The (Mostly) Home Depot Sourced Semi-Portable Top Rail Tensahedron Stand

[jeff-oh]

For sure there are 100's of ways to make this stand. I will say this stand build and instructions are nicely written and easy to follow and will provide anyone with the least bit of handyman ability an easy project. The beauty of these stands is they are portable, lightweight and storable compared to manufactured hammock stands. I love mine and use it often at car and machinery shows where suitable trees are nonexistent.

The Tensa stand here is about as simple as you can get and still have it break down to a manageable size for storage or transport. As with any and all hammock related project this can be a starting point for the rabbit hole that is all the things you can do with a stand.


One last point to add. You can use one of the 1'-3" trimmed pieces of pipe to make a boom stake. Though this may work a little better with the 3/4" EMT as it is not quite as big.

Again Thank you Promotions.

[Hammichael]

Thanks for this inspiration to try building one myself, even after purchasing a Tensa4 (which my wife and kids now enjoy in our TV room after adopting it for indoor use from our deck). Now I’ve got one to use outdoors again!




I’ll add that I further simplified upon this already elegant set of instructions by using shear lashings (thanks, Boy Scouts training!) instead of drilling holes and inserting metal wires or installing grommets and amsteel loops. All I had to do was cut, lash, pop on rubber feet!


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[Promotions]

Thanks for this inspiration to try building one myself, even after purchasing a Tensa4 (which my wife and kids now enjoy in our TV room after adopting it for indoor use from our deck). Now I’ve got one to use outdoors again!




I’ll add that I further simplified upon this already elegant set of instructions by using shear lashings (thanks, Boy Scouts training!) instead of drilling holes and inserting metal wires or installing grommets and amsteel loops. All I had to do was cut, lash, pop on rubber feet!


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Looks good! What do you have going on at your joints? Is that cohesive bandage?

[Hammichael]

Looks good! What do you have going on at your joints? Is that cohesive bandage?

Before I went through the trouble of drilling and clamping wire rope, I thought I’d try my hand at a good old fashioned shear lashing I had to look up in my dusty Boy Scout Handbook, made out of some paracord left over from my daughters Girl Scouting days. It holds fast and does the job perfectly!


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[Lenaxia]

Did you end up keeping the shear lashing?

I am considering making this setup out of carbon fiber, and considering carbon doesn't take kindly to being drilled through, especially at the ends, I was struggling on how to join the ends together. Shear lashing looks like a great way to do this.

I have a fencing top rail version but its just too damned heavy.

[Hammichael]

I snug the lashings up and make sure they’re tight every now and then, but they’re still holding up nicely to daily usage!


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[Hammichael]

Looks good! What do you have going on at your joints? Is that cohesive bandage?

Shear lashings using paracord at the ends and just some tape where the halves connect to remind me where (and where not) to grab the poles when I move my stand around.


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[Lenaxia]

Awesome, thanks for giving an update! I'll definitely give this method a shot. It'll save me from hauling 30lbs of toprail around.

Thankfully I've found a reasonably priced place to source

[nanok]

lashing seems like the perfect solution for this stand design, it is what i used for my first "prototype" too (and the original designers were using lashing for their tests as well, great for prototyping as it is non-destructive and adjustable in reversible ways).

however, one word of caution: the shear lashing as it was meant to be used is not a good fit for this stand, because in its original form, it was meant to provide rigidity to the joint, and this stand is designed to work with fully articulated joints (3 axis, freely moving). this means that if you do your shear lashing honest scout style, "properly", you will end up with over-stressed rope and overstressed stand elements, it will actually work much better to make the lashing looser, but in that case it might slide along the elements. this could get particularly interesting with carbon which tends to be quite slick (especially if combined with dyneema).

what i ended up doing on my experimental one was to put some bolts near the ends of the elements (steel square profile), and use those just to stop the lashings from sliding. i don't like it, and i'm planning to work on a better solution, but if you're planning to do this with carbon fiber tubing, on one hand this might be worth keeping in mind (that is: lashing makes sense, but might require a bit of experimenting), otoh do post here about how you get on, i for one am quite interested (and good luck)

[Homerthefish]

I"m in the middle of making this stand - wd40 really helps the feet go on, and if at all possible, find yourself a drill press and a step bit for the holes... even without a press, get yourself a fancy bit. Your wrists, shins, and drill will thank me later.