Home » knots » How to make a cargo net style Hammock

How to make a cargo net style Hammock

– with Navy clew & hammock clew too!

Alright, so today on Repairs101, I’m going to show you how to make a cargo net style hammock complete with a navy clew and a standard hammock clew.

REPAIRS101SAVES10 (save $10 on $100)
REPAIRS101SAVES20 (save $20 on $200)

Today’s episode of Repairs101 was brought to you by Princess Auto. Check out their online catalogue at princessauto dot com.

What to use

I bought 500 feet of this quarter inch braided rope so I could work with 10 x 50 foot lines.

I got these Brazilian hardwood shovel handles to use as stringers and a couple of 2-inch stainless steel rings. You’ll need a saw of some kind to cut the spreaders and some sandpaper or better yet a belt sander. I’ve got this sweet drill press set up, complete with a drill press vise. But you could do the whole job with nothing but a handheld drill. I used these bent plates of aluminum in my vise to prevent damaging the wood. And it sounds like it’s time to replace my old cordless drill driver. So, what else? You’ll need a knife of some kind and some pokey thing like an ice pick. One of the most important things would be a rack like this one to work from. But you could just pound some nails into a board and hang it from the wall. Knowing how to tie a simple slipknot will come in handy for supporting the spreaders at various times.

What to tie

This project was made using 364 square knots that’s tied left over right, right over left. The lark’s head or cow hitch is handy to hold lines in place while you mark the centers with tape. Next, bundle each side of the 50-foot lines into 20-foot bundles that can be passed through the steel ring. Once they’re all through the ring, just remove the tape.

Have no clew?

Now, I don’t know if sailboats will still be a thing when you see this, but they used to be wind powered mode of transportation where big triangular sheets called sails where controlled by ropes that were called sheets and they were attached to the sail at the free corner, which was called the clew.

Okay, I switched to white cord to demonstrate this part. Because it shows up so much better on camera than the black braided cord I used. Okay, the key here is to handle each rope. One at a time, push the backward part forward and the forward part backwards. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Once you have that sorted out, just pass the outside lines through the sections and hang them on the rack. Next layer it’s the same deal again and again until there are only two lines or four stands left. Tie the outside two in a square knot around the inside two and you’re ready to thread it all into your spreader. Once again organization is the key here. Don’t let your lines get all tangled up – stretch them out as far as you can.

Full disclosure: I had to recreate the starting of the hammock clew using scrap ends of rope because of a camera malfunction.

Hammock clew

Admittedly, this hammock clew is wildly oversized because bigger is easier to film. Your’s need not be as long.

So I gathered the ends up and singled out the two center pieces to tie in a series of half hitches around the outside to bind the bundle tight. After that it’s a half hitch on one side , half hitch on the other side. Half hitch on one side, half hitch on the other side until you run out of rope. And then you tie another square knot in the center of the bundle. And leave it kind of loose – we’ll come back to that in a few seconds. So, shorten the long ends. Melt the tips so you can work with them and pass the entire bundle through the steel ring. Next pass all the tail ends through the square knot that you tied loosely. Half of them going in one direction. Half of them going in the other direction. Pull them down a ways, straighten them out and then start binding them with half hitches.

When you get to the end make another interior square knot in the bundle and then push all the tails inside using your ice pick. So these lines all travel to the tail, they travel toward the steel ring, they turn back towards the interior square knot and then they turn back again towards the ring. Alright thanks for watching and don’t forget to subscribe and if you liked today’s video – please share it with your friends.

,
Professional CB Radios from Cobra Electronics