I 'finally' settled on an approach -- a totally plagiarized compendium of ideas stolen from just about everyone who's posted anything about suspension systems.
Here's the crux of the setup:
Additional detail and overview pics are in my gallery.
I really like the modularity of this setup, and how quickly it can be set up and torn down.
Many thanks to all of you for the great ideas you come up with!!
Chuck
Nice job!
I'm making some hammocks at the moment, and I'm really having a tough time deciding which wonderful system and what great ideas to steal and use!
Of course, for a truly serious gearhead, the logical solution would be to make a hammock for each system
Thanks for sharing the photos!
Here's an addition to the current spate of whoopie making going on here and here. I'm basically using whoopie slings for my toggled suspension. Here's the setup at each end of the hammock:
The sling on the left, with its counterpart at the other tree, positions the hammock up/down/left/right, as necessary.
The hammock-end toggle hooks a second whoopie sling that passes through the end channel of the hammock. Its oversized fixed loop provides a double line through the channel, while the bowline on a bight keeps that fixed loop from cinching the channel too tightly.
That second whoopie sling's adjustable loop can raise or lower the hammock end somewhat. This is useful for elevating the foot end and lowering the head end, while keeping the ridge line level.
The adjustable ridge line (not shown here) is yet another whoopie sling, hitched between the toggles at either end of the hammock.
Hope some find this helpful.
Chuck
P.S. Thanks for the nice reply, Perkolady. I want to dig into your cooking info when I get the chance.
tee hee heeOriginally Posted by caboyer
(sorry for the completely non constructive post)
Not really wanting to change direction of this post, but I am interested in this picture in your gallery. I think I/we can learn from this as well. I've never seen that.
http://www.hammockforums.net/gallery...php?i=6203&c=3
What do you think happened? Did the slippery half hitch tighten up before the bury took the load, pushing the bury toward the eye and slacking it?? Did the exit split a strand or poke through a strand??
Here's the picture directly, for quick visual reference:
I'm pretty sure it was the former. As far as I could tell, the standing half of the UCR exited the bury cleanly between the braid strands, with no splitting of of the fibers that made up the strands.What do you think happened? Did the slippery half hitch tighten up before the bury took the load, pushing the bury toward the eye and slacking it?? Did the exit split a strand or poke through a strand??
From this other picture
you can see where the force from the bury, which is being pulled downward to the right, has almost completely 'unslipped' the slippery half hitch. That suggests to me that the half hitch, and not the constriction, was bearing the brunt of the force.
The right end of the bury, just to the left of the failing half hitch, was compressed as the strands to the right were extricated from the braid weave by the force of the hang.
Rethinking this has given me a couple of ideas I want to test. I'll report back in a bit after I make another UCR. Gotta get some coffee first, though.
Thanks for pursuing this question; it never occurred to me to do so.
Chuck
Okay, I had my coffee and made another UCR. It actually held without slipping, even with me bouncing a bit in the hammock.
What differed this time was that I made the bury 18" long, a bit under 8 fids for the 7/64 AmSteel I'm using.
So, an 8" bury failed and an 18" bury succeeded. I'll experiment with bury length to find the tipping point.
The idea I alluded to in my previous post was to put the slippery half hitch at the tailing end of the bury, rather than as a stopper at the head end. Though it seems counter-intuitive, I think it ensures that both ends of the bury are initially under tension which, in turn, induces the compression whereby the bury grips the inner line.
It may also be that part of this morning's success with the 18" bury was to 'milk' the length of the bury prior to loading the line, making sure that the bury and the enclosed line made good contact so the constrictor could bite.
There is obviously some threshold length for the bury. I believe that a short bury could still be made to hold by using a hitch at its tail -- slippery half hitch, rolling hitch, sailor's gripping hitch, etc, etc. I'm not sure what the active mechanism is. Perhaps the tailing hitch merely needs to compensate for the friction deficit of the short bury. I lean, though, toward my initial idea -- that the hitch ensures initial tension at both ends of the bury.
Hope that makes sense, but I am open to correction and education.
Chuck
Last edited by Frawg; 06-27-2009 at 07:41. Reason: corralled a loose comma, removed an extra need, added some pics
Here's a brief follow up on my previous post.
I made a second UCR with a bury of about 15", which held under load.
In the process, I learned that you can vary the effective length of the bury -- i.e., the segment over which friction occurs -- by milking the bury from the head toward the tail, but leaving the tail loose from the point where you want friction to cease. (Easier to done than said!) With an effective bury length of 8", the UCR slipped as in my very first experiment. With bury lengths longer than about 10", the UCR held.
I noted a palpable difference in the 'feel' of the bury at transition point from the friction region to the unloaded region of the tail. (The line acquires a stiffness where it has been under significant tension, and you can tell by feel where that has occurred.)
Next, I made an effective bury about 3" long, leaving the rest of the tail noticeably, but not inordinately, loose. Entering the hammock caused the bury to slip, but then it grabbed and held. After bouncing a bit in the hammock to be sure the UCR would hold I got out and measured the length of the resulting friction region, from the head to where the stiffness faded. That transition occurred at the 9.5" point, a tad over 4 fids from the head.
CONCLUSION: ZA206's UCRs can indeed work with 7/64 AmSteel blue, provided the bury is long enough and it exerts enough initial friction as the load is applied.
I intend now to use UCRs at each hammock end, with a 6 fid long bury secured at the tail with a slippery half hitch. YMMV.
I'm happy again!
Chuck
Last edited by Frawg; 06-27-2009 at 13:32. Reason: corrected attribution of UCR to ZA206!!
- Frawg
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I need to clear up some sloppiness in what I've reported on my UCR experiments.
In a recent post I oriented the loop on the constrictor section toward the tree; this is reversed from the orientation in my original, failed, UCR experiment. The result is that the slippery half hitches appear next to the hammock, which may well be confusing. In the failed experiment, the hitch was tied at the "head" of the constriction, which was toward the hammock. In the more recent successful experiment, the hitch was tied at the "tail" of the constriction, which was likewise toward the hammock. My apologies for not catching that!
Now let me abandon my ambiguous "head" and "tail" terminology, and use ZA206's terms, since the UCR is his baby.
In ZA206's original post, his slippery half hitch is tied in the running end of the UCR's static line; I copied that in my failed experiment.
What I changed this last time was lengthen the running end of the constrictor section and tie the slippery half hitch with that extra bit of line.
To use a bicycle analogy, my failed experiment used a hitch as a front brake; my successful experiment used a hitch as a rear brake.
Hope that's clearer than Lake Erie. My apologies for not being more careful earlier. I blame it on a caffeine deficit.
Chuck
- Frawg
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It was my bad, too, booone0 -- I baited you.
- Frawg
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