Hammock mods - worth it?

[S1lver]

Hi all

I was lucky enough to get a DD frontline hammock for Xmas.

Ive practiced setting it up using the supplied webbing, wrapped round trees and tied in a bow as suggested by the company. It was good and taut and was all i wanted and expected in terms of comfort.

Ive seen a lot on you tube etc about various alternative hannging nethods, carabiners, whoopy slings etc.

Accepting that there is a degree of 'whatever turns you on ' in this is there any view or experience on the advantages of this type of modified hanging method. Im keen to KISS!

Cheers

Steve

 

[rickyamos]

Carabiner mod is well worth it, Its the only mod Ive done to mine. they act as drip rings too as well as easy take down and moving hammock out of the way in bad weather leaving you with plenty of space to work under.

 

[relin]

I swapped out the standard webbing for whoopies, tree straps and karibs and it does make it easier to get all of the right lengths and heights, I can be set up in about 4 mins, great in the rain!

 

[ozzy1977]

Same here, swapped the webbing for whoopies and a crab, much quicker to setup and no sag.

 

[Squidders]

I have a warbonnet hammock and kept the webbing straps but added a load of dutchware bits for holding the quilt on and titanium dutch clips.

The reality is a little underwhelming but it's still cool in a nerdy way. Climbing carabiners are complete overkill.

 

[BigMonster]

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111964

Slings through hammock and a carabiner through the sling. And then webbing/whoppie sling to the tree. You can have the slings and crabs for 12 quid.
I have replaced slings on my hammock with a soft shackle but the benefits are the same. Less wear on the hammock ends when stored and the ease of take down. During the moot when I had a hang in a different place every 3 days I simply unclipped hammock from the whoopie slings, stuffed everything (hammock, sleeping bag, pillow, sleeping clothes) in a drybag and then compressed everything with whoopie slings/tree huggers.
Crabs basically give you hammock bed roll

 

[dwardo]

Great things about whoopie slings is they are easy to adjust. Sometimes just an inch tightening or loosing one end can make all the difference to a good nights sleep or night mare.
Much easier to adjust than moving the straps up and down the tree or having to undo them completely.

 

[Alreetmiowdmuka]

I just use the standard webbing the two lengths wrapped round the tree with a bow knot is simple enough too erect n adjust.i have experienced a little water soaking into the webbing n running into the hammock on multi day camps in heavy rain.so if your planning on doing multi day camps the the crabs are a decent idea.ive never bothered though pal

 

[ADz-1983]

Hi all

I was lucky enough to get a DD frontline hammock for Xmas.

Ive practiced setting it up using the supplied webbing, wrapped round trees and tied in a bow as suggested by the company. It was good and taut and was all i wanted and expected in terms of comfort.

Ive seen a lot on you tube etc about various alternative hannging nethods, carabiners, whoopy slings etc.

Accepting that there is a degree of 'whatever turns you on ' in this is there any view or experience on the advantages of this type of modified hanging method. Im keen to KISS!

Cheers

Steve

Well I can categorically say 100% YES its worth it!

The main reason I say that is because if you use the standard webbing and it happens to rain during night, and rains long enough you will end up having a late night or early morning swim. This combined with a down sleeping bag can make for an EXTREMELY miserable nights sleep and even worse morning. The problem is that the webbing will soak up the water and wick down and seap into your hammock. I didnt realize until I had a puddle under my **** and by that time it was too late and rain never stopped.

Modding your suspension is easy, it makes adjusting your hammock much easier and will stop water getting into hammock.

If you're in UK and plan on using a hammock, modding your suspension in some way is a must.

 

[TheWhittler]

I haven't changed from the webbing supplied on my DD hammock. I would like to try the carabiner and whoopie slings method one day but it's no biggie if it takes a while to set up assuming it's not raining! I put the tarp up on a ridgeline first anyway. I use a sheet bends to tie the hammock ends and I've never had trouble undoing the webbing. For drip lines, I tie the loose ends of the webbing on the other sides and use the spare bungee cord lengths on the 'squito net to tie to the ridgeline a second time further up.

 

[S1lver]

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111964

Slings through hammock and a carabiner through the sling. And then webbing/whoppie sling to the tree. You can have the slings and crabs for 12 quid.
I have replaced slings on my hammock with a soft shackle but the benefits are the same. Less wear on the hammock ends when stored and the ease of take down. During the moot when I had a hang in a different place every 3 days I simply unclipped hammock from the whoopie slings, stuffed everything (hammock, sleeping bag, pillow, sleeping clothes) in a drybag and then compressed everything with whoopie slings/tree huggers.
Crabs basically give you hammock bed roll

Thanks for this mate, Ill PM you over the weekend to discuss.

