We acquired this rede from a family member who traveled to Brazil on business; they brought it back for us in their luggage. Despite 17 (wait... 16 now) trees, we had no where to hang it.
We discussed the options...
1) Dig holes, fill with cement and fence posts. Hang rede. This one had no instant gratification factor, though... plus the cost of cement and fence posts.
2) Buy commercial stand... at $150+. Not an option!
3) Build a hammock stand from scratch. This one seemed financially prohibitive, too... until we remembered the city recycling center with its scrap wood pile!
We found a plan for a hammock stand online. With a few modifications for our much longer than standard size rede, we created THIS:
It's covered in one coat of primer here... and you can see my newly pressure-washed patio in the background. Nice and clean!
We found all of the wood we needed at the city recycling center, waiting to be mulched. We simply pried out a few nails and cut them to length. We did spend $25 at the hardware store on bolts, nuts, and washers... but got at least $25 of entertainment trying to put it together.
What did we change?
We moved the diagonal "arms" of the stand outward about 10 inches to each side, giving us a bigger spread for the rede. We also hung the eye bolts a little higher on the arms to keep our back ends from hitting the ground... sadly, both of these changes happened AFTER we had drilled and completely set up the rede stand once. If we were to make another one, we would try using 4x4's for the uprights and 2x6's for the long horizontals for greater stability. It's not unstable, but one does get the feeling that there shouldn't be much more than 200 lbs in it at any one time.
It's a good stand all in all... we plan on painting it dark blue. I'll post pictures of the completed stand AND rede in a few days. Here's to a summer of relaxing!
5 comments:
Ther aint nothing better than lying in a hammock under a tree on a sunny day. I have a hammock that I love- Scandinavian, I actually use one of them thar factory made commerical stand- It came from an old hammock set my roomate had! Free Cycled!
You are going to love it! I love my hammock, but we need to build something so we can get a hammock for two. :)
hedgie the hacked hammock. I love it.
Very creative! Wish I had one. :-)
We too have a Rede brought back from Brazil and have yet to find a place to hang it. Their great for sleeping outdoors on cool summer nights!
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