I have done up clews for my gathered end hammocks, I designed a new bridge for me, but I need to upgrade the planned suspension. I was going to post this when I completed everything, but I can show what I have done so far.
I cut a piece of 1/2" grosgrain , lay it out and make a mark at each baffle ... this pic is a progression, the mark, the pin up, the stitch
Attachment 184561
The strip with loops attached
Attachment 184562
Position the completed strip at the junction of the suspension channel and the end of the down channels, lining up with the baffles. Run 2 lines of stitching, one on each side of the strip .... this leaves the suspension channel intact and provides a continuos grosgrain header to apply the "pull"
Attachment 184563
Make up your suspension ... I use a 1" nylon D ring for the top and thread through the split rings to save some work
Attachment 184564
The only thing I do a bit different at this point is to slide the rings on to a small dowel with a small spring clamp at each end to keep them from tangling, I undo the clamp, slide a ring off, redo clamp, open split ring and attach to loop .... repeat till all are installed.
Attachment 184565
As you noted
Leivioa suggests using smaller shock cord and there is a very good reason for this .... that tension balance you mentioned. I have 13 clews and loop the shock as shown, basically creating 26 cords/suspension ... I planned to have each cord stretch 50% and end up with about 6 pounds of pull ..... at each end for a total of 12 pounds. It was a guess... unfortunately it wasn't a good guess. Something around 3 - 5 pounds may be best for my quilt (still guessing) ... i could just loosen the suspension, but there is also geometry here and the longer your suspension the better the pull characteristics are for a bridge. Going from 50% stretch to 20% is a big chunk and I will feel better, redoing the suspension with a longer base and adjust from there.
I did evaluate the implications of going to 1/32" shock cord, but it would be about 4x less pull and I think that will be too low .... so the current work will be to redo my current stuff at 20% stretch and about 4 pounds of pull.
Brian
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