Design concepts for flatter sleeping.

[riverkeeper]

Spousie likes to lounge in a hammock and has slept in my DIY Speers which are 48" wide and 8 long. She wants to sleep flatter than the narrow Speer allows and doesn't like the HH issues.

What can I do to make a DIY Speer more flat-sleeper friendly?

60" wide.
Longer.
When folded like in Ed's book the sides are high like a canoe which doesn't facilitate sleeping flat, IMHO. Has to be a better way to fold?
Pitched with extra slack.

To be used exclusively for light weight backpacking and would like to avoid a major purchase.

[jeffjenn]

May try instead of pulling the ends of the fabric when whipping, pull the center just a little. This will support the body more & loosen the sides. Unfortunately it will also raise the center of gravity so you may want to do this in small increments.

[slowhike]

As far as I know, no one has tired a hammock made like I'm using, but my friend who has tried it several times & seen me in it many times, wants me to fix his two hammocks that way. I love the way it lays.

I start by making mine about 50" wide & 11' long, but 10' 6" in length would about the same.
When I gather the foot end, I pull the corners out several inches, but on the head end, I leave it even.

Then I spread the head end (above my head) with a trekking pole.
This is done by adding lengths of webbing to the edge hems, starting about 20" from the end.
The webbing is sewn with a bar tack every inch or so like a daisy chain.
This is were the treking poles are attached.


For more pictures go to my gallery, pages 9 & 10.

In this hammock, which by the way is hung with less sag than most, I lay almost flat & have a much more open feel & view.

[Schneiderlein]

I have made a long 48" wide hammock and a shorter 60" wide hammock. I know a lot of people like the 48" hammocks like the Claytor, but I could never get comfortable in the one I made. I can definitely get a lot flatter in the wider one on the diagonal.

A structural ridgeline has helped me a lot in improving the comfort. I kept changing the length until I found the sweet spot.

I have never done this, but maybe tying out the sides of the hammock the way it's done on the HH would help?

[BillyBob58]

Spousie likes to lounge in a hammock and has slept in my DIY Speers which are 48" wide and 8 long. She wants to sleep flatter than the narrow Speer allows and doesn't like the HH issues.

What can I do to make a DIY Speer more flat-sleeper friendly?

60" wide.
Longer.
When folded like in Ed's book the sides are high like a canoe which doesn't facilitate sleeping flat, IMHO. Has to be a better way to fold?
Pitched with extra slack.

To be used exclusively for light weight backpacking and would like to avoid a major purchase.

Can you sew a channel in both ends, Claytor style? I don't know if that would make any dif, or if it is the longer/narrower Claytor style, or all of the above, or what, but I can lay pretty flat in it. Enough that I am comfortable enough on my side.

[warbonnetguy]

like bb58 says, you can sew a channel on the ends, this is also like eno, bliss...
i like a straight whip, even all the way across. you can run mason line through the hem with a coat hanger and then cinch tight like cinching a stuff sac. tie off into a mass, and just hitch on your suspension

[Spock]

getting it flat:
The idea is to pull the center line of the hammock higher so it approaches the edges - without overdoing it. And it is progressive - more toward the center and less and less as you approach the edges. Here's one reliable way to do it.

Start with 60" fabric about 11 feet long, hem it up, then draw a concave arc with a 12 foot radius on each end. Strictly speaking, this curve should be parabolic at the edges, but a simple arc will do nicely.

To make the arc, anchor the hammock rectangle on a flat floor and anchor the end of a non-stretchy line 12 feet away... and if you don't have room for 12 feet, don't worry, just use a little less - but no less then 10. The way this looks - if you cut the arcs out, you would have pieces of a circle. Put another way, the distance between the two arcs will be longer at the sides than the center. Draw another arc at each end 6 inches closer to the center. If you want to flatten the arcs a little at the center, do it now. Then stitch along each of those "inside" arcs with a strong thread - just a simple up and down stitch - every 1.5 to 2 inches. Use the thread to draw the resultant pleats together, wrap the loose thread around it to hold everything together, then do whatever whipping or knotting you prefer to attach the hanging lines.

[Ramblinrev]

I'm confused... why draw two separate arcs on each end when you only baste stitch one on each end? Is something missing?

[tight-wad]

I'm using a combo of several ideas from this forum...

Head end, standard gather and whip. Foot end, W whipping. Each end, "warbonnet style" channel with a cord for the whipping. On the W end I gathered the fabric as described in the W instructions, marked it with tailor's chalk, unfolded, and drew smooth curves over the tailor's marks. Cut, and folded into a double hem. Used Mason's line inside the channel and for whipping.

Every time I tried to do a simple whip,the suspension slipped. Not a good feeling. Overhand knots in the fabric don't slip, but they are bulky, and ugly. Warbonnet invented a good system!!!

This gives me a "bump" for the knees but not for the shoulders. Laying on a diagonal still produces a wall on one side, but that's ok. Sometimes I forget which end is which, but after laying there for a moment its obvious, so I flip flop if necessary.

[warbonnetguy]

my experience with the concave ends, i've tried it before with poor results, but have only tried it a couple times and have wanted to try different amounts of curve. anyways, how wide is your rectangle, and how many inches in is that curve? (for instance, 60" wide with a 2" curve.)

getting it flat:
The idea is to pull the center line of the hammock higher so it approaches the edges - without overdoing it. And it is progressive - more toward the center and less and less as you approach the edges. Here's one reliable way to do it.

Start with 60" fabric about 11 feet long, hem it up, then draw a concave arc with a 12 foot radius on each end. Strictly speaking, this curve should be parabolic at the edges, but a simple arc will do nicely.

To make the arc, anchor the hammock rectangle on a flat floor and anchor the end of a non-stretchy line 12 feet away... and if you don't have room for 12 feet, don't worry, just use a little less - but no less then 10. The way this looks - if you cut the arcs out, you would have pieces of a circle. Put another way, the distance between the two arcs will be longer at the sides than the center. Draw another arc at each end 6 inches closer to the center. If you want to flatten the arcs a little at the center, do it now. Then stitch along each of those "inside" arcs with a strong thread - just a simple up and down stitch - every 1.5 to 2 inches. Use the thread to draw the resultant pleats together, wrap the loose thread around it to hold everything together, then do whatever whipping or knotting you prefer to attach the hanging lines.