turtlelady's Bamboo Stand

**kreecher** · 08-08-2011, 06:50

@isheian - That's a good looking stand! Imo, with the waterproof stain on there, it'll only get prettier.

The supporting issue of the back leg: I had this too & did two things to fix it. I looked at how much my ridgepole bent when weighted down and took that into account for choosing where to hang it into the loops. When you take the position of the two hanging loops unweighted, my hanging loops are closer together in relation to each other on the top and slightly more outwards on the bottom. When I lay down however, each loop becomes perfectly vertical because of the bending of the pole, making sure the weight is pulling straight down on the tripods instead of slightly inwards. It was this slight inward pulling that was taking of weight of the back leg. When I made this adjustment in the loops, the legs became unevenly stressed, so I moved the legs around, moving them an inch or so clockwise each time and test after each adjustment, until the problem got better. Now I know pretty much how to position them and the hanging loops to make sure it doesn't happen again. Anyway, it helped for me, I hope it does for you but if it doesn't for you, than I hope somebody else has something that will help you out.

**turtlelady** · 08-08-2011, 07:33

Isheian, Your stand looks great, very sturdy. The chain makes me chuckle; my oldest son would give you mega coolness points for that touch. Sometimes one of the legs in my stands is unweighted, too. I resettle them until they seem evenly weighted, but have not figured out why this happens. Is one leg still unweighted even when you are laying in the hammock? In your pictures I can't tell from where your braided loop is hanging. Is it around the middle pole and loading both sides of the lashing?

Did you put tape under the end caps? What did you end up doing to connect the pipes?

**hppyfngy** · 08-08-2011, 09:45

Originally Posted by Isheian

BTW one of the legs on my tripod doesn't seem to be supporting any weight. Any Ideas on how to fix that? In the first picture it is the furthest tripod, back leg.

Hey your stand looks great!

I can't quite tell from your pics but if you can find a way for the paracord attachment to be directly below the dead center of the tripod, you will more likely distribute the load evenly among the tripod poles.

In theory the tripods should only be providing lift and shouldn't be much affected by the inward pull, (the ridge pole should be doing that job...)

**Isheian** · 08-08-2011, 10:55

What I put under the caps and on the pipe coupler is copious amounts of JB weld. On the the end caps I then gave them just the slightest tweak downward ( where I knew my weight would be pulling once I got in the hammock). I tried to keep the coupler even but the JB on the outside has cracked. I think it was me pulling on it before I put the hammock up that did the the damage.

As for the leg, it is loose period and only more so with me in the hammock. I have my "continuous loop" wrapped once around the back leg and then over the other two and straight down. Obviously this might be the problem and as such I am going to try and make the loop hang over just the lashing.

As for the chain, I am new to hammocking and only have what y'all have seen. So my ENO only has stock suspension. I had to find someway to hang the hammock from my new stand and still allow me to adjust the height of the hang. I had remembered seeing the screw on rings most pics had so y'all could use your whoopies to hang the hammock. I figured adding two feet of chain would give me adjustability with minimum fuss. And thus far they have. It's just noisy as all hell when I take it down with the chain and pole hitting each other!

**shumway** · 08-08-2011, 16:17

Looking good Isheian! I may copy your idea with the stain. I've had mine out a few rainy nights now and it probably should be protected. Hmm.. thinking.... I have a few rattle cans of paint - OD, earth brown, black, sand... maybe a homebrew woodland camo!

**Isheian** · 08-11-2011, 13:26

I changed the lay out on the legs. It's got the middle leg under the other two. And now all the legs are supporting weight. On a slightly related note: I now have a complete suspension system for my upcoming camping hammock purchase. Two 8' grey whoopie slings, 2 8' camo tree straps, 2 dutch clips, and 4 camo toggles. Now i just have to get the expensive part; the NX-250 *camo of course).

**shumway** · 08-12-2011, 11:21

I'm curious if the nx-250 will fit in your stand. That's what I almost bought, but went with a WBBB. I'm still kind of wondering if I made the right choice. I'm eager to hear how you like it.

**Isheian** · 08-12-2011, 18:50

With the two i got to try, im thinking it will rock. As for it fitting the stand.....

I'll deal with that when i get the hammock.

**Isheian** · 08-18-2011, 23:47

Let me make my last post make a little more sense.

With the two Clark hammocks I got to try at the Colorado group hang, I am certian I will enjoy the NX-250. As for it fitting the stand, I'll let you know when I save the $500 for it!

**kreecher** · 08-27-2011, 20:04

@all - I promised to report back on the week of hammocking. Small warning, it's going to be a long report, so here goes.

