Hello from Manhattan

[bpmangan]

I'm a college student looking to gain space in my tiny Manhattan dorm room. Hammocks seemed like as good a way. One of us decided to buy an Eno but looking at how simple it seemed I figured there had to be a way to make it, and all of my roommates have been converted to DIY-ers over the past year. Which is how I ended up here. We're currently looking into making about 4 hammocks over the summer for next year. I've read around and had a lot of my questions answered already, but I'll surely have a few more so I figured I'd set up here and see what help I can get.

Brian

[flatline]

check out Knotty's diy gathered end hammock
welcome to HammockForums and hey from high point nc.
there is a ton of stuff here to read, learn and ask about.
if it's hammock related it's here or still waiting to be invented.
hang on and have fun.

home is where your hammock is.

[timabababaluka]

I'm a college student looking to gain space in my tiny Manhattan dorm room. Brian

Welcome! Loads of fun here on the forums. Are you planning to use your hammocks mainly for indoors, or are you going to use them for camping? If for indoors, you might try getting some info from Cannibal, one of the forum moderators. He has a lot of great info on indoor hanging. Many of the principles are the same as out of doors, but there are some significant differences. In particular, I would look at some of the Mayan and Brazilian style hammocks which are supposed to be excellent for indoor comfort.

Again, welcome. Hope to hear about all your future adventures!

[Shug]

Very cool! JustJeff has a terrific site with easy instructions to craft your own.
http://www.tothewoods.net/HomemadeHammock.html
Whoooo Buddy!
Shug

[bpmangan]

I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of days looking around and found an absolute ton of information and am so happy to have it all. Of course the more I look the more questions I have. It's been kind of hard as I am focusing on indoor and most of this site is focused on hammock camping although I have found a solid amount of threads directly related to what I want to do. Basically here are the questions I still have, if you have an answer or even could direct me to a thread on the topic it'd be much appreciated.

I looked at Knotty's gathered end and was wondering if I could do that without using a ridgeline? I know the ridgeline is structural but what would I have to do to that set-up to make sure it held the weight without the ridgeline?

Very useful though, most of what I plan on doing is a combination of those two links (Knotty's and Just Jeffs). Although as I'm indoors and things like weight are less of a concern I think we might just use cotton. Is there any particular recommendations for what kind of materials to use for something like this. I know you's mostly use the ripstop nylon, but if I were to use cotton, canvas or another natural fabric what are the things I should be concerned with?

We're definitely focusing on keeping them indoors for the time being at least, although if they work well enough there we'll probably adventure outdoors with them. I'll definitely see if I can get some help from Cannibal on the topic, especially when it comes to hanging them. We've considered hanging them from post to post on dorm room beds, although thats just barely over 8 feet. How wide and how low of an angle would that have to be to make it doable? Or is it just not doable at that short of a distance?
I would prefer not to have to put holes in the walls, more because I don't have any idea what's behind the walls. Our school is fine with it as long as we fill them by the end of the year so that's not too much of an issue that way.

Like I said if you could help me out on any of this or direct me to someone who can it'd be much appreciated

Thanks a ton

[flatline]

Kotty's will work fine w/o a RL. even though it's called a structural RL it 's main purpose is to prevent too much pull or hyper extension of the hammock fabric and to help insure the same hammock sag for a comfortable position. quite a few hammocks have no RL.

[Cannibal]

I know you's mostly use the ripstop nylon, but if I were to use cotton, canvas or another natural fabric what are the things I should be concerned with?

We're definitely focusing on keeping them indoors for the time being at least, although if they work well enough there we'll probably adventure outdoors with them. I'll definitely see if I can get some help from Cannibal on the topic, especially when it comes to hanging them. We've considered hanging them from post to post on dorm room beds, although thats just barely over 8 feet. How wide and how low of an angle would that have to be to make it doable? Or is it just not doable at that short of a distance?
I would prefer not to have to put holes in the walls, more because I don't have any idea what's behind the walls. Our school is fine with it as long as we fill them by the end of the year so that's not too much of an issue that way.

Like I said if you could help me out on any of this or direct me to someone who can it'd be much appreciated.

First off, the fact that you're from New York and actually typed the word "you's" made me laugh right out loud. I was just waiting for the "guys" after it.

Cotton is king indoors IMO. Canvas would be fine too, but you can still be comfortable on cheap cotton. Not so much on cheap canvas. Your comfort will go up with either the more you spend on the fabric. But, since you're still experimenting I would definitely go with a lower cost cotton. I would plan on making more than 4 hammocks if I were you. There is always a lesson learned with each build and since you're trying something outside of the norm (short), I suspect you'll want to do some tweeking after the first couple of builds...at least.

Can a hammock be hung between 8' anchors, sure. It won't lay like a normal hammock though. Mayan hammocks (Yucatan, Mexican, they got lots of names) are generally designed for the sleeper to lay perpendicular to the anchor points. Course, their weave is designed to spread-out to conform to the sleeper. You can't really do that with a fabric hammock. What you can do is adjust the pull on the ends of the fabric like Just Jeff's site shows with a standard gathered-end. Might be tougher using the Warbonnet whipping (Knotty's tutorial), but that's one of the reasons I suggest planning on more than one build. Problem with this setup, is that when occupied, the hammock will take-up almost the same amount of space width-wise as it does length-wise. Problem if space (dorm) is an issue.

You'll need some height to get the hang right too. Your hammock will need to be longer than your span. My guess (all it is), is that it will need to be at least 11' in length...probably more. You'll need to get a solid "U" shape when hung if you want to get perpendicular to the ends. Lots of factors, gonna require some patience and probably some beer too!

[bpmangan]

Thanks a ton for all that info Canibbal. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, just going to school in NY, which is where the you's comes from.

Even if it takes up more space while were in them, it'll still take up less space the rest of the time as we can take them down during the days. So its more an issue of saving day space than night space. Actually theres 8 of us in the room and (at least conceptually at the moment) 4 will be taking top bunk beds while the other 4 will be taking bottom bunk hammocks. I think the one we've got already is an 11' Eno (if not longer) so I might test that out tonight and see how it sleeps before starting to build something to fit an unknown structure. Crossing my fingers that its not too uncomfortable, or that I can at least figure out why it is.

Also I will definitely take another look at JustJeffs plans and see how they would work.

[Cannibal]

I was born and raised in Philadelphia

So, everything I need to know about you can be answered with one question:

Pat's or Geno's?

[entropy]

I'm a college student looking to gain space in my tiny Manhattan dorm room. Hammocks seemed like as good a way. One of us decided to buy an Eno but looking at how simple it seemed I figured there had to be a way to make it, and all of my roommates have been converted to DIY-ers over the past year. Which is how I ended up here. We're currently looking into making about 4 hammocks over the summer for next year. I've read around and had a lot of my questions answered already, but I'll surely have a few more so I figured I'd set up here and see what help I can get.

Brian

Hey, I'm off to Manahattan to start a postdoc late this summer. We should totally "hang out."