Why do HH sew the ends of their hammocks together?

[Rubes]

A general question to help with planning of my first complete hammock.

Why do HH sew the ends of their hammocks together? I am trying to work through what the advantages/disadvantages are. Looking at the many excellent examples of home made hammocks in the gallery there are very few that have adopted this detail. I can't really see why I would want to do this but then again I don't know why I wouldn't either

Here is a pic from the gallery where wilsonbmw discusses his take on the HH build and shows the area I am referring too.

[hangnout]

Just guessing but probably to help with attaching the bugnetting without bunching it up

[warbonnetguy]

the link didn't work, but it sounds like you are talking about the black cover on the very end of the hammock. the bugnet comes to a point, so there's really nothing to bunch up. it's for appearences, if you take it off, you can see they have a really funky binding system going on in there. there is raw edge fabric (cut w/hot knife), and it is folded several times, then they melted a couple holes through the mass of folded fabric so they can thread the suspension rope through and tie it on. it is all very ugly, although it seems to do the job even though it does seem a little unnecessarly complicated. the cover on the end just hides it all, you could take it off and it would still work the same way.

[GREEN THERAPY]

I have tried the sewing of the ends together and have come up with the following observations.

Advantages
1) When the ends are sewn together it makes for better control of fabric when folding the ends.

2) The sewn ends provide an easier way of sewing the bug net closed at the ends.

Disadvantages

1) The HH hammocks are bottom loading and as such there is no sideways pull on their whipping method when getting into the hammock. If you plan on doing a bottom entry you should have no problem. However for a top loading hammock when you sit on the edge to get in, the sideways pull will stress the fabric that is sewn together. All my hammocks are top loading so I won't be sewing them together anymore.

2)I have now had a hammock done that way rip, starting at the edge where it was sewn together at the ends. I hung it too high and sat on the edge only, instead of having my weight further back on the main bottom portion of the hammock, and heard it rip. I stood up immediatley and investigated and the reason for the failure was obvious, with a six inch tear starting at the sewn together edges, just before the whipping. The fabric was 1.1 ripstop so I was pushing the envelope on fabric cababilities versus weight, (205lber ) to begin with. I am now going to use 1" wide poly strap sewn to the edge and gathered up into the whippings for the 1.1 oz. ripstop hammocks I make for myself. The strap will only be sewn to the edge that I sit on to get in the hammock. The other edge has the bug net sewn to it. The thinner fabric allows them to "stretch" a bit when in them and they comform to contours soooo comfortably.

[Patrick]

My homemade has 1.5" grosgrain webbing on the edges (mostly for how sweet it looks) that definitely appears to add strength when getting in. I'm 215.

My ends are whipped normally and lark's headed with 2.8mm line. I made some elastic-edged covers for the ends out of the same material as the hammock body (Ed's 1.9 oz) that keep everything clean looking and the knots out of the way.

Haven't had issues with anything.