1. Putting up the stand
I put up the TurtleStand but the legs just disappeared into the soil when weighted down, since the soil was way too soft. I found six pieces of wood in a shed and put them underneath each leg, problem solved. I also had little bungee's on the bottom of each leg with a loop on the end. After I put the ridgepole into place, I used those to "fix" the legs in place with pegs. Worked like a charm.

After the stand was up, I put a 3mx3m (9,8'x9,8') tarp on top of that. The tarp setup needs a bit of work:
x sewing on tie outs is a must for additional maneuvering space on the inside
x doors would also be nice to keep more heat trapped inside during the coldest bit of the night, it got to be 9°c around 3AM, chilly.

x I already put shock cord on the guy lines to make them "self tensioning", but I'm going to put those slider thingies on there too which are used on tent guy lines, to more easely adjust length at first.

2. The Sleeping experience
Night number 1: I was a bit chilly with the one sleeping bag and couldn't really find a comfy position. It was the first time I had the DIY UQ underneath (pillowcase like waterproof bag 1,80m x 1,30m (5,9' x 4,3')). I used the thicker bungee cord which made me have to lie in between them, which made it impossible to use the complete width of the doublenest, which of course resulted in a less flat lay than I was used to. I had a wool blanket I shoved in between me and the sleeping bag and fidgeted some more before I got to sleep. I woke at 5AM and moved to the tent again that first night, which was left there by my partner as a "safety precaution". He was afraid my whole stand would either collapse or I wouldn't be able to sleep one bit.

Night Number 2: The second night I took in two sleeping bags and was already quite tired so fell asleep rather quickly. The safety blankets sure are noisy though when fidgeting into place. In the morning I woke up because I was too warm, at 7.30AM this time. I again moved to the tent for a couple of hours of additional sleep. The UQ has a sandwich in there which has a safety blanket, then a sleeping bag, than another safety blanket. Really warm, but doesn't breathe at all, resulting in sweating and trapped moisture. I'm thinking of putting one of those incontinence blankets on top of the sandwich to wick the moisture.

Night Number 3: I checked the setup before getting in, but everything was holding up really well and not budging at all. The tarp on the other hand was definitely not in a good position. Too close to the hammock and sagging a lot. I will probably put something on top of the leg-poles to make tightening easier. The opening of the tarp works well though. I cut one guy line in half and put a toggle on one end and a bungee loop on the other. The other side was closed up. Again used the two sleeping bags but folded one back a bit. They're mummy bags, I use them as quilts with a footbag.

Tonight I fell a sleep really quickly, took in an airpillow that was only barely inflated. Put that on top of the thick bungee of the UQ, giving me an only slightly flatter lay. But I slept really well this night. Woke up at 9AM, no pains or aches in my lower back and hip, which I always get when ground dwelling. I'm beginning to understand the benefits of this hammocking thing.
Night Number 4: I still wish I could get a flatter lay. Maybe I should put in 4mm bungees instead of the 6mm so I can lay on top of the bungees. Or find out if I can hang the thing asymmetrically so I can use the full width of my doublenest. Any suggestions on how to do this would be welcome here because I honestly have no clue. Getting into position goes quickly now, sleeping bag warmth is good with the two, I just flap one back in the morning. Found a new problem, I slide down to the middle of the hammock and have to push myself back up to the head side of the hammock when I wake in between. Perhaps I should hang the footside higher than the headside to prevent me sliding down... I'll try this next time, right now adjusting the ridge pole height is too difficult because of the tarp. I did sleep well and am getting the hang of this. But ... still wishing for that slightly flatter lay.
Night number 5 & 6: More of the same. I turn out to be adequately rested, no pains anywhere. Still sweating (incontinence blanky solution ? ), still sliding to the middle (footside higher solution ? ), tarp still slacking (better tightening system ? ). But all in all a positive experience. The turtle stand was easy in setup, 5minutes. Easy to take down and I took it down in the middle of the night using only a light, took about 10 minutes, lol. The tarp thing needs some thinking about. But I'll definitely be using the hammock during my outdoor classes from now on. Sure beats the pain I always get from ground-dwelling.

This stand setup with tarp shows some real promise of being a decent solution when there's no trees. Compact, not too heavy, easy to put up and take down. I like it a lot. Thank you so much TurtleLady for sharing this absolute beauty of an idea.

I would include tightening bungees to the bottom of the legs to keep them into place outdoors under a tarp though and find some way to take something along to keep your legs from sinking into softer soil. Anyway, I'll leave it at that, since I already wrote way too much. Again, thanks to everybody for the beautiful ideas on this stand and I hope they'll just keep coming!