My garden hammock stand

[pteron]

Thought you might be interested in my garden hammock stand I built this summer! We bought a Thai Mlabri hammock a few years ago and I decided it was time to have it up in the garden. Lack of trees meant I needed to build something to support it. I fancied making something a little out of the ordinary, so I dusted off my physics hat (it was very dusty, it's a long time since I was at school!) and drew something out on squared paper.

I nipped out to B&Q and bought some pressure treated wood, bolts, screw in tie downs, a post augur and three bags of postcrete.

An evenings work and a fews hours of overnight drying and we have the finished product -

It turned out fine but there's a huge problem....



I can't get my wife out of it!

 

[Macaroon]

Looks fine, a lot less cumbersome that some we've seen!

As for the wife, find a clip on youtube of something dreadful happening to somebody in a hammock and get her to watch it

 

[mousey]

Nice and simple that and looks fairly portable too.

I like that cause you can have long bits of wood so you can hang a tarp above - alot of bought ones if seen are just for hammocks with no ability to hang a tarp over. Maybe it's just me being slightly mad but I'd be happy to sit in a hammock in my garden when it's tipping it down with a tarp over me.

I've got a washing pole [heavy duty one] and a fence post but even though they are both pretty big bits of material I'm still not keen on hanging a hammock from them in case I bend stuff. I also have some trees but they are too small to take the forces. However I could use them as anchor points, I reckon the tree roots would hold where the trunk wouldn't. Also trying to pull the washing line tube and gate post out of the ground would take a huge amount of force - whereas to pull them from the top may bend them. Looks like I'm going to steal this idea and use my small trees and washing pole as anchors and some big bit of wood for the 'V' supports. Come to think of it I've just moved house and have been given a number of pine bed frames from which the longitudinal supports for the mattress frame are substantial pieces of wood....

 

[pteron]

The V anchors can be closed for moving it - I wanted to be able to put it away over the winter.

The trick to not pulling stuff out of the ground is to make sure that the rope to the anchor is at an angle of 60 degrees or less to the ground. It is stunning how quickly the vertical force increases as you get towards an angle of 90 degrees.

Macaroon - I would try that but I stupidly told her it was safe when she asked!