Make a Wooden Hammock From Branches! by Samuel Bernier

Wood is beautiful. Even more when 100% natural. Trees themselves are marvelous, so it pains me to kill one to use its precious wood. I tried to find a way to create wooden furniture without having to cut down any tree. Here is one of my favourite solution : The REAL wood hamac.

Step 1: Learn How to Prune

Branches have to be cut for many reasons like safety, aesthetic or health of the tree. Before to start the chainsaw, I suggest you read this .PDF and learn this art. A bad job could kill a tree or make it sick. Like animals, plant's wounds can get infected.

http://na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/howtos/ht_prune/htprune.pdf

htprune.pdf
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Step 2: Branches

Try to get branches with a similar diameter (between 1'' and 2'' ). Branches found on the ground might be too dry and weak. Once the branches collected, cut them with a saw. Make the parts 2'' long. Remove the small twigs sticking out. Depending of your design, you'll probably need hundreds branch sections.

Once you have all parts, drill a 1/4 inch hole trough all of them. Make sure the hole is centered.

Step 3: Knitting Wood

Now use plastic or natural rope to attach the parts in one big carpet. Two rope should pass in the hole and then split to get the two nest ones, side by side. The two ropes then come back together to go across the next branch. Follow the drawing below. (right)

Step 4: Design

After a moment, you will end up with a long and heavy carpet. Make good knot at every ends. Now, if you want to be funky, you can give it a special shape. I as lucky enough to find a branch shaped life a hockey stick. I only had to cut it in half and drill holes every 2 inches. I then used the extra rope to fix everything together.
If you used plastic ropes, burn them a little bit with a lighter.

Step 5: You Now Have the Seat!

Step 6: Hang

I flet a spider web kind of design was going to look good in the forest, but if you want to use it inside, you can probably build a simple steel frame. You can be creative and make your own design. Have fun!

Samuel Bernier