Steve

 

[S1lver]

Great things about whoopie slings is they are easy to adjust. Sometimes just an inch tightening or loosing one end can make all the difference to a good nights sleep or night mare.
Much easier to adjust than moving the straps up and down the tree or having to undo them completely.

Good point, I did notice the lack of fine adjustment avilable in the standard method. Clearly makes a difference.

Steve

 

[S1lver]

Well I can categorically say 100% YES its worth it!

The main reason I say that is because if you use the standard webbing and it happens to rain during night, and rains long enough you will end up having a late night or early morning swim. This combined with a down sleeping bag can make for an EXTREMELY miserable nights sleep and even worse morning. The problem is that the webbing will soak up the water and wick down and seap into your hammock. I didnt realize until I had a puddle under my **** and by that time it was too late and rain never stopped.



Modding your suspension is easy, it makes adjusting your hammock much easier and will stop water getting into hammock.

If you're in UK and plan on using a hammock, modding your suspension in some way is a must.

Thats really helpful. Nothing like learning from others misfortune.

Steve

 

[onfire]

Squidders makes a point about climbing karabiners being overkill - I would be careful to check that whatever you use has a load rating of at least five times your weight (if not ten).

I favour a structural ridge line With alpine butterfly's creating loops to hang your hammock from (you need to cut the supplied webbing down or replace it with a short length of climbing cord through the hammock ends, but there is a huge range of clips and hooks you can use). I have always used 5mm climbing cord (x 10m) although that does stretch. I am currently running aluminium rappel rings love hitched to the line instead of the alpine butterfly as it allows me to adjust the hammock more easily

 

[BigMonster]

Load wise yes, overkill (can you be too safe?). But the reason to use climbing crabs over fe bq steel builders shackle is weight. Climbing stuff weight grams for a £1 extra...

 

[mousey]

I'm in the process of changing over my hammock suspension. 25mm straps round trees dyneema cord to climbing rings to hammock. Web straps protect the trees, dyneema cord is small when packed, climbing rings give easy tensioning and a drip point.

Not much saving on weight [if anything could be slightly heavier], but a saving on bulk. Lots of components so I guess more chance of one bit failing ? [go overkill with climbing stuff] BIG advantage seems to be easy to adjust.

However I haven't actually tried this yet - I've just looked around at what other folks are doing - seems to make sense, and it's a relatively cheap thing to do.

 

[Paulm]

I swapped the standard webbing out for whoopie slings, couldn't be easier to adjust for the perfect hang, and recycled the webbing into tree straps. Connect the whoopie slings to the tree straps with marlin spike hitches, the tails of the whoopie slings act as drip points and have worked well for me.

Minimal mass, weight and nothing to lose or misplace

Cheers, Paul

 

[Jonbodthethird]

Id definitely mod the standard webbing for two reasons! I poo my pants when it's creeks (sounds like its snapping) when you get in it and your mate wets him self (re8eld0g) and it gets nasty wet when it rains. But you can either have whoopie slings or webbing with hammock rings. I went for webbing because of it pretty easy to set up and easy for me to just adjust for the perfect hang because of my weight and height!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ollyboyd]

I'm in the process of changing over my hammock suspension. 25mm straps round trees dyneema cord to climbing rings to hammock. Web straps protect the trees, dyneema cord is small when packed, climbing rings give easy tensioning and a drip point.

Not much saving on weight [if anything could be slightly heavier], but a saving on bulk. Lots of components so I guess more chance of one bit failing ? [go overkill with climbing stuff] BIG advantage seems to be easy to adjust.

However I haven't actually tried this yet - I've just looked around at what other folks are doing - seems to make sense, and it's a relatively cheap thing to do.

I've read that the dyneema fibres in the core suffer from being crushed in the Garda hitch and it causes the cord to lose its strength. Also it seems that the pressure of the hitch just causes thin cord to degrade in general.

 

[Duggie Bravo]

I'm planning on using rings with my Hennessey, when I finally get the chance to get outside with it, I went to a ships chandler for the rings, £1 each, but I don't know yet whether they will take the dynamic load, the different approach is that they will onto the tree straps and I'll use the standard cord from the hammock.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk