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  1. #21
    Senior Member cmoulder's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nanok View Post
    on its own, tension in a line gets unintuitive enough when you go into details, when adding friction on a round object it can easily become very confusing to anyone.

    your idea is right and i like it (we have the same intent i think): distribute the forces the best possible way. i would just suggest one thing to try with your method (the double wrap): add a marline spike hitch on the strap that goes to the hammock, and put the loop of the other end of the strap behind the toggle, instead of letting it slide freely on the webbing.
    then center the connection inline with the suspension, and pull it tight, it should stay in place on the tree.
    this way you ensure that both sides are sharing the load, and if the load is not spread 50/50, at least it's very close to that. this way you will achieve the same thing in terms of load distribution as my setup, but it's much easier to try out (as you just need to add a marline spike hitch and a toggle to try it out), and yes it means it will effectively make your webbing twice as wide (as far as the tree is concerned) and twice as strong, as long as the marline spike hitch is far enough from the tree (if the angle between the two sides of the strap going to the tree at the marline spike hitch is 120, you already might as well have done it the usual way, as each side takes full load. if it's more than 120 it's worse than usual way, if it's about 60 degrees, you get about .57 load on each side, from there improvements become marginal, at 30 degrees load is .51 on each side -- you get the picture, 0.5 is obviously the best possible; of course, the narrower the tree, the easier it is to achieve an accute angle, which is fortunate as it is typically the smaller younger trees that need the added protection most). as a rule of thumb, for getting 60degree you'd need the distance between the marline spike and the tree to be roughly half the diameter of the tree (if measuring the shortest distance), or about the diameter of the tree, if measuring from the tangent to the tree (so measuring on the webbing itself).
    Good to keep in mind when using marginally rated rigging.

    Recently I tested some light polyester webbing—3.3g/ft, which is coincidentally the same g/ft as the Kevlar I normally use—which has a rating of 900lbs vs the Kevlar at 2000lbs. My test venue (a favorite pair of trees in the local woods) features one small-ish and one large-ish tree.

    Obviously (photo below) it's something of a long hang, and with the lightly-rated polyester webbing there was definitely some stretch involved here. So as I was bouncing gingerly on the hammock to get a feel for it, it occurred to me that I should consider the shallow angle formed by the webbing snugged close to that bigger tree and the resulting large force on the light webbing.

    Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter (not me... the great Cam Honan of OZ)
    “If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” ~ Gen. George S Patton

  2. #22
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    indeed, you have two factors there that lead to possible overload: the hang angle and the angle on the tree. it's funny how we tend to not notice these things "intuitively", but have to really think about them and understand what happens. in any case, not to worry, he'll protect you no matter what comes to pass. (cool superman shot)

    in this case, doing at least the trick with the marline spike hitch i propose above would have brought the setup back into "safe-ish" territory in terms of safety factor of the webbing, and significantly reduced some of the load on the tree. the hang angle could be fixed relatively easily too by using a "tree pedal" to get the straps higher on the trees, as we were discussing elsewhere in this forum.

    this is one of the many reasons, btw, why i would not use such webbing for suspending a hammock: there's so many ways in which it can go from "marginal safety factor" to "aaaaah, overloaded, snap", and some of them are not obvious (like the one we're discussing now). i typically prefer to use climbing rated webbing instead, it might seem overkill, but i think it's almost reasonable: it means as it wears out, even with the occasional mistake in rigging, there's still some safety factor for shocks etc. it also means the rating is certified not some number measured based on some "creative" method. having said that, rigging it "the smart way" means your safety factor is doubled, and the tree is twice as happy too, so i think it's worth considering at least.

  3. #23
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    This thread does indeed have me wondering on a great many things. Thanks for all the responses and advise everyone!

    Nanok, question on this marlin spike hitch setup that you suggested. Can you clarify where the marlin spike hitch is on the strap? I assume you want the MSH to be between the tree and the loop on the other end of the tree strap so that when the hammock is loaded the end of the strap with the loop is pulling tight against the MSH vs. pulling tight around the tree, is that correct?

    I drew up a cartoon of what I have in my head, pardon my lack of artistic talent. treestrap cartoon.png

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by onlysmallexplosions View Post
    This thread does indeed have me wondering on a great many things. Thanks for all the responses and advise everyone!

    Nanok, question on this marlin spike hitch setup that you suggested. Can you clarify where the marlin spike hitch is on the strap? I assume you want the MSH to be between the tree and the loop on the other end of the tree strap so that when the hammock is loaded the end of the strap with the loop is pulling tight against the MSH vs. pulling tight around the tree, is that correct?

    I drew up a cartoon of what I have in my head, pardon my lack of artistic talent. treestrap cartoon.png
    your cartoon is much better than the one i didn't draw, and illustrates exactly what i meant, yes.

    the alternative would be to do it the opposite way around (loop rests between tree and toggle, and marlin spike hitch tied the opposite way around too, of course), and have the suspension from the hammock (lke whoopie sling) slide freely on the webbing loop thus formed. the advantage would be that it makes for self-centering, so the load is always evenly distributed, regardless of how the strap was centered on the tree.

    of course, both will only work for practical purposes by using phantom's double wrap method, or some variation of my method (which includes some sort of cinch line attached to the strap), otherwise the strap would slide down the tree when unloaded, which would be ...undesireable.

    as can be nicely seen in your picture, a purpose made setup for this kind of method can also take advantage of the fact that only about half of the tree circumference (a bit more actually) is in contact with the strap, this means that the rest can be dyneema rope for instance, effectively increasing (almost double) the range of tree sizes one can handle while carrying the same amount of webbing.

  5. #25
    When I hung my hammock in my house, I also encountered this problem, but then I just sawed off part of the tree, and that's it. The tree service Antioch helped me with that. He explained to me that Regular pruning of trees makes the tree more substantial and more balanced, which is likely to live longer and eliminates the threat of falling branches that can harm people below. A careful gardener will make sure that they only remove branches in the right places and at the correct times throughout the year so that the process stimulates growth and not anything else.
    Last edited by LeeDonna; 07-15-2021 at 15:42.

  6. #26
    all secure in sector 7 Shug's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LeeDonna View Post
    When I hung my hammock in my house, I also encountered this problem, but then I just sawed off part of the tree, and that's it.
    So you have a tree in your house?!
    Whooooo Buddy)))) All Secure in Sector Seven

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shug View Post
    So you have a tree in your house?!
    nevermind that, but how does pruning the tree help with the strap sliding on the trunk?

    (if i ever build a house, it will probably have trees in it. why would you build it any other way? nice big trees, too.)

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