"Vintage" hammock project

[thejungleisneutral]

Lately I've been working on a little project, which incidentally is my first hammock build.

Here's the concept - take mostly vintage New Old Stock army surplus materials and use them to make a camping hammock. I've gathered everything I need for the build, just need to put it all together. The materials list is as follows:

• 2.8m (9.5 ft) of 1960s vintage 50D camouflage print nylon cloth for the hammock body
• Suspension made from 60s vintage 1-inch olive drab cotton webbing
• Cinch buckles on suspension made from oxidised brass rings doubled up
• Side tie-outs on hammock body made from vintage OD grosgrain ribbon and OD milspec shock cord
• Tarp is a 1969 olive drab 70D nylon hootchie tarp
• Removeable mosquito netting is made from a lightly modified 1970s Australian army insect net

As of this evening I've done the basic hammock body. Here are some pics -

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Base fabric before sewing. 2800mm long

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Mostly-finished hammock body laid out before slinging

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Detail of the gathered end using Tier Gear cinch buckle suspension. The finished product will use 1 inch cotton military webbing in place of the amsteel cord.

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Detail of the channel stitching - triple stitched with improvised bartacking

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Hammock test-slung between two too-close-together anchors. I'm hoping to test it in daylight in the morning.

Here's the big 75 yard roll of 1-inch webbing
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I'll document the rest of the build in this thread as I go along.

Thanks for looking :-)

[TZBrown]

Welcome to the forum

It can be rewarding to re-purpose materials. And that is a pretty good looking outfit

[DuctTape]

A few years back there was a vintage hammock patent contest. A forum search should bring up that thread. After you finish your current project, trying out one of the old patent ideas might be fun too.

[Mountnman]

Very cool project, looking forward to the first hang report

[Ramblinrev]

If you want some really _vintage_ hammocks, check out the contest held in 2008 that reproduced hammocks that were patented before 1935. Gotta be a donating member to get the threads but it was fun. A wooden hammock... early bridge if ever there was one. Some of them were really neat. Others didn't work worth a dang. But it was interesting.

oops.... duct tape beat me to it.

[sargevining]

Vintage?

You want Vintage?

OK--here ya go.

Even got the vintage TQ

[ntxkayakr]

Very fun looking project. Vintage and re-enactment of U.S. civil war era and other such stuff is very popular here as I am sure it is there and wherever people have spare time and money.
The Vietnam War era jungle hammocks saw some significant advancements over the WW II era hammocks which began with canvas and duck cloth. My camping in hammocks began in the late 60's and early 70's with Vietnam style. But I would like to have a recreation of one of the earliest from WW II just for fun, NOT for serious use. That and a whole room of vintage sewing machines (1961 and before) but my wife threatened to file for divorce, LOL.

[thejungleisneutral]

Vintage?

You want Vintage?

OK--here ya go.

Even got the vintage TQ

LOL

"Vintage", not VINTAGE.

[thejungleisneutral]

Some pics from this morning's test hang and tarp pitch.

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I can safely say after this session that the hammock supports the required weight and that the hootchie tarp covers the area required. Being modular in its stock form there's options for extending the tarp area by simply adding another hootchie.

Now I just have to sew the webbing suspension and modify the mosquito net.

Being heavy duty 1 inch cotton military webbing I will sew in the double buckles and the loops using a speedy stitcher and a box stitch.

The mosquito net will be modified by the addition of a "port" in each end with a shock cord and leather toggle closure for the removable ridge line. I'll also feed shockcord through the bottom hem of the net so it can be cinched tight under the hammock to stop critters finding their way inside and also to (hopefully) stop mosquitos from biting through the bottom of the hammock fabric.

I'll post more pics as I complete each stage. Thanks for looking.

[ntxkayakr]

The jungle hammocks I remember from the 1960's had some thin lightweight fabric sewn to the bottom of the hammock fitting very lose about 1-3" away so that the mosquitoes could not bite through. Only recently has there been lightweight fabric with a tight enough weave that mosquitoes cannot bite through a single layer and many hammocks still don't use it. As a kid I occasionally used sheets of newspaper under me in my thin hammock to prevent getting bit by mosquitoes from below. Kids today probably don't know what an actual paper newspaper is and would wonder why I sat on an "iPad" with the "WSJ" displayed on it. LOL