Another 2 person bridge hammock

**timplett** · 01-29-2016, 01:27

Last year I took my wife (real) camping for the first time to Algonquin Park in Ontario Canada (it was only my second time other than times I was too young to remember). My wife enjoyed herself, but she only want to rough it to a certain point, which is how I ended up bringing a double air mattress (plus pump) to make sleeping on the ground comfortable. I can tell you from experience, that at the beginning of a portage the mattress only weight a few pounds, and by the end it has increased in weight to a couple hundred pounds (the propane blowtorch and various other overkill items don't help either, but I digress).

Anyways, upon arriving home and finding she would like to go again, I began searching for ways to be comfortable without carting along a truckload of paraphernalia, and I recalled how comfy I was in my buddy's hammock, and how list and small it was. So then I began searching for two person hammocks and eventually ended up here. After considering and discarding the idea of oversize regular hammocks, as well as briefly considering the Tentsile (which really wouldn't have saved any weight anyway), I decided to follow in the footsteps of dblhmmck (and Tijereyes) here on the forum.

I can't thank dblhmmck enough for his work, as even though he might not be entirely happy with some of the compromises, it is definitely a very solid starting point, and even if I can't improve on it in any way, I think it will be satisfactory for me. I think it has been pretty definitively determined that 3 trees are a must. Not to say it isn't possible in some way, but I'm just going to work on the premise of 3 trees. With that determined, I know I can do without the head end spreaders as he determined.

I do have some ideas for improvement, and I think they show some promise. The one thing I see that both he and Tijereyes did was join the two halves with a straight seam in the middle (well, I know Tijereyes did from his pictures, I'm assuming dblhmmck did as well but can't tell for sure). If you think of each half as a separate hammock, having a straight edge on one side would not hang right at all. This led to having to add support to the middle to keep from having the occupants roll together. If we think of them as separate hammocks, both sides need to have parabolic curves cut for proper hang. To test this out I am going small scale (1:10 for ease of conversion).

I cut 3 scale version hammocks out of an old T-shirt (only material I have lying around at the moment). The outside edges have a (scaled down) 6" cut, with the insides being 0" (straight), 3", and 6". I then stitched them together, and proceeded to rig them.

Unfortunately, I only had time to do one before I had to go to work, so I settled for the 3" one as I'm guessing the 6" will lead to more division in the centre and we already have a pretty good idea how a flat one does. I will definitely be rigging all 3 though to do a proper comparison. Here's some pictures with some ABS pipe as stand-in 1:10th scale humans:

As you can see, even though pipe is much more likely to roll together than a real human

they do not quite touch (though they come close in the foot area). Also, it may be hard to tell from the picture from below, but the ridge in the middle is minimal, and gradual, not a sharp ridge. It is actually very close to flat from roughly shoulder to shins. One thing that didn't occur to me to test until now was to see how it reacted without the central support at the ends. I'm guessing it will always need some, but possibly a minimal amount. I'm thinking the 6" cut may fare better with less support, just not sure how much of a ridge will form between the halves.

I will hopefully be able to rig up the other 2 tomorrow for further testing.

I'm a little concerned about the T-shirt material being to stretchy to test this as accurately as I would like, but I'm thinking with the small amount of weight on it the stretch should be negligible.

Also to note the other change I am planning is extending the length by 16" at the feet to add a gear storage area, let me know if you guys think there could be issues with that.

**BanjoPicker** · 01-29-2016, 07:54

Cool idea! One possible concern is that if the two of you are not equal in weight the lighter one will be further up in the air and may tend to roll toward the middle. If it is indeed a problem maybe it could be corrected with the suspension. Keep us posted on how it works!

**timplett** · 01-29-2016, 10:58

Here's an end view of it with only one "person". The unloaded side raises a fair bit, but it is still fairly stable.

This can also be improved my laying diagonally across it.

As to uneven weights, it seems to handle fairly well. The pipe on the left has a roll of dimes added for weight. The lighter "person" is raised a bit, but still stays separated. I did get a picture of that, but it doesn't want to upload right now.

Interesting note, I tried widening the angle of the head suspension, thinking it might pull it a bit flatter, which it did, and it made the lay better for 2 people, but made it entirely unstable for a single person.

I'm a little unsure about the adequacy of the pipe for a small scale test. On one hand, if the pipe won't even roll together, people definitely won't, but because its stiff it forces the hammock flat longitudinally, while a person will be shaped by hammock more than forcing the hammock into shape.

**Countrybois** · 01-29-2016, 15:42

How many trees at the head end? Looks like you'd need 3 attachment points....

**Russtang** · 01-29-2016, 16:18

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sorry...

**Monkeyboy42** · 01-29-2016, 17:49

Originally Posted by Countrybois

How many trees at the head end? Looks like you'd need 3 attachment points....

I'm guessing three attachment points also. Otherwise you'd need a 6' spreader bar at the head. I'd be worried about the compression forces of two people over that distance unless it was some serious steel. I suppose titanium could handle it, but wow, how much would that cost?

This idea continues to have promise though. Still would be a pain to fit a bug net to it.

**timplett** · 01-29-2016, 18:09

Originally Posted by Monkeyboy42

I'm guessing three attachment points also. Otherwise you'd need a 6' spreader bar at the head. I'd be worried about the compression forces of two people over that distance unless it was some serious steel. I suppose titanium could handle it, but wow, how much would that cost?

This idea continues to have promise though. Still would be a pain to fit a bug net to it.

Yes, dblhmmck put a lot of effort into hanging a two person hammock from 2 trees and could not get it stable. Sounds like it either was tipsy or broke stuff (like spreader bars).

**Mikeinajeep** · 01-30-2016, 01:40

You could use three trees and ratchets to even out the weight differences between the two people.ImageUploadedByTapatalk1454136030.307955.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1454136048.722374.jpg

**timplett** · 01-30-2016, 02:57

I considered those "hammocks" from Tentsile, but ruled the idea out due to the weight of the ratchets and of the hammock itself (has to be very strong to handle the tension). Would like one of those for car camping or full-time setup, but not for lugging it into the back country.