The references I have seen for that chart is from a book called "On Rope". It would seem the context in which this information was produced would be important to know.Originally Posted by swoody126
I have not heard of an adequately stitched X-box stitch failing for hammock use. Have others?
One thing that bothers me about webbing is when I see people pull it through loops and such when it is rubbing on itself. A LOT of friction can build up and the heat can prematurely "age" the webbing and it can get ridged and crack.
That's why climbers use descending rings on webbing. It's not the strength of the rings because that factor is determined by the weakest piece in the setup. It's that pulling 50 to 75 feet of rope through the webbing loop directly will cause the webbing to fail in a short period of time.
Un-cinching your suspension isn't exactly the same thing; but I am still careful to minimize friction if I'm using the webbing loop against webbing directly instead of using a carabiner.
True, but nevertheless a minor issue for the type of use with hammoking in my opinion. Just setting the tree-straps up and undoing them shouldn't put the safety of the material at odds. At least not in it's span of use, which should be ended as soon as tear and wear is recognized. What would worry me a wee bit more is the friction generated by swinging in the hammock. But with normal caution (throw away if tear and wear... ) that shouldn't be an issue.
To the original question: I tied a double bowline to create the loop in my tree straps. Easy, works and very secure.
The research that I've seen said that a bowline or a figure 8 with a bight are the strongest knots available and they reduce the strength of the rope/webbing by 40 - 50%. So a webbing of 1000# with a knot ends up with a strength of 500-600#. The working load of a rope is usually figured at 10% of the breaking load.
The bottom line is to get some good webbing. Most sports shops, especially if they have any rock climbing equipment, have tubular webbing with breaking strength of 4000 - 5000#. Why take chances?
To clarify; improper hang angles can increase the load on the tree straps well beyond the weight of the actual load, correct?
"We're the Sultans of Swing."
I've found some Poly high rated webbing to use for this project. But, I also have a good supply of tubular climbing webbing you mentioned: Bluewater from REI. This tubular climbing webbing is Nylon and I understood it stretched so not suitable for suspension?
This is from my guide book on setting up anchors for climbing regarding nylon tubular webbing. Now I wouldnt use the nylon tubular webbing since there would still be stretch in it and you may end up on the ground by morning.
This sums up my experience figuring this hammock thing out.
Best advice ever....I love this site.
I recently purchased nylon for my tree straps. I posted on hammock forums if anyone had experience using nylon and if they had a issue. Everyone then posted that i would have a problem but noone actually had experience using them. Suffice to say there was a small amount of initial stretch but nothing like i was lead to believe. Maybe 1-3 inches on 8foot straps. Again initial. I have hung numerous times with no slippage or waking up on the ground.
I dont weight over 200 wet. JMO
The fact is this is a hard core group of hangers and getting good poly straps not much more expensive and are more full proof. But there are a huge amount of hammock users that will only spend a few hours hanging in the park on a nice weekend afternoon and ENO has sold thousands of nylon "Slapstraps" for just that purpose.
The folks I made the Tablecloth hammocks (mostly kids) for Christmas are all in that latter group and they got tubular climbing nylon suspensions. (REI had a huge selection of different colors mixes, great for kids.)
I warned the adults that if they planned on spending the night in their hammocks they may want to upgrade to some poly straps and to let me know if they needed the upgrade.
For now, they're happily swinging when time/weather permits.
One buddy I suspected might really get into it so I picked up a set of tree huggers from Wilderness Logics, so no worries.
Last edited by JLeephoto; 01-28-2014 at 10:14.
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