A while back WV posted about making the sides of a hammock less floppy using a bungee cord. I haven't seen his method but was inspired to experiment with the idea.
One of the complaints people have with the gathered end hammock (http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/s...ad.php?t=15205) is that the sides are loose and your top quilt, pillow, etc. can easily fall out of the hammock. On one of my gathered ends I added a foot box triangle on one side. It shortened that side and helped keep things in place but limited the hammock to entry and exit only from the opposite side. Sitting on the side w. the foot box risks tearing the stitching and material.
Bungees to the rescue!
An existing gathered end hammock can now be easily modified to become what I'm calling a "stretch-side hammock". The stretch-side tensions the edges, keeps your gear in place and allows you to enter/exit from either side.
The basic idea is to have an adjustable bungee cord run through a 2' section of the hammock's side hem, on both sides of the hammock, at about where a foot box would normally be.
Using grosgrain ribbon create two attachment tabs.
The first tab is the one closest to the end (end gather is to the right). Rather than create a bulky knot I used whipping to create a loop in the bungee.
The second tab is a little more than two feet further into the hammock. At this end the bungee goes through a cord lock so you can tension it. A simpler approach is to figure out the length you need and whip an eye on this side as well.
Use a soldering iron or heated pin to burn holes in them hem to feed the bungee through.
Here's the whole two foot section untensioned...
...and tensioned.
This is my first go at the idea and I'd love to hear about other ways to do it or improve on what's shown here.
Thanks again to WV for coming up with the idea.
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