The first and last time I used a Marlene spike, the dowel piece deformed and failed under the pressure of the knot.
The first and last time I used a Marlene spike, the dowel piece deformed and failed under the pressure of the knot.
Just an out of shape middle aged guy who loves doing outdoor things with his great kids...
www.hikerspantry.weebly.com
Granted that I'm a total noob (though I slept several months in a Mayan hammock I bought in Mexico, back in the day), I've never used an MSH, and after reading this thread, don't think I ever will. . . .Originally Posted by Flatliner
I'll be posting a thread about my first DIY hammock later this evening, but I only finished it yesterday: it hasn't had time to fail on me yet.
--Prof
Using a carbon arrow shaft as a marlin spike, using a carbon trekking pole section as a marline spike, using the wrong kind of webbing for tree straps, rigging the girth hitch on the end of a gathered end hammock wrong so it slipped off, sitting down without properly milking the bury on a UCR, poor stitching on a Bic style DIY bridge, choosing the wrong tree (dead) to hang from.
I've gotten dumped enough times to be careful. I also wince when I see people let their dog lay under their hammock. That could probably kill a pet if you dropped hard enough on it.
Oddly enough, one of the first things I learned on the forums was how inappropriate my NiteIze figure 9's rigged as tight as I could get them were for hammock hanging. I never had an issue with them, but the other things I learned here? Well......
Probably too short of a stitch length, creating the perforation effect mentioned above.
One night I was in a hurry after a long day--set up hammock using Phantom Grapplers suspension--failed to tighten prusik and it slipped lowering me slowly almost to ground--got a laugh when I woke in morning inches from ground.
After I got kevlar straps, I used Carolina Red suspension and my new favorite Kokomo combined hammock and tarp suspension. Sometimes kevlar slipknot would be hard to undo in morning--it always undo but kevlar frayed. I switched to Dutch's blue dyneema straps. So far so good.
Phantom--pro at rookie mistakes.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My first set of UCR's.. Bury was too short and though I put a safety slippery half-hitch in the tail, the whole hitch got sucked up inside the UCR.. dropped my on my but and left the UCR useless.
Yes, my pack weighs 70lbs, but it's all light weight gear....
Bob's brother-in-law
DIY Turtledog let me drop once.
Landed on my underquilt, which failed to deploy.
Inadequately staked single pole stand. Landed on the donkey 3 times as I continued replacing my ground stakes with larger ones. Finally have stakes that work! (Thank you Tiggz and Alamosa)
Only had a flying stake hit me in the arm once. Ouch x2!
I too flopped using no ground when testing a woefully insufficient anchor in sand - thankfully it was just sand and the pole flopped down away from my body
Me and Cheryl from Tiggz have been loving the "big orange screw" btw - even in sand it is holding awesome for my weight.
No hammock I have made yet has failed thankfully
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
The other night I was testing out a prototype DIY hammock similar to one of the Vivere brazilian hammocks with ~2 feet of cordage at each end rather than fabric. My idea was to use a piece of 1.9 oz ripstop that was too short to make a full channel end hammock as the body and 300 lb kevlar line as the cordage on the ends. I knew 300 lb kevlar attached with figure 8 knots would be a stretch but I had some on hand so I gave it a go. There were 8 2' kevlar lines on each side of the hammock so I figured 15% weight rating loss to the figure 8 knots 255 lbs x 8 lines = 2000+ pound static load capacity. So I laid all 205 lbs of me down and it was very comfortable and seemed to work just fine. Then after a quick test nap I sat up on the edge to stand up, a series of pops erupted in rapid succession and I rather gently made my way to the "safety" pillows I had waiting beneath me.
Rather predictably 5 of the 8 lines on one side snapped near the figure 8 knots used to attach them to the hammock, and two snapped near the carabiner. At least it was a gentle failure, and I got one good nap out of it.
hammock fail.png
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks