Hello New to idea of hanging.

[RootCause]

Ok here is a starter, What kinds of ropes should I look for. I don't want to end on my butt in the middle of the night, And I'm not the best with knots. I generally figure it out in the end but easy to tie would be good. (figure 9 thing sounds good). how much should i look to pay ?

I like the reflective lines and shock cord ideas.
think I saw a 100' of reflective 1/4" para cord for 20 bucks. is that a deal or expensive?

Got some work to do.

A couple rope notes. In General:
Nylon stretches a lot under load, then returns to original length when unloaded. (Good for climbers- prevents sudden stops at the end of a fall.)

Polyester stretches a lot when first loaded, but doesn't return to original length. (Good for hammock straps.)

Dyneema/Spectra/Vectran/Amsteel/Dynaglide are all variations of materials that essentially have no stretch, but high strength. In bigger diameters, these may also have high prices. But usually really worth it in these applications. For us hammockers, sufficient strength comes in 7/64" and 1/8" flavors. (Generally in the 20-40 cents per foot range.)

$20 for 100' of paracord is 20 cents/foot. That's fine for paracord, but paracord is not usually used for load-bearing hammock applications. It stretches a lot, and may not have sufficient strength to hold a human. It works for tarps & guy lines if the stretch doesn't bother you.

Figure 9's rock for tarp ridgeline tieouts. I paid less than $5 each. Mini-figure-9s come in 4 packs for tarp corner tie-outs, I suppose, but many people find they can tie a tautline hitch once in each tarp corner rope and then never have to untie it. HYOH....

Welcome to the party!

[KerMegan]

fig-9s are not 'climbing rated' ie do not trust them with your full weight; if you use carabiners, or descender rings, to suspend your hammock -get them from a climbing/outfitter shop, not the hardware store- a few more $ but sooooooo worth it to keep you keister off the dirt.
just a word of (hard won) wisdom. KM (who has had a couple of dicey moments, but only once each!)

[Poppabear]

In my humble opinion $300.00 is more than enough to set yourself up very comfortably for hammock camping. Peruse the pages here and you will find all sorts of ideas.

[3club]

Hrmmm sheet and rope for first hammock huh? And a cheapo fly screen, 12x16 blue tarp ? where do you buy raw materials to make a basic tent?

The bedsheet is just for fun, at home, to see what you can do. It weighs too much to take backpacking, and your wife probably wouldn't like it. But it's simple with a sheet bend, the bedsheet is the blue rope. That way you can experiment with just gathering the end, folding first then gathering, etc.

So far I've bought all my material at Wal-Mart. Most of it was a buck a yard, and I just picked up some stuff that was about 5 yards for $2.50 total. It's good for experimenting without dumping cash. After you've figured out exactly what you want, then you can order the good stuff. I'm not there yet.

[Boomer]

ctchrisf, here's some links to look thru:

http://whoopieslings.com/
http://arrowheadequipment.webs.com/apps/webstore/
http://www.questoutfitters.com/mesh_fabrics.htm#Mesh Fabrics
http://www.owfinc.com/

[ctchrisf]

great info.

I have about 30 tabs open with research and shopping to do.

thanks a bunch, now to get sorting through this and pick something to start with.