Welcome to first tutorial. I build many things in wood and metal and people have asked me to make a tutorial on how I do my projects. As you will see my photography is not the greatest but you will get to see my thought process as we go along. Recently our hot tub died on us and as it was old we decide not to fix /replace it, so out it went and this left us with a carpeted fenced space of about 25' x 30' just sitting there.

Last year I had bought my wife a hammock for her birthday and now she wanted a stand for it. I had seen a video by Peter Brown on his youtube channel on building a hammock stand. This design is not mine but is an adaption of Peters. The video above is of Peters so watch how he makes his and check out mine

Thanks Peter for the Inspiration..

I will include the breakdown of the cost of building this hammock stand at the end of this tutorial.

So lets get Started

Kranky

Step 1: Beginning at the Beginning - Metal and More Metal

I went down to my local metal supply company and bought 8' of 1/8th" walled 4"x4" square stock steel tubing. They were kind enough to cut it into the required lengths for me. They were even kind enough to charge me $12 for the pleasure of cutting it for me.

Lengths.

4 x 6" lengths

2 x 3' lengths

In this picture you can see 2 6" lengths and the 3' length cut into 2. The 3 foot length I measured halfway and scribed a line use a square across the middle. This was the starting point for my 30° angle cut.

To make this cut I used a cut off wheel on my angle grinder and then after cleaning up the edges where I cut it is was almost ready to weld.

You can see that when I bought the tubing it was rusty ( just surface rust) and to clean it I used a wire brush on my angle grinder and it cleaned up the metal just fine. I really want a sandblasting booth for doing this and that.s my next build...

When it comes to welders you can spend a lot of money on great equipment. Two years ago I completed a 8 week course on mig welding at our local tech college and I went out and bought a Chicago Electric Fluxcore mig welder from Harbor Freight. Being Fluxcore you don't need to have gas as a shielding agent. This welder cost me $110 and its one of the best $110 I have spent.

Step 2: Scribing, Drilling and All the Boring Stuff

After cleaning all the parts with the wire brush we had to drill the holes. These will explained later on. On the 6 inch pieces I used a marked to mark a line from one corner to the opposite corner on the other side. I then did the same on the other corners Where the lines cross is the center of the piece and this is where we drill our hole. The size on hole depends on the size of your lag bolt. On the section of the tubing on the ground I drilled two holes. I also drilled two holes on the upright and one hole on each of the feet support. Once these were all drilled it was time to get on with the fun stuff.... the welding

Step 3: Welding, Welding, Welding, Grinding, Grinding, Grinding

In this section you can see the welding. I originally bought a 8' piece of 4" square stock. From this I cut

4 x 6" lengths. This left me with 6 feet left. I then cut this in half and this giving me 2 pieces each three feet long. I then measures each 3' length in half and at this halfway point I then measured a 30 degree angle. Using an angle grinder with a cut off wheel I cut along the lines. This gave me two pieces each with a 30 degree angle. I then welded these so that they were offset from each other. After completing my welding I then used a flappy paddle sanding disk (40 grit and 120 grit) on the welds to make them smooth. After welding the end pieces I then measured down 6" from the angle weld and welded on the 2 support legs. Now the welding was done it was time for me to paint.

Step 4: Painting the Metal..

In painting the metal parts I stuck with a product I have used before many time. Rustoleums High performance enamel. I bought 6 can but only ended needing two. Each leg before it was painted was wiped down with alcohol to make certain that it was free from oils and moisture then I just spray painted the legs.

To make sure I got an even coat on all side I hung the legs on old cut down wire hangers and hung them in my paint room. This way I got good coverage all the way around.

Step 5: Legs, Stretchers and Risers

Now we come to the wood working part.

On Peters design he used redwood and on my I used 2" x 4" pine lumber. I use pine on most of my projects and if you treat it right it will last you for years.

I bought 12 8' x 2" x 4". Using the table saw I took the round edges off and the then I glued 2 8" lengths together These I left in the clamps for 2 days and they came out great. Then took two more 8" pieces and took of the round edges. I then split each 8" piece down the middle and glue these together edge to edge. In the first picture in this section you can see how these thinner pieces were then glued to the glued 2 x 4s. The pictures shown are when I made the feet but the same principle applies to all the wooden pieces. This part took time as I could only glue one part of the wall at a time as I don't have enough clamps. You can never have enough clamps.

All in all this project took me nearly 6 months to build along with other projects but it was worth it in the end.

The principle of the lamination is strength pure and simple. I am not a fan of pressure treated wood for many reasons and laminating 2 x 4 on this principle has worked well for me before. Which ever way the beam flexes the out casing is designed to minimize any flex. The whole stand when put together is extremely rigid.

After all the pieces were laminated which were

1 x Stretcher - 8' long

2 x Risers - 5" long

4 x Feet - 18" long

I then ran them through the thickneser until they fit in the square tubing. I did not need to use any shims to make them fit correctly.

The Feet

The feet I measured in 3" and drew a line towards the end at a 45 degree angle. Using my cutoff saw I cut the feet and this gave them a neater look.. You can see this in the pictures of the feet before painting

Sanding

Then comes the moment everyone loves to do on a project. SANDING. Making sure that there were no sharp edges or splinters was the priority here not real smoothness/

Step 6: Painting

For the wood I used a semi gloss marine grade paint. On a project I did around 10 years ago I used pine and marine grade paint and it is still going strong. As I said before if you do you preparation right pine can last a very long time. On all the ends where the end grain is I painted this around 5 times. This make sure that the weather will not get into the wood.

I used hooks from one of the big box stores (the orange one) to connect the hammock to the stand

It turned out very well and my wife loves it.,.

Bring on the summer

Hope you like this. Let me know what you think.

Kranky.