turtlelady's Bamboo Stand

[peanuts]

after visiting 3 HD's i found one that had 2x2x8 untreated furring, will that work???? or do i need to use pt ones???

[hppyfngy]

after visiting 3 HD's i found one that had 2x2x8 untreated furring, will that work???? or do i need to use pt ones???

If they're pretty straight and not full of knots, go for it! I only used pt because I couldn't find anything else.

Of course if you are leaving it outside, you might want to paint it or at least seal the ends that touch the ground.

[Dabberty]

Hi there,

Last weekend I build also this bamboo stand.
I bought several pieces of dried bamboo, 10 ft long and almost 1 inch thick, each 1.90 usd (35 czech crowns).
I've cut the ones for the tripods down to 6.5 ft.
Tripods are working perfectly fine after being lashed, frapped and taped.

But the ridge pole.. Still fighting with that..
I want it to be at least 10 ft long, but perfect would be 11.5 ft to 13 ft, so I can use my tarp as well which is 10 ft long.

What I tried:
Bamboo
1 piece of 10 ft bamboo bends.. if I tape 4 pieces of 10 ft bamboo together, it will hold..
But it is bulky..
If I put 2 of those 4 sticking out 1 ft, so this effectively gives me 11 feet, then it will bend again.

Wood
I tried 2 pieces of wood, 1.3 x 1.3 inch thick with a hinge in between, so it would be fold-able.
No luck, the hinge bended very quickly, and stronger hinges that fits on 1.3 inch wood was not available in the hardware store.

Curtain holder
My girlfriends mother re-decorated her house, and the old curtain holders went out.
I took them, but they are each 6.5 ft long, and about 1.2 inch thick.
So I taped 3 of them together, so now it is 11 ft long, and it hold, but I think it will not last long, it is very weak wood.

Does anyone have a cheap alternative / idea, for a ridge pole that is preferable fold-able ?
So every piece would be max 6.5 ft long, and easy to take with my in the car ?
The iron tubes are around 50 usd,- here, and quite heavy.
I like the idea of keep using all natural materials.... if possible :-)

Tuliku

[Dabberty]

Hi there again

A friend of mine who works at a riding club, had some left over pipe's laying around. I noticed them, asked if he ever will use them, and the answer was that I can take as much as possible

So I cut 2 pieces of, each 6.5 ft, and a small pipe that's fits inside.
When taken apart, it is a small heap of pipes and bamboo sticks, of max 6.5 ft long.
(I have to clean the pipes a pit, as you can see on the pic, they don't fit perfectly together yet)

So my goal of all natural materials as possible, is not really achieved, but still I am very happy to be able to hang in my garden now.

Attached a few pics.

Thank you for the inspiration !

Tuliku

[hppyfngy]

^That looks great! Quite a long ridge pole you have there. Sometimes you just work with what you can get.

Paint the pipe to look like bamboo if it will make you feel better.

Hi there again

A friend of mine who works at a riding club, had some left over pipe's laying around. I noticed them, asked if he ever will use them, and the answer was that I can take as much as possible

So I cut 2 pieces of, each 6.5 ft, and a small pipe that's fits inside.
When taken apart, it is a small heap of pipes and bamboo sticks, of max 6.5 ft long.
(I have to clean the pipes a pit, as you can see on the pic, they don't fit perfectly together yet)

So my goal of all natural materials as possible, is not really achieved, but still I am very happy to be able to hang in my garden now.

Attached a few pics.

Thank you for the inspiration !

Tuliku

[dammfast]

If anyone has any tie to any local high schools you could look into acquiring old pole vault poles. They are plenty strong, fairly light and if it's like the school I coach at they have some poles that are no longer legal to use that they may let you have. I have one in my garage that got broke, I have a section of a smaller diameter pole that just fits inside. I haven't tried it yet but thinking it will work great and be collapsible.

Dammfast

[lonetracker]

i made one also.i went out to da wood and harvested some ironwood poles,pealed them and assembled it in a few hours.felt kinda odd setting it up amongst all those trees but had to make sure it worked before taking it home for use there.i cut the tri pod poles about 7 foot.the ridge was about 12 foot.


found out very quick how much force is on that ridge pole,the pole i had selected was not strong enough.with only a bit of my weight it bent alarmingly.


so i ran guy lines to stake out each end thinking that would help.it did not.one end was paracord the other was tree straps the paracord may have been to stretchy.


i ended up rigging a bi pod under the middle,and to the ridgepole(red arrow).this worked.it kept the ridge from flexing and the hammock took my full weight.i was worried about knocking the legs out of the bi pod if i swung.it would need to be staked down if i spent the night in it.

i will be getting a heavyer pole for the ridge.thank you Tutlelady for shareing this idea with us.
Bill

[Dabberty]

I've made also a video on how I made mine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGTVQgpn8yE

[olddog]

Lonetracker, it seems that maybe the hammock attachments to the ridgepole may need to be experimented with. On the 2 turtlelady stands and one A-frame prototype that I've built the ridgepole flexes upward not downward. My ridgepoles are all 10' fence rails in 2 pieces and that may make a difference. My hammock attachments are end caps w/ eyes on the ends of the ridgepole. The action is like drawing a bow when the hammock is loaded with the ridgepole being the bow and the hammock the bowstring. Try moving the hammock attachments to the ends of the ridgepole well outboard of the tripod to ridgepole suspensions. Not sure about the line paralleling the ridgepole but I believe Hpyfngy uses one also, I just use whoopies from the hammock to the end caps. Love to see this one work for you, I like the use of the natural materials.

From the looks of the trees it looks like finding 2 with any distance between them might be a problem. Welcome to the Turtlelady Club.

[gmcttr]

...Try moving the hammock attachments to the ends of the ridgepole well outboard of the tripod to ridgepole suspensions...

I have to disagree with this if the ridgepole is on the small side. Moving the attachment point "well outside" of the tripod connections gives a lot of leverage to break the ends off or simply cause too much upwards bowing.

I'd try suspending the hammock "just" outside of the tripod connections to impart a small upward bowing force in the ridgepole to counteract it's own weight.

Lonetracker...with the attachment points a few inches inside of the tripod attachments as done in your photos, the downward bowing forces will be greater than with a more neutral attachment point (closer to the tripod connections).

Or the ridgepole may just be too dang weak.