Duffy's method has gotten me thinking. Did some hunting and found these U-bolts. Up to 18 1/8" ID in steel and 6 3/4" in aluminum. Haven't found out a price yet though.
I'm planning on using a continuous loop and rings. With that I'm concerned about slippage and twisting using the 1x1. An alternative I've considered is using a metal plate between a nut and eye nuts. I would splice the continuous going through the eye nuts and larks-head to the rings. My thought is that this would keep the hammock nice and centered. Anyone see any problems with this theory?
An easy way would be to just get some threaded rod at a hardware store and bend it around a form (perhaps a tree?) of the right size. Some rubber tubing over the middle threads would ease the wear on the hammock and help to keep it from bunching up. (help protect the form also)
I been looking for u bolts, and they get real expensive as they get bigger.
Guess you could also get some round stock and thread the ends. Rubber tubing could help on that also.
Just runnin some thoughts...
PoleHangin everywhere
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/u-b...t=subset&xi=xi
Grainger sells them!
PoleHangin everywhere
Mouse, coupling nuts and eye bolts are cheaper, and more readily available than eye nuts.
Dave
"Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."~~~May Sarton
I was thinking the other day and I was wondering why does the center area of the end channels of the hammock need to be attached? If the center area, of which I don't know how wide that would be, was left floating free wouldn't that also relieve the calf ridge? The sides would have channels for rope to go through, it might even be best to have a different rope for each channel.
Another option would be to have similar ends like the Exped Scout hammock with the ropes. Instead of all the lines being the same length there would be a longer lengths of rope towards the center of the hammock.
A long time ago, WV made a hammock with a million little whoopie slings at each end so he could do just that!
(OK, it was less than a million, but it probably seemed like that to him by the time he got done).
Mike
"Life is a Project!"
Finally!
47 pages to get through. I really missed out on this thread while not active on the forum.
Loads of good info here, but I think we need to address the big question that’s developed.
Is the elimination of the calve ridge a function of the spread, or the U created at the end of the hammock?
It certainly sounds like it’s the latter, but if so, how to we determine what the idea amount of slack is for the middle of the hammock?
As Paprika mentioned, a hammock with no connection to the center might be the answer. I’d been thinking about this before this thread. Imagine a hammock where the corners are reinforced like a tarp tie out and ONLY the corners connect to the suspension. Maybe it would work, maybe that’s going too far.
I have an idea for a test setup to figure this out.
Setup a hammock without the MSB using the ridge line to create the curve in the end like some did here by melting the hole in their end channels.
For this experiment we want the amsteel going through the channel to extend past the hammock towards the tree for some distance before attaching to whatever you use. A foot would probably a minimum.
Now fix a second piece of amsteel to each side of the channel in the hammock using gross grain like skoalbandit30 mentions or some other attachment and splice it so the main loop of amsteel through the channel is buried in these two sections. They in effect, become a UCR for each corner of the hammock which would let us pull the corner of the hammock up the suspension as far as we want
Here’s a quick and dirty diagram
If we take this one set further and make some sort of fixed eye in suspension loop at the melted hole that our ridge line goes into so it cannot slide from side to side, we can experiment with variations on the tightness’s on the left and right sides of the hammock and see if that will contribute to the overall asymmetry and lay.
We should be able to easily see if 1.5 inches of pull on the corners is enough, or is 7 inches the sweet spot, or something in between or perhaps something very different at each corner of the hammock.
As you tug the UCR and thus the corners of the hammock closer and closer towards the tree, eventually the amsteel inside the channel with have little weight against it and will be slack. At this point, the lay should be fairly similar to a hammock suspended only by the corners those the grosgrain will tear before then. I assume that was tested when the bridge hammocks were created and didn’t work out well, but the sweet spot may be somewhere in between.
If some of you who’ve got some hang time using the MSB can try this, we’ll have a good opinion on whether the trick is in middle slack, or the spread distance.
alternatively the UCR's could be swapped out with prusik loops, but I personally don't have a lot of luck with prusiks on amsteel, YMMV.
I believe you are right, it's the "U" shape that makes the hammock more comfortable. After much experimentation, I do think the size or spread of the "U" makes a difference, but not a tremendous amount.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1372530752.032203.jpg
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1372530780.926392.jpg
This is what the end of most my recent DIY looks like... A very small continuous loop in the channel. The ends don't bunch up much at all. This hammock is 10'9" and I'm 6'4". The hammock feels huge, comfortable, and no calf ridge.
Zach Rohe Photography https://zachrohe.com
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