Latherdome, re: the coke can as a weight for tethering: it did not take super long to realize, once I started using this stand, that it was essentially a matter of balancing. And that if I could some how balance perfectly, I would not need any tether at all on either end. Of course, I can not come close to doing that. But I think it does go to show that, if I shift my weight just a little from dead center to slightly towards the head end, it is not really applying all that much force to the foot end tether. And if I shift my weight even a bit more towards the head end, it is still not near as much force on the foot end tether as I would have thought. (if I just let it mouse trap me, obviously the force on the foot end tether is zero)
Hence my surprise(before I realized the above about "balancing") at the results when I thought to use the dumbbell weights. I have only been able to come up with 80 lbs max weights. I was somewhere between 201 and 206 lbs when I tried that. I had already been connecting to a length of 2x4, or a shoe, on 1 side of a closet door. It seemed to be no problem. But, due to my paranoia about damaging that door/wall, and what an enormous pain in the behind that would be explaining to my wife why I had to try that in the first place, my thought was to add these weights to simply reduce the force I would be applying to that door.
But, after trying it, it seemed more to me that I had actually applied zero force to the door, it was all handled by the weights. As best I could tell, the weights MAYBE lifted off the floor(thought I heard some slight noise like a weight being lifted and very quickly dropped back down) for a distance of 1/4" or so for a split second, maybe. Maybe when I was first getting in and shifting my weight towards the head end. But, I would move around in the hammock while trying to watch the weights, and they seemed to be, the vast majority of the time, staying put on the floor, right under the apex, not lifting off the floor. So, it seems to me, if I was still paranoid about the door, I could greatly reduce any force on the door by using even less barbell weight. A lot less should still help a lot.
Re: the "buttons". I had wondered about removing one of those spacers. But, I had no issues camping for those 4 nights, or any other trial so far. If you have not been hearing about any problems caused by the added spacers reducing the button height, problems with the buttons not holding, then I will just leave well enough alone and keep using it as supplied from you.
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