trunk to branch hang on a single tree?

[corrado-correr]

Hello, I'm new here and to Hammocks. I hope this is a good place to post this question. Apologies in advance if not.

I'm wondering if someone can lend some insight or share some ideas for a trunk to branch hang on a single tree. The particular tree in question is in my back yard and is quite big. The trunk is about 4ft in diameter, the branch grows off the trunk horizontally from 8ft up the trunk and has a 1.5ft diameter. The branch extends straight outward for ~15ft before it starts to thin out and split up to smaller branches.

Would something like this work?


IMG_20140603_151905155 by rrotsaert, on Flickr

I'm reading a lot about how to get perfect pitch and ideal sag, but so far can only find examples of the more typical even-tree-to-tree hanging.

[1bigpaddle]

Your going to need something to pull you away from the tree. All the weight will pull towards the tree. And that is ofcourse as long as the branch holds you up.

[gargoyle]

Hang only from the limb.
Putting one anchor point higher (at such an extreme) will give you a poor hang/sag.
If the limb allows for a proper spread of the suspension, you'll be fine. If not, you'll have to hang a spreader bar from the limb. And then hang the hammock off the spreader.
The spreader bar will need to be ten or eleven feet long, hung approx. 6 feet from the ground, to accommodate most standard hammocks.

[Bubba]

I've done branch to branch hangs off the same tree before. Focus on getting the ends of the hammock close to the same height and then attach to the tree. If you can set it up same as your picture with the suspension being at 30 degrees and the one end of the hammock close to the trunk it might work out ok as long as the branch is strong enough to not bend too much. It's not going to be ideal and you may end up with a lot of sag but give it a shot and tell us how it works out.

[olddog]

Yes it can work. A few weeks ago I hung my nephew's new wife's Mayan on a single branch of a beautiful Camphor tree. The branch was 7' up the trunk and 18" in dia. The head end was attached to the branch between the trunk and a vertical side branch. The foot end was attached farther out on the branch which was still 12" dia.

I wanted to hang from a single arching branch of a large Live Oak in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest but the hogs had rooted the entire area up looking for acorns.

The most important consideration is that the tree be of sufficient strength.

[corrado-correr]

Your going to need something to pull you away from the tree. All the weight will pull towards the tree. And that is ofcourse as long as the branch holds you up.

Wouldn't the stringing on the branch keep the hammock away from the trunk? The branch will hold. This is a big branch.

I've seen some recommendations (or at least suggestions) to hang a hammock indoors from a wall to a ceiling. This is what gave me the idea to possibly go from trunk to branch in the first place.



Is this not capable of producing an ideal hang?

[Ramblinrev]

Not to rain on anyones parade, but from my conversations with arborists and foresters trees of that size are likely to have hidden weaknesses in the form of dead/rotten core wood. I had a tree in my backyard like that and it scared the daylights out of me. I would not have hung from it on a bet. I wanted to take it down but couldn't afford to do so. Get some professional advice before tying on to something like that. If anything gave way you would be in a world of hurt.

[corrado-correr]

Appreciate the concerns about the integrity of this tree. I will not take them lightly.

I played around with the hammock hang calculator. And made some quick calculations. Assuming I had 18.6 feet of good strong branch, this should work right?

MSPaint skillz.

hammock calculator by rrotsaert, on Flickr

[Bubba]

Pretty much how I envisioned it would be.

[sargevining]

Your hang angle of 45 degrees is poorly chosen. 30 degrees is the generally accepted "hangle". The 129" Ridgeline would be good for a hammock of approximately 155" in length---or about a 13 foot hammock. Generally accepted ridgeline length is about 83% of the length of the hammock.