The use of 1">mule tape as tree straps has been very controversial.
Especially on the east coast, where the trees tend to have very small diameters, the smaller webbing bites more into the tree.
However, on the west coast (where I live), the trees tend to be pretty large on average. This means that there is more area for webbing to bite into, thereby decreasing the overall pressure on the tree. So would you think that the use of mule tape (in very specific cases) would be acceptable to use as a tree strap?
Take this for example: *Note we will assume the straps wrap entirely around the tree.
On the east coast, a hammocker decides to strap up on a pair of arbitrarily small, let's take 1.5' wide, beech trees using 1" normal webbing .
Assuming they hang at a 30* angle, and weigh 180 lbs stark, then the force applied on each strap will be around 180lbs.
An input into the pressure formula p=(f/a) gives that the total pressure in psi equals ~ 3.18 psi.'
Now let's take a hammocker on the west coast who wants to strap up on a pair of 2.5' wide red firs using 3/4 mule tape.
Assuming they have the same weight and correct angle, then the overall pressure applied is equal to ~ 2.55 psi.
You guys can check my math if you want, I quickly made these calculations.
So do you guys now think that mule tape is acceptable in certain situations on the west coast? Feel free to criticize or give examples were this couldn't hold true. I was very general in my example.
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