines to the top of each pipe and that made the system much more stable. The result, however, is a mess of lines which can be seen in the images.
I think I will add a set of pipes to form a ridge pole to make the system more stable, like Speer's hammock stand ( http://tinyurl.com/38mu8f4 ; you can see an example of this stand here http://tinyurl.com/38rk8ow ).
Now for my questions. My pipes are 3/4" and they seem plenty strong during my brief test, but after reading several posts I see most on the forum are using either 1" or 1.25" pipe.
1. Will 3/4" pipe be sufficient when I add a top bar along the ridge? The walls on this pipe is .113" while 1" pipe is .133 and 1.25" pipe is .14 thick (EMT conduit is about .065 thick).
2. Which faces greater stress/force, the ridge pole or the upright pole? I ask this because I am considering using my 3/4" pipe as the ridge pole and buying 1" as the upright poles. Will 3/4" be able to handle the load as a ridge pole?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
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