Portable Black Pipe DIY hammock stand
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by No means did i make this up myself. However.. it works well, it was simple to make, it breaks down fairly simple for storage. It is NOT lightweight and I would not carry it on any trips with me.. but you could break it down and transport it in your car/van/truck. I will post 2 pictures of it set up.. at my job for those who have not seen the other post with the pictures.. then I will post 2 pictures of it broken down (laying on the floor) and i will also list the sizes of the black pipe and which pieces you will need. Everything is 1 inch black pipe..
So as said. It is all 1 inch black pipe. You will need 4 lengths of 6 foot threaded pipe. 4 lengths of 2 foot threaded pipe. 2 Tees. 2 elbows, 1 union and 4 end caps.
So 2 lengths of the the 6 foot pipes will be joined together with the union.. this is where it connects in the center and makes it easy to break down. Screw one end of the union onto each end of the straight 6 ft pipes ( 2 of them)
The 4 ( 2 foot lengths) are connected to to Tees.. this makes the “stand legs”.
The remaining 2 (6 ft lengths) get screwed into the Tees on the legs.. and on the top of the 6 ft lengths you will need an elbow (on each one).
At this point.. you now have the 4 pieces shown in the picture on the floor.. this is how i keep it for storage when its broken down.
To set it up.. screw one end of the straight 6 ft length into each one of the elbows.. and connect them together with that union.
I used black gaffers tape on the top ends so the straps with have extra friction to grip.. but i did not have any problems without it.. wrapping straps around the pipes. Hopefully this all makes sense and you can understand how to make it. I was lucky to have the pipe laying around at work from the steam fitters so i cut what i needed and threaded it here.. but im sure you can get it cut and threaded from lowes or home depot.
Post some pictures when you have it made and set up!! Good luck.
The trick to using PVC would be to design it such that the PVC was in compress or tension: no bending moments. At that point you would be looking at a tensegrity design concept.
https://tensegritywiki.com/wiki/How_To_Build_A_3_Strut_Hammock_Stand
Doable, requires space and needs some careful planning
Google Tensegrity & Hammock
Yea, even if you kept PVC in compression only, like the Tensegrity setup, you’d need it to be pretty beefy pipe, I’d wager 2″ at least.
Just for grins, I happened to have some 3/4″ galvanized iron pipe and PVC out back so put together a quick and dirty setup to demonstrate differences in flexibility/rigidity. This obviously isn’t a perfect experiment/example, nor does it approximate the specific forces the pipe would experience in these hammock setups. Just wanted to see how the two pipes would react.
Here’s a pic of the two pipes, extended roughly 7′ from a fixed anchor (wedged in the rungs of a ladder). The galv pipe had just a little deflection. The PVC was already sagging 8-9″ under just its own weight.
Then I hung a nalgene filled halfway w/ water (roughly 1.5lb total) at the end of each pipe. The galv pipe still had barely noticeable deflection. The 3/4″ pipe darn near touched the ground, which was about 3′ of deflection.
So, would PVC hold under direct compression? If it wasn’t allowed to deflect, probably… but its SO flexible that it just bows out of the way under even slight compressive forces if not stiffened thru larger pipe size or some other method.
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