When using the Marlin Spike to hang your hammock do you have to use a metal toggle or could you just use a stick from the ground.?
When using the Marlin Spike to hang your hammock do you have to use a metal toggle or could you just use a stick from the ground.?
Stick from the ground is fine. The toggle just needs to be strong enought to resist compression so it can be many different things. Trail stcks are good for weight savings since you can forgo bringing your own toggles.
Don't let life get in the way of living.
Thank you that's what I thought just wanted to be sure not to fall out of tree.
Just got and installed whoopie slings on my ENO DL also using there tree straps. Trying to lighten load and gear. But remain safe.
Perfectly timed question.
I've hung a bit in my life(time). More than most, less than a lot, somewhere between the gross mean.
This weekend I found myself engaging the Marlin, then posing the question out loud-how many times in the last year have I used the spike? Being honest only to myself I figured over 75% of my hangs.
Why? Maybe my needing (for psychological machinations) to carry 10 foot tree huggers (thanks Paul at AHE!!!) and rarely needing in my locale huggers that long (but wanting the Boy Scout's to be proud of me being, umm prepared).
So I end up too often with too much tree hugger, too much whoopie. So what is a man to do?
MSH.
It is simple. It is fast. It is reliable.
It does require toggles, sticks, roots, rods, elongated objects obverse to compression.
I tried for ages to carry carbon rods (I'm an archer and cut my own arrows of carbon, so have plenty of left over pieces of the perfect length/diameter for the 'hitch' rod/spike)....yet I forget them, loose them, ultimately consider them only after the fact.
Thusly for seemingly ages I am always gracing the forest floor (and once or twice partaking of the forbidden wine and using green wood); crafting a dowel out of happenstance-whether from the duff or the living once in hand the necessary object is in hand and in spike and I'm a hanging.
Get to know the MSH. In the dark, in the ice, in the quiet and in the rush of impending storm...if find yourself in a tight pitch it is he (the MSH) that can render the short distance between gathered end (and probably bridge too) acceptable.
Your's truly.
MM
I made my toggles of a 3-inch length of 1/2" diameter plumbing nylon pipe (actually a fitting to join two pieces of pipe). Cost is 80 cents at True Value.
I drill a small hole and use a length of zing-it to attach it to the end of my whoopie slings. That way the toggle is always handy and never lost.
Many things can be improvised for toggles. For a while I contemplated cutting off the handle of old toothbrushes.
Per some manufacturing website: "Nylon tubing is resistant to... fungus and molds... will not become brittle or swell because of water... resistant to flexural fatigue... lightweight... resists crushing, abrasion and cracking."
Last edited by Gravity; 06-03-2013 at 13:55.
Yes you can. Just make sure to hang the hammock suspension on the knot and not the toggle.
Shug
Whooooo Buddy)))) All Secure in Sector Seven
I use wood toggles from the ground for both my hammock (whoopie sling to nylon straps using the Marlin Spike Hitch) and for my tarp attached to my ridge line (prussik knot to taps on my HG Cuben Fiber tarp). Works out great for me and I save a few oz. But that isn't why I chose to go that way. I am ALWAYS losing stuff... So, after losing a few toggles around different camp sites I figured I would just go all natural and start using wood. It works for me
Thanks every one i will probaly make some from a old arrow and if misplace use a stick
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