Almost as addictive as soda can stoves

**wilsonbmw** · 01-18-2007, 13:05

I have seen lots of posts like this, but here is another. I started getting interested in the hammock option for light weight camping and of course found this excellent forum. Blah, blah, blah, ... found a used Hennessy for cheap and liked it... blah, blah, blah,..... got some fabric...... blah, .... put up eye bolts in the garage..... blah, blah. And I finally got the opportunity to make my own. blah blah.. The wife was out of town with the kid, and I could move furniture to open up a space big enough to roll out the fabric.....blah blah ... almost as addictive as making soda can stoves.... blah blah .... blisters on my fingers from whipping the ends over and over... ..... Anyway here are my questions for the experts after my first attempts.

My fabric is like 67" wide with sort of finished edges. So, I didn't even do any hems. I just cut it real long and tried whipping it at different lengths, and in different ways. I have seen comments along the lines of "the wider the better" but there was a lot of extra fabric flopping around. Is 67" too wide? and if so how much should I cut it down?

My other questions have to do with the supports. I rigged up an adustable ridge line out of the rope that came with the Byer Amazonas Microrope set up and was using motorcycle tie downs off my eyebolts. This made it easy to quickly adjust sag while testing things out. I would want the backpacking version to be more lightweight. I snagged some mule tape off the guys digging up my yard for the Verizon Fios ( "Por favor? " point at giant roll of tape, point at self, "Gracias" ) and thought that would be my tree huggers. And I found some stuff at the hardware store ( a real hardware store not a depot or home center ) that was called starter cord. It is for winding the starters on small engines. It comes in different thicknesses and the guy says it is stronger than the regular SB Nylon they carry. It has a little bit of red woven in with the white. I thought of this for the ridge line and supports off the hammock. Does anyone have any advice, opinions, or info on these three things: the mule tape, the starter cord, or the Byer Amazonas Microrope

http://www.rei.com/online/store/Prod...cat=REI_SEARCH

**blackbishop351** · 01-18-2007, 13:41

Well, let's see...

I'm not sure what mule tape is, so I can't really help you on that one. The Byer cord should be fine for ridgeline, but I wouldn't try the starter cord for supports. Reason being: your supports will be under 700+ lbs. of static tension when you're in your hammock, varying due to how much you weigh and what angle you let the supports hang at. Your cycle straps are rated for at least 2000 lbs., some of them are more, so they won't give you problems. The issue is finding something lightweight and packable that can take that kind of tension.

You can find cord that'll do it - take a look at Just Jeff's website http://www.tothewoods.net . He lists several places to find different kinds of cordage. I just got some ridgeline cord from Annapolis Performance Sailing, which is listed on Jeff's site.

I use straps from Ed Speer - http://www.speerhammocks.com . His 1" poly straps are light and strong, and they're also low-stretch. Once they get loaded and stretch out, they stay that way so you can get the same hang every time from then on out. These would also work well for tree huggers...I just prefer to simplify things and use straps the whole way.

Hope this helps, and welcome!

**hangnout** · 01-18-2007, 15:50

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...light=muletape

The link above is to a thread on the Whiteblaze forums that discusses muletape

**Seeker** · 01-18-2007, 16:30

BB 351- if it's the stuff i'm thinking, it's a heavy flat fabric tape. looks sort of like army engineer tape, or a seat belt strap, if you rolled it into a tube lenthwise and ran a coupe seams down it to make it flat. strong as heck. they shoot it through metal conduit with an air gun (like the little basket in a bank drive-thru, or an oil pipeline pig). it pops out the other end, and you can then use it to pull heavy utility cable though the conduit. friend of mine uses it to tie up his boat.