Whoopie Sling Suspension

[Ghillieshot]

Very clear and detailed post. Thanks. Just made some and will use em.

[DemostiX]

If the average strength of the 1.75mm is 500lbs and the fixed eye or the whoopie sling does not degrade the strength of the cord why the 200lb limit? Is that just to include a 2x safety factor?

Standard safety factor for human loads is 5 for an expected static load. That's to cover a host of terminations,sins, dynamic loads, shocks, oversights, etc.

So "just to include" a 2X" is not quite "just". There is no need to make something that is tranquil into something risky. So far, there are no reports here of anyone applying casual regard for safe margins here to spelunking. (Or those who have, have gone missing but not-missed.)

But, seriously: Consider a hammocker getting injured with a hi-zoot rig that fails with resultant injury in a State Park, calling up a 3 ton ambulance to salvage the hmmker who saved 1oz on his suspension. Yes, a remote possibility, but with greater consequences than to that hmmkr alone. As it is, most who see 2.5mm 1600 bs line are incredulous that it is strong to hold up the 300lb guy laying in the hammock . Remind them of how strong common poly groceries bags are.

[Minecraft]

I hear woopie slings are suppose to be the best suspension way to go.

[Dead Man]

Just made my first set of woopies and an adjustable ridgeline. Super happy with how these came out. A few things that I thought were important for me in my process.

1. The taper on the ends is REALLY important for the ease of this. Don't get that right and you will work way too hard to get satisfaction. I tried the pulling thread process and it just wasn't what worked for me. For me, using a sharp razor blade knife and cutting the amsteel at a long angle did the trick. I got a nice taper and the transition on the bury was really great.

2. A nice splicing tool (I have no idea what the proper name should be) is a huge benefit. I used a guitar string. Here are some picks of what I used.

I recommend an 18 guage non twisted guitar string. This works really great and I did a twist/fold on mine as you'll see further down that left me with a flexible but rigid enough tool that measured about 18" overall. Plenty long enough to do any of the buries I need when splicing hollow core ropes.



Here is a close up of the "twisted" end of the tool. I took the free end of the string and feed it back through the eye end and went past a few inches (white arrow). I then took some needle nose pliers and clamped down about three inches up from the eye end (yellow arrow) and used regular pliers at the eye end (blue arrow) to twist the wire on itself. This keeps it from coming apart and also gives me an area of purchase for pulling on the tool. I then took the free end and using the pliers tied a square knot in the end and clipped off the excess.



On the opposite end I pinched it over a little to make the eye for grabbing the tappered end of the line I'm splicing. You can make this fairly pointy. With the twist at the far end it makes it possible to spread the wire a bit at the business end to get the line in there and have it still hold nicely for the pull through.



Lastly, 3. This is addictive. I did the two woopies at the office in about half an hour and waited till I got home so my son could learn the process on the ridgeline. That took all of 10 minutes. I found myself wishing I had a lot more amsteel to make more of these. For what use I have no idea. Guess I'll be making some more to give away on the PIF and as fun freebies to those I meet on the forum.

Addictive to say the least. Had to make the boy a new paracord bracelet (his buckle broke) just to get it out of my system.

God help me when I make the hammock this weekend. I going down folks. Somebody throw me a line...(I can splice it for ya or make a bracelet if needed).

[DemostiX]

I did the two woopies at the office in about half an hour and waited till I got home so my son could learn the process on the ridgeline. That took all of 10 minutes. I found myself wishing I had a lot more amsteel to make more of these. For what use I have no idea. Guess I'll be making some more to give away on the PIF and as fun freebies to those I meet on the forum.

Addictive to say the least. Had to make the boy a new paracord bracelet (his buckle broke) just to get it out of my system.

There's less expensive hollow braid material to make these bury splices with, such as very inexpensive dacron / polyester cordage that may cost no more than a penny a yard.

Do be careful of where the whoopie sling is used. It is not hard to make the mistake of leaving yourself no way out, of getting the sleeve tightly constricted around a taut and non-stretchy bury with the consequence that you must cut the cord in order to release it. I mention this because you are looking for new uses. Some of those may be dangerously irreversible, including a snug ridge-line extension to a tree. Pull the whoopie so tight you bend the tree a bit and you may worse off come time to pack up than if you'd tied a knot.

[Martindoms]

This was super helpful! Thanks for the info!

[karenthomas]

This is the nice picture and blog thank you.

[donig]

Great tutorial! I got some Amsteel from Dutch and made me a set of whoopies and replaced the suspension on my hammock. My 14 year old son saw them, and he made himself a set for his hammock. I then replaced the suspension on two hammocks for my other two children.

I'm out of hammocks and Amsteel, but want to make more!

Thanks again (I think)!

[SlowBro]

Great tutorial! I got some Amsteel from Dutch and made me a set of whoopies and replaced the suspension on my hammock. My 14 year old son saw them, and he made himself a set for his hammock. I then replaced the suspension on two hammocks for my other two children.

I'm out of hammocks and Amsteel, but want to make more!

Thanks again (I think)!

Whoopie- The name says it all . Glad the tutorial was useful. Sounds like you've got the family involved, too. What a great thing.

And to everyone else that has said nice things, much appreciated. It was my way of giving back to this great community of hangers.
-Mark

[bigfanboy]

Do be careful of where the whoopie sling is used. It is not hard to make the mistake of leaving yourself no way out, of getting the sleeve tightly constricted around a taut and non-stretchy bury with the consequence that you must cut the cord in order to release it. I mention this because you are looking for new uses. Some of those may be dangerously irreversible, including a snug ridge-line extension to a tree. Pull the whoopie so tight you bend the tree a bit and you may worse off come time to pack up than if you'd tied a knot.

HUGE here to note for the noobs, LIKE ME, I made some slings out of amsteel blue, used a single cat 6 wire about 3 feet long, worked great. Much like others experience, I found this to be quite fun to do and relatively easy to get it both right AND wrong.

But back the point that you can find yourself unable to release the tension, I almost had this issue where I had pulled my hammock very tight, went to loosen it but man no mater what I did it would not loosen. I had to break my found on the ground toggles/sticks used in my marlin hitch to be able to release the tension.

My lesson learned is to use MUCH shorter sticks so that I could simply pull the loop over the toggle if I had to.

In Demos example of maybe using a sling for a fly ridge line and the tree flexes back, I could see having to cut the line, cut the tree, or use another line and a truckers hitch to release the tension just to be able to release the bury tension.

Even at 44 I continue to learn, that's what life is all about.

This is fun stuff!

Lots of videos out there, but since I want to make an adjustable ridge line I might make my own, I use a slightly different technique around measuring and such, that really worked for me. So why not share?