Tensegrity bliss

[dankie]

Me and 2 friends put in on this stand for festival season. It's based on the Camp Elsewhere structure shown here http://www.bweebweebwee.com/tensegrity/



We used metal 8 foot heavy gauge fence posts for supports and welded hoops for hammock and rope attachment. The covering is a surplus C9 parachute. Our center pole is 2 5' carbon fiber posts bought for a seperate project. Lines are truck line bought from Home Depot and northern tool. The stakes are 1/2" steel rods sharpened on the grinder.

The structure was very stable and withstood 50 mph wind gusts that were sending pop ups flying. It was not rain proof but we were able to raise our tarps on the top support ropes.

All in all it has worked incredibly well on the summer tour and looking at the wear I believe this will work well next season as well.

[Shug]

Whooooooo Buddy)))))) That is a shweet rig to be sure.
Shug

[old4hats]

Yessir, that is right nice.

[Cazador42587]

Love the parachute shelter. If you double layered the parachute it would be pretty water proof. Also maybe you could give the one you have now a sil nylon treatment? Good looking rig!

[pgibson]

Dejoha illustrated this in his book made from 2x4's. I built one and used it on a trip to a desert stream this spring where there were not any trees. It worked great but was a lot of work to set up in rocky ground.

[dankie]

We started to calculate what it would cost to coat the chute and came to the middle of the chute and realized it was a no-seeum type netting we figured it wouldn't see much rain (we were wrong.). A two chute solution might work but it really was never meant to be waterproof. We were all surprised when we had thunderstorms, so much for wishful thinking.

I could see using 2x4's if you weren't going to hang from it. We overbuilt so we wouldn't have to make repairs.

[pgibson]

The 2x4s work fine to hang from.

[Columbus]

We used the metric version of 2x4 and had a maximum load of 400kg / 880lbs and it was rock solid.

Works wonderful

[dankie]

Glad to know the lumber works.

[dankie]

Update this summer we had 6 hammocks in this structure. While not very comfortable for those in the bottom hammocks it worked and turned it into a great place to hang out.