Look What I Made...

Since summer was delayed for me by about 5 weeks, I decided that I wanted to start things off with a bang and build something in the workshop.

Looking through an old book, I found plans for a hammock stand. Since we clear cut the back yard, there has been no place for the hammock to go, so this project made sense to me.

I decided that if we could get the materials for under $40 I would do it.

DAY ONE

So on Sunday, July 26, we went to a nearby Lowes and priced everything. I needed a total of 6 2x4s in two different lengths, a variety of carriage bolts, 3 dowels and some lag screws. Logan was a supreme help in finding everything and Nan and I did some quick calculations and decided to go for it. Total price upon checkout was $37.22.

That afternoon, I cut all of the boards to the needed lengths. I also went ahead and made all the needed joint cuts. All of the miter cuts were straight forward (either 45 degrees or 25 degrees....the latter of which was slightly trickier since my saw has defaults at 15, 22.5, 31.6 and 45 degrees!)

The lap cuts were harder, since I do not have either a table saw nor a band saw and I needed to make a total of eight lap cuts. But, at the end of the afternoon, I had all the cuts and had bolted together one of them to make sure things looked okay....and they did!

DAY TWO

I started the day by finishing off the four main struts and tightening all of the bolts. That turned out to be the easiest part of the day.


It was time to connect the arms and to do so I needed to drill 1/2" wide holes for the dowels to go through to add support. The first couple of holes were sketchy, but I eventually got the hang of it (with the help of a drill extender that I did not know I had!).

Today was a purple shirt day!

Once I got one side finished, Haley and I added the braces with a series of lag screws.


Haley and I took a break to attend a bookmaking workshop at the Burnham Library with Jon Chad from The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction. (It was a blast. I'll blog about that later.)



When we got home I finished assembling the hammock, but discovered that imperfections in the wood and my measuring meant a trip to Lowes on day three to exchange the two hanging bolts I bought, as they were too short.

DAY THREE

This day consisted mainly of returning a few pieces of hardware and figuring out what exactly I needed. We also bought two 18 inch sections of chain to help hang the hammock, as it is rather short. I also hand mitered some of the ends of the arms to allow them to sit more flush.

All in all, it took about eight to ten hours of actual work. I'm not too disappointed in the final product.