Grizz joins Club Claytor

**GrizzlyAdams** · 05-26-2008, 14:54

It gets kind of lonely being just a bridge hammock guy. Sure, I can post something over on the Bridge Hammock thread, and 38.96 people will view it, eventually. The other bridge guys, where are they? funbun is gone for good I fear, Dutch confessed that his favorite hammock is one other than his bridgeskin. WalkingBear ambles in every now and then and shows off some good ideas, but not very often. HC4U has been promising for almost a year to build one, but hasn't. I have to face reality here. Bridges aren't what the cool guys use. What do the cool guys, the Really Cool Guys use? I have seen the future, and it is spelled C L A Y T O R.

Well perhaps I can in my own small way contribute to the tidal wave of Claytor modifications.

So I'm back from the garage. I made my very own Claytor inspired hammock. See below.

The finished length of this is 10 feet, 7 inches. The ridge-line in the picture is 10' spot on. The netting is 40" wide.

I made a double body hammock of untreated nylon that is 1.05 oz/ yard. Because I made a pad pocket by using a flat-felled seam on the side, the pad entry point is elsewhere. Both bodies are whipped. The cord of the inner body passes through the whipping of the outer body, and can be tucked away.

Here's a picture of a pad slipping into the gap ( a little over 20" wide).

Here's the flat-felled seam on the side. There is 34" between seams, and the distance from seam to zipper is 8". One of the reasons I went with this design is that I'm liking it a lot on my lightweight bridge hammock; the seam is a handy place to attach a quilt or an undercover.

Here's my interior shot, I'm laying on a slight diagonal. There is definitely a little knee hyper-extension, but I know how to deal with this from my HH days. The dangling ties on the right are for holding the rolled up bug-net cover...the zipper goes from the right foot end, up over the top of the netting and down to the left side, up the left side, then up and over again. I've got over 150" inches of #3 zipper there. Two double-sided pulls, of course.

Now we've got the cover off, sleeping under the stars, figuratively.

"But wait a minute", Dutch is asking, "What's that dangling red loop doing??

"Why did you disconnect the suspension loops from the biner and hook in that red loop???"

"And what's with this pocket on the side, with more cord and webbing??"

Well shucks, I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks after all. What I built was a dual Claytor/Bridge hammock. I used the same method for suspension as I did with the lightweight Bridge hammock, but you can't see it, it is sandwiched between the two bodies, in the upper portion. (btw, instead of using silnylon for the suspension piece and cord, I this time I used 1.9 oz rip-stop).

OK, the real story here is that I've seen that a significant limitation of the bridge hammock design is that you cannot bring in a tarp close, easily, as you would want in heavy weather. So I got to musing on the possibility of a bridge hammock that could quickly be broken down into a "normal" hammock, as needed, so that the tarp could be closed in. It was natural to think about the Claytor shape because the fabric widths are close to each other, and laying only slightly diagonal is more the normal. Whatever bug-net I came up with was going to have to work for both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One thing that the long Claytor design does not do for me is to be able to use a MacCat Deluxe as my tarp in a-fore-mentioned heavy weather. BillyBob58 has pretty much shown that. BUT I have hopes....PreachaMan Custom Sewing Inc. is building a little something I designed that I hope will solve that problem....

The hammock exclusive of the suspension system (biner to tree) and spreader bars weighs 23 oz.

I will later put together a more detailed description of making one of these. I took a number of pictures along the way and took notes on what I was doing. However I'll be out of the country for ten days soon and probably won't get to that before I leave.

Grizz

**Tobit** · 05-26-2008, 15:02

Very nice Grizz, neo will be proud of the camo.

**Hooch** · 05-26-2008, 15:05

What else is there to say besides the same thing I say everytime Grizz posts pics of a new piece of gear he's made: Wow! As per usual, a very nice, professional looking hammock. Very, very cool. Mule had a DIY Claytor this past weekend at RRG, which was top-motch as well ( as well as disgustingly comfortable

). As a Marine, I gotta say I love the woodland MARPAT ripstop on that. I'm still searching for some that I can make a hammock from. Another excellent piece of gear, Grizz! Thanks for sharing.

**pedro** · 05-26-2008, 15:10

Beautiful! Very well thought out and executed.

**FanaticFringer** · 05-26-2008, 15:11

I knew you were still a 'Cool" guy Grizz.....you had me scared there for a minute.

Really nice concept you have going on there. Looking forward to the details.

**alex30808** · 05-26-2008, 15:58

Now that's cool...I look forward to your commentary on how you built it...

**Mule** · 05-26-2008, 16:08

Grizz, What a cool hammock! And so light! Whenever you post something it is always written up to be very interesting reading too.
We missed you being at the RRG hangout, and all of us said so. It was a nice time but you would have made it better.
Mule

**Narwhalin** · 05-26-2008, 16:15

I'll just say what I just said outloud to myself:

"Wow! This is cool, man!"

Very nice innovation. And nice looking work!

**stoikurt** · 05-26-2008, 16:24

Very cool, Grizz. As always, you've done an excellent job. I look forward to your instructions.

**Dutch** · 05-26-2008, 17:19

I hope you got that retaining wall done first.
At first I was going to tell you that the Claytor is soooo last month, but then you threw me a curve ball. With one wave of your magic spreader bar you managed to become the coolest kid on the block once again.