Troubleshooting a DIY Hammock

[Niccele]

Hi all,

I made a hammock out of 1.1 ripstop. It's roughly 60" wide and 10' long with an adjustable ridgeline. I have tried changing the ridgeline from 90" to 110" but haven't found a solution for discomfort.

1) Center material bunching. It feels really rigid and applies a lot of pressure to my knee or calf, depending on where it is at the moment. I've bought an Eno singlenest to try, and it seems like that center material bunching is easily smoothed over with my legs, whereas this remains stiff. I've also tried using a small pillow under my knees, but the bunching shifts along with my movements and makes long term comfort impossible.

2) Shoulder squeeze. I am definitely laying at a diagonal, but I can't escape the shoulder squeeze. I am fairly small width (and length) wise so am puzzled at this.

Is it possible that the hammock is too big and wide for me? (I am 62").
Did I whip it wrong? (Gathered end whipping).
There are no tie-outs, maybe adding two along the sides will help?
Any other suggestions?

Thanks a lot for any input!

[Janzen]

~30 degrees on the suspension and foot end higher than head end?

[AaronMB]

Definitely shoot for 30° suspension with the foot higher. You could also try re-whipping. If you haven't seen it, check out this page; try the standard and the W.

Do try scooting up and down a bit in the hammock, as well as pulling--little by little--a bit of fabric from left to right (and vice versa) under your butt to see what that does to the calf ridge.

I'm 5'5" and my wife is 5'1" and we both prefer 11' hammocks, for what it's worth.

[Niccele]

Thanks for the quick replies!

I used a hammock app and lowered the suspension point (actually made it easier for me to hang!) to get the 30 degrees more precise.

I think the ToT page was what I used for the whipping - not sure which one as this was a little while back and I cannot remember at this point, but I will try again.

How much higher should the foot end be than the head? I shimmied and moved the fabric around until I felt I could get the center fabric smoothed out, but my head was almost at the halfway point of the hammock. At this point my calf and legs felt comfortable, but the shoulder squeeze was still present.

[Niccele]

Also, maybe this is wrong, but I thought that the ridgeline was what determined the sag? Or does it only work in conjunction with everything else? I was hoping that it would setup correctly every single time.

[CamoDeafie82]

Someone on the BCUSA forums (Bush Craft USA) mentioned this;

Good observation. The way the ends are gathered does factor into the calf ridge creation. It sets the stage for your butt. Your butt is causing the calf ridge, rather, the placement of your butt is causing it. Part of it is how loosely or how tightly the hammock is hung and how the ends are gathered, but its created by the pressure your butt puts on the fabric. Next time you are hanging, move around a bit and see what happens to the ridge. Try moving left and right of center, laying more diagonally and moving up towards the head end and see how that affects the ridge. You should find the ridge changes with butt locations. If you will forgive me, but this is only part of it. You can change your set up to minimize the ridge. Like you have already observed, how its gathered makes a difference. I know there was a long thread on the hammock forum about using mini spreader bars and other options for loosening up the gather. Some of them were really interesting. One was to switch out the amsteel loop for large biners shaped like a Fusion Primo X-Large Aluminum Carabiner. It is large enough to get your hammock on it and not be on the gate.

Getting the sag right is important too. Using an adjustable ridge line will help you dial in the sag.

The devil is in the details.

The above was in response to my finding that with Whoopie slings directly attached thru the channels of my 103" (under 9ft) hammock, I had serious calf ridge/pressure because the ends were gathered way too tight, the solution I've found, is using webbing loops through the channels and attaching the whoopies to the ends of the loop, thus opening up the gather quite a bit. Mind you, this is with a channel end hammock, possibly you are seeing the same sort of issue with your whipped ends? If you could, maybe make it a channel end, and then see how that changes with the whoopie sling suspension..... Another solution that while much heavier, would open up the ends, is to make it a naval clew style with loops or holes in the ends and running cord through them, and having a larger cord going horizontally to retain the smaller cords....

[Swede2378]

My 2 cents...

I would really recommend sewing a channel, as described above. A straight channel seems to even out the ridge for me. Add a Knotty mod to get rid of the floppy sides, and set your ridgeline to be 83% of your hammock length, meaning the length of the material from the back of the larks head (under the channel) to the other end. And 30 degrees. Being able to get rid of the ridge is paramount to getting an underquilt to fit snugly as well.

[hutzelbein]

Could it be that you gathered the ends "free-style", not be sewing a channel, running a string through it and then whipping them?

I have tried gathering ends without a channel, and haven't been very successful. The result was simply too unpredictable. Small changes can make a big difference. Try gathering the material along a straight line - this might solve your problems. I'm pretty sure that it's not the size. If the hammock would be too big for you, you wouldn't have trouble with shoulder squeeze.

[Ramblinrev]

Your first post seemed to suggest too tight a hang. It is very counter intuitive to hang a hammock with a lot of sag. Makes you think "what the hey....?!?!?!" But the diagonal lie sorts all that out in the wash. IMO take the modifications slowly and only one at a time. Test between each tweak. If you make more than one before testing you don't know what you want to keep and what you want to lose. If it turns out worse... what is the culprit. One at a time means you can return to baseline in a simple step and tweak again.

[Shug]

I have had the best results with this type of whipping.....http://www.tothewoods.net/HomemadeHammock2.html
I re-whipped 10 times to get my best result.
Here is sag info.....http://www.tothewoods.net/HomemadeHammock4.html
Hang it all looser and keep at it.
Carry forth,
Shug