Les arbres et la mer: Hacking the ASMC light hammock

english version of the previous post

How to optimize the light hammock from ASMC.
This polyester hammock is not perfect but it's cheap not too heavy and 1.50m wide (5').

Here is a way to make it lighter and to create a quick and dirty Fast Deployment Bag.

Material needed :

a light hammock from ASMC, some dyneema braid 4mm (or 3mm, 1/8'' or more), a knife (a small one is fine), some polyester sewing thread and a needle, a copper or anything wire

a felt pen, some flat light shock cord (a couple inches - not illustrated)

initial weight is 468g - about 16.5 oz

each carabiner weights more than 2oz so we get rid of them

now the weight is 12.45oz

now we unpick the bag

with the help of the knife when needed but without damaging the fabric

it's not extremely well stitched so it goes away quite easily going slow.

minus 0.5oz.

current weight : 11.9oz.

End loops will be replaced by dyneema loops.

it's just about untying the lark's head knot

and slip the loop.

minus 0.67oz.

The metal wire to make the loops...

we get the flattened loop length

three times and a half

twice (one for each loop) we cut this length and split it again in two to have enough for each loop.

marking the cords middle

and flattened loop length

opening one of the dyneema string by the middle

the copper wire is pushed to the length mark

we get the opposite side

to the middle through the dyneema braid

temporarily locked with any string lying around

same operation on the other side

to the length mark ...

opposite strand

all through to the middle

result

tapering the strands

the knife does the job

done - repeat on the other side

massaging the rope to make things clean

almost done

the loop when not under tension may slip so we sew roughly with the polyester thread.

only 0.31oz to add

with the copper wire through the hammock channel

we pass any rope then to get the loop

holding it on one side so it doesn't go all the way through

we can remove the gross string

lark's head knot

done, repeat on the opposite side.

No bag needed:

it holds by itself

11.42oz.

Now let's add some weight if we want with a Fast Deploy Bag.

closing string and plastic thing are useless, we'll win 0.14oz

instead we use some light flat shock webbing

the size of a finger when not stretched

about the size of the palm when stretched

now the bag is only 0.38oz

we put the bag inside out to unstitch an inch and a half at the corner.

enough to pass a finger. It's better to stitch a bit to stop the original stitching and to fix the fabric where it was unstitched.

We slip through one of the loop

turn the bag inside in

back to 11.99 oz

here it is finished (here there's an optional dyneema soft carabiner joining the two loops)

to hang simple solid webbing with a loop on a water knot

round the tree

inside the loop and done

with the hammock still in its bag we make a becket hitch

inside from below

about

and over the loop in the bight

if we've got too much length this works on a bight too (so we don't have to pass the whole webbing through the hammock loop), so bight inside the loop from below