I have a reputation among people that know me that if they don't want something, check with me first before throwing it away. Don't call TLC, I'm not a horder, I don't take everything that is offered but sometimes you just can't pass something up.
Two days ago, I got a call about 4:00 from a friend that was getting rid of his kid's trampoline. I went by and picked it up that night. This trampoline was a 14' trampoline with the "battle cage" enclosure. I was able to salvage some clips that I'll probably use for tarp connections, a bunch of triangles (not load bearing I'm sure) and of course the frame and springs. I knew I wanted to make a hammock stand out of a trampoline frame for a while but I hadn't given it that much thought because I didn't have a frame to play with.
After helping my cousin with some carpentry on Saturday, I unloaded the frame from the back of the truck and started looking at what I had. I began trying to figure out a single stand but the pieces just went together and a double came out of it.
You'll notice that the vertical poles tip out from a true vertical. This is due to the center connection pipes that were previously the bottom of the legs when this was a trampoline.
Loaded the verticals lay open even more which has the benefit of hanging you over the ground instead of the frame.
The semi-circles that make up the backbone and vertical poles are round, but the connection points are squared which helped to allow me to try out a few configurations without drilling or welding.
My first assembly went well and I liked the way it hung but I had pieces left over so I tried tweaking the setup to lengthen the ridgeline and make it more sturdy. It had the opposite effect.
The first attempt left two pieces of the original ring unused. I had hoped to increase the length of the ridgeline and increase the height of the attachment point. Adding the extra pieces (one per side) made the attachment points much higher, but not much further apart. Tying the ends together with the poles kept the sides from laying open, but then when you load the hammock the half circle tried to close up. I put this together without welding, cutting or drilling anything. I only used ratchet straps to keep the two sides together. I'm considering drilling holes for bolts but I want to do so when it is loaded with weight because I like hanging over the ground and not over the frame.
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