Introduction: Hammock Swing

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Hello!

I'm a student at Howest in Belgium and our goal was to design a swing that could be taken anywhere(portable), weighs less than 5kg and that can be installed anywhere.

I've designed a swing that you can use as a hammock and take with you in your backpack!

Step 1: Materials

To make the hammock swing you'll need:

  • A piece of wood that's easy to drill in to ( i used pine wood), measurements: 1m20*44mm*88mm
  • Wood glue
  • A drill
  • Two wooden sticks (40cm long)
  • Piece of cloth that can hold your weight
  • Rope that can hold your weight

Step 2: Sawing the Piece of Wood and Drilling Holes

Because it's almost impossible to drill one long straight hole you have to saw the piece of wood so it's easier to drill holes into it.

The first step is sawing the piece of wood in 8 pieces of 10cm long each

After that you can begin drilling the holes, make sure you don't drill in the center of the wood but just on the edge like shown in the picture so that you have a small groove on one side.

If you're having trouble drilling it use another piece of wood and put it against the one you're drilling into as shown above. This will make it much easier to drill a perfect circle. I used a circumference of 22mm for 44mm thick wood

After you've succesfully finished drilling make sure the wooden stick fits.

Step 3: Drilling the Holes for the Rope

Now that you've drilled the holes for the stick, it's time to drill holes for the rope, take four pieces of the eight and drill hole on the top and one on the side of the bar, do this for all four as shown above. My rope is 6mm so for comfort i've drilled holes that are 8mm.

Step 4: Getting the Rope Attached and Assembly

This is the most difficult part, getting the rope through the holes. I used a smaller rope, tied a loop into it and used it to put the rope through. Make sure you have 4 pieces of 1m50 rope. So step by step:

  1. Take a smaller rope and tie a loop
  2. Put the smaller rope in the hole on the side and take a pencil f.e to take the rope out from the top
  3. After this put the normal rope into the top hole and gently pull on the smaller rope from the side
  4. Normally if you've done everything well, the rope should be through
  5. Tie a simple knot on the side so the rope can't escape
  6. Repeat these steps for the other 3 pieces

After all that assemble all the pieces onto the sticks, four for each side of course, and tie a double knot in the middle of each piece with the two pieces of rope on each end as shown in the picture. Use this just to make sure that everything fits. If everything dissasemble everything and go to the next step, you can leave the knots you've made.

Step 5: Sowing and Attaching the Cloth

What you'll need for this step:

  • Sowing machine
  • Piece of cloth
  • The wooden sticks you've used

So, take the sticks that you've used earlier and put them on both sides of your cloth and wrap your cloth around them at each side. Mark the line where your cloth touches and use your sowing machine to sow your cloth so you have a wrap on each side for your two sticks. Slide the two sticks in the wraps at each end.

Step 6: Glueing the Pieces Together and Assembling Your Swing

One of the last steps: Take your pieces of wood and assemble them like you did in step 4 but this time with the cloth of course. It should look like the last picture. If everything fits and you've checked everything it's time to glue the four pieces of wood on each side of the swing together. So dissasemble again and glue the pieces together, your result should be two bars each consisting of four glued cubes. After that slide in the sticks with the cloth and you're done! It should look like the last picture.

Step 7: Final Step: Making Sure You Can Adjust the Height of the Rope

This is the final step, this swing is designed so you can take it everywhere with you but the height of the trees isn't always the same. Here's the solution:

  • Take two pieces of wood you have lying around, you only need small pieces. I used 10cm*5cm for each one
  • Drill 3 holes into it as shown above.

This is used for adjusting the height of the rope when you're installing the swing into a tree, to do that follow these steps.

  1. Take two pieces of rope and make sure that it's long enough so f.e if the three is 5m high, use 10m of rope
  2. Make a loop at one end of each piece of rope and attach it to the two bars of the swing
  3. Now you have two ropes on each side of your swing
  4. Take the rope and put it through the small piece of wood, first into the bottom two holes and after into the top hole, do this for each side.

If everything is okay you have two pieces of wood on each side of the swing, use the following steps to attach the swing to the tree and adjust your height (these steps are explained for one side of the swing, repeat the steps for the other side.

  1. throw the rope over the branch of the tree, take the end you've thrown and put it throught the loop you've created with the two bottom holes of the small piece of wood.
  2. pull on the rope to adjust the height
  3. If you have the desired height take the end of the rope you've put in the loop and put it in the loop on the back of the small piece of wood.

Now sit on the swing and swing away! Because of your weight the rope will tighten the loops on the piece of wood and you can safely swing!

Step 8: Swinging!

I hope you've enjoyed my instructable, if you have any questions about the swing don't hesitate to post a comment below. Here's also a video below of me hanging the swing in a tree.

Enjoy your swinging!

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