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Slept in my new WB RR last night in my garage and now I'm looking to buy a tarp, leaning towards the WB Superfly. My question is the WB RR spreader bars now go thru the ropes (no metal plates). Does anyone have a recommendation for "bumpers" for this new configuration?
Will the ARROWHEAD SPREADER BAR BUMPERS still work even without a metal plate? I don't want to poke a hole in what new tarp I buy.
https://www.arrowhead-equipment.com/...arBumpers.html
Not sure about the bumpers.
Bridge hammocks generally call for a wider pitch on the tarp. Is you sit in the hammock it naturally swings up a bit placing the end of a spreader bar against the tarp. I have poked a hole in a DCF/cuben fiber tarp doing that. Silnylon or silpoly is a bit better for preventing that.
So a lot of this is all about tarp pitch. The pullouts for the tarp make a difference too. The closer to the tarp ends and where the spreader bars are the better. Take that into account.
From Warbonnet site:
Panel pulls: (Superfly, Mountainfly, Thunderfly, Mamajamba, Cloudburst only)
If you are ordering a 13′ tarp, by default the panel pulls will be spaced at 77″ apart to be most compatible with the poles of Bridge-style hammocks like our Ridgerunner and they will be spaced slightly less than that on the 11′ and 12′ versions. 13′ tarps will also come with 2 rings on the underside of the ridgeseam to attach your Ridgerunner bugnet cords to.
Shug
Though I now have a 13 ft. SuperFly, I’ve used the regular 11 ft. superfly with my RR for a few years. I do have the rubber bumpers and they could be home made with a scrap of bicycle inner tube material. Although the 13 ft. superfly has pullout spaced specifically for the RR, it’s not too difficult to guy out a tarp with traditional spacing. For some, the door issue is also a concern. A recommended distance between the apex point of the RR suspension (where the two lines come together) is about 13 ft. Because that is outside the 11 ft tarps, any doors don’t close completely at the top. It’s not a wide gap and some might call it a feature because it allows ventilation.
I made some simple covers for mine out of 1” heat shrink tubing I had lying around, although I have the old style metal ends. It did take some fun with knots to expose the connectors to put the tubing on. A hole was prepunched for the tip. I then shrank it in place carefully with the spreaders installed. I guess the bicycle inner tube is the same idea?
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I use a WBRR, it is several years old, and has many nights use . I have never had any problem with the bar tips rubbing my tarp. I also never hang my tarp too low, perhaps that helps. My tarps include cuben fiber, sil-nylon, and sil-poly.
I did the same as the Dr did. Easy, cheap, effective.
You still need to pitch your tarp higher and/or flatter then normal. As I learned the hard way.
I honestly haven't had any tarp issues, I suspect the recessed bar design on my bridges goes a long way to reducing the issues others have had.
That said- I'm going to be prototyping some new spreader bar tips with Josh at Ruta Locura on my next order from him in the coming weeks.
It's something we've gone back and forth on and he does mill the components himself so we have an option to alter them.
Realistically- I think that getting a dome tip is about as good as we can do to fit his needs. But now that the RR also uses a hardware free connection this improvement to the tips may help.
I'll keep you posted and already told Josh I'm not concerned about that feature being 'exclusive' to my stuff so that all of you looking for a CF upgrade can take advantage.
Sounds like the Dutch bridge is the exact same size spreaders so this design should carry over to those bridges too.
I also have had a few folks over the years simply file and polish the tips who were concerned about the tarp issue. That's an option for anyone comfortable enough with the idea too.
I wouldn't go too nuts, but the spike tip doesn't need to stick out quite as far as Josh builds them for a bridge. The tip size has more to do with them fitting other grommet based designs for tarps/tents/etc. But hopefully once I order a decent size batch of tips to work out the kinks Josh will be able to mill more of them up in the future for other bridge users.
For you hardware free RR users-Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPhun
I don't have a photo but some folks took the heat shrink wrap and simply applied it to the pole tip itself. They covered the tip and about an inch of the pole itself before heat shrinking it.
Looked like a decent idea overall but I haven't played with it personally. They left the shrink wrap a bit long past the tip to create a little extra buffer of flexible shrink wrap to bump the tarp.
That said- I'd guess you could use a similar thing to what Paul offers (or shrink wrap) and slip it over the amsteel itself too. You'd only want to shrink it enough to hold it in place, but it should work okay.
People have also used the thread tip caps, water bladder hose, or wine corks at various points on this forum.