Used mule tape is sometimes given away free.
Used mule tape is sometimes given away free.
As someone else had said amsteel is really cheap if you can find a vendor that sells it by the foot instead of buying a huge roll of it. You could make some whoopie slings out of it for as low as 4-7$ if you can find some. I'm not sure where you can find strap materials, but I imagine if you could they would also be very cheap and you could sew in a loop and use a marlin spike hitch to attach the whoopie to the strap.
Sounds like a great gift idea.
I would avoid the suggestions of zing-it and mystery nylon rope.
Nylon stretches, and stretches more when wet. Also, what is the working load? In addition what goes around the trees. Rope hurts tree bark.
Zing-it is rated at a breaking point of 400lb. This gives you a working load of only 40lb, because you have to be careful of shock loads. Save it for ridge lines and guy lines where it belongs.
Both of the above count for the walmart nylon strap suggestion.
The harbor freight straps are a good suggestion since they're polyester. I also suggest cinch buckles with amsteel loops. They're reasonably cheap, and you can splice the loops yourself, or even just make them with triple fisherman knots.
Unfortunately the hammock itself is only one part of the 5-6 pieces needed, and it is really the cheapest piece.
Got these at Home Depot. Only $8. Put in a vise and bent to remove metal hooks. Add carabiner to long end to wrap around tree and hook to itself. Short end has hammock attached with its carabiner. Easy to adjust with cam buckle. 16 ft straps, so even after wrapping around a tree there's several feet of adjustment left.
If you don't need tree straps, then I would suggest making your entire suspension system on each end a whoopie sling (finished length at least 6ft) from Amsteel.
Make the whoopie sling using 15ft for each sling. There are lots of good videos on YouTube showing how to make a whoopie sling. Make two whoopie slings, one for each end of the hammock.
Attach the standing end of your whoopie slings that you have made directly to each of your hammock ends. Wrap the bight end of the whoopie sling around the tree, bring the loop end through the base of the bight, and put a small pin (like a wooden dowel, stick, 4" nail, etc.) through the bight end to hold the whoopie sling in place around the tree. Draw the loop tight around the tree. Finally, tighten the whoopie sling and voila! Simple, lightweight and cheap.
Paul at Arrowhead Equipment has a great deal going on, if you wish to DIY the entire thing then here is a suggestion that might be worth looking into...
Amsteel is very cheap, 25-feet should be long enough, so cut it in half and use 12.5-feet per end.
If you have a gathered end hammock or an end channel (my preference) do an end-splice bury in your Amsteel and run it through the channels, make it long enough. This is your "Bury", so no need to anything else to it, I think that you can get away with 8-feet easily for the adjustable “Bury”
For the "Sheath" there is a consideration that must be taken into account for trees that are very close together, but that is another thread altogether!
End-splice a loop on the “Sheath” (you can use a 5-inch bury and do a bit of stitching to keep the integrity). With that loop, you can Larks-head the loop over and around aluminum toggles.
Run 12-inches of the "Bury" thru the "Sheath", leave enough of the "Sheath" to have a way to keep tension, so that no slippage will occur.
A Distal Hitch in the “Sheath” end at the Hammock will keep the tension on the constrictor “Sheath” and prevent spills, just slide it and it will lock down.
Pretty simple and easy enough to accomplish. Just tidy up the unused "Bury" in a Figure-8 wrap and tie it off.
I think that would be a nice looking UCR.
Home Depot: ˝-inch solid round aluminum rod 36-inches long $7.21 each
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-...1637/204273968
$.72 for each Hammock (20 toggles of 1.8” each)
Arrowhead Equipment 25-Feet of Amsteel 7/64ths $5.85
http://www.arrowhead-equipment.com/s...4_Amsteel.html
$5.85 for each hammock for a fully adjustable UCR, with 10-Feet adjustability at each end.
Strapworks Nylon Seatbelt Webbing 1” Steatbelt Nylon Webbing 2-10 foot straps $7.60
https://www.strapworks.com/Nylon_Sea...g_p/sbfnw1.htm
So. $15-dollars per hammock gets you 10-feet of adjustability at each end, and a pair of 10-foot straps.
I am switching to tree straps and whoopie slings with a MSH. $5.25 for 25' of amsteel and $6 for the straps. $11 complete suspension. I threaded my whoopie through my end channels, but you could easily larks head them on the gathered end of a DIY hammock.
This is all via dutchwaregear.com
There's a local flea market where I can get 50' of just about any webbing for $5, that's enough for two hammocks, $6 for a set of cinch buckles from Dutch and a short piece of amsteel and it's done for about $10, for someone really special I'd get a set of those $22 titanium buckles Dutch sells, I have them on one hammock but that's about all I can afford, using heavier but cheaper buckles on the hammocks I don't use backpacking.
Won't those nylon straps stretch a little when under tension?
It depends on the strap material, I've tried several types, some have no noticeable stretch, some stretch too much to use, my favorite is a lightweight strap that stretches slightly but it's not enough to require an adjustment unless the trees are far apart, I get these straps at a flea market so I don't really know what they are made of, at $5 for 50' I can afford to try stuff that might not work.Originally Posted by DustHunter
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