DIY Telescoping Hammock Stand For Single End Support or Self Supported like the Kammok Outpost Hammock Stand

Daniel Soulbuilt
16 hours ago
3 min read

On the east coast, it's usually easy to find trees to hang your hammock. Sometimes the trees are not spaced apart correctly, or convenient for hammock hanging, or the park doesn't allow you to hang hammocks because it damages the trees when people use strings vs straps. In these cases, an alternative hammock hanging option is needed.

The portable free standing hammock stands I've tried are too short, too low, heavy, or complex. I've successfully hung the hammock from the van roof rack to nearby trees. I wanted a hammock stand that can use a vehicle or other stable object as one side of the stand.

KAMMOCK makes something like this and call it the OUTPOST. It's cool, but I'm not prepared to pay over $500 to hang my hammock. It's a hard price to justify the occasional inconvenience of not being able to hammock, when hanging it on trees is free.

I've also found that connecting anything to a vehicle requires breaking camp to use the vehicle. The option for free standing ability would be great.

Connecting to a camper van adds another issue. When anyone inside moves, the hammock will move. When the someone in the hammock moves, the people sleeping in the van will feel it. Yet another reason to have the free standing add on option available.

However I still like the idea of using a supported hammock stand with a tree or other solid object to make it easier to find the perfect spot to hang your hammock.

MATERIALS

TOP POLE

The top pole is the most difficult part to find to DIY a single supported or free standing hammock stand. It needs to be at least 12 feet long, but pack down to a manageable length.

If the hammock is connected at the joints where the top pole is supported, then the force in the top pole is compression along the axis. There's no bending. So the top pole only needs to be strong enough in bending to prevent it from buckling due to the compression force. That means it doesn't need nearly as much strength as a pole that needs to support a bending load.

I tried painters poles, but they were not rigid enough. Maybe the carbon fiber painters poles sold on Amazon would be rigid enough.

V1 Primitive Lashing

This was the first test. We arrived at the campground at 2am. There were a lot of trees were we camped, but I couldn't find any with the right spacing and clearance for a hammock. I lashed this together as quickly as possible.

I only had 1 4-8ft painter's pole for the bipod end, need to get another so I can raise that higher.

This setup worked great. It was super stable. I slept better than ever before in a hammock, which was largely due to the new insulated hammock I was using. Low 40's weather and I was wearing shorts and a fleece jacket and was toasty. This GRAND TRUNK Evolution Down hammock is also far more comfortable than the regular travel hammocks. It feels roomier and less restricting.

SELF SUPPORTED

The Kammok product top bar is 12ft long, which is a bit short for being able to adjust the hammock. The flagpole extends to 20ft. I'm thinking If I fully extend the flagpole, and put a bipod about 3 ft from each end of the flagpole, add adjustable straps from the end of the flagpole to the bottom of the bipod legs, and straps between the bottoms of the bipod legs from one end to the other, that should stabilize everything, and leaves 14-16ft of adjustablity for hanging the hammock.

If more stability is needed, additional straps can be used going from the bottom of the bipod legs towards the center of the top bar. Position them about 3 feet inwards from where the bipod connects to the top bar. Make sure that they don't interfere with getting in and out of the hammock, or while sleeping in the hammock.

Additionally, tying the bottom of the legs together will help prevent them from spreading.

If more stability is needed, the bipods can be crossbraced as shown. The limitation here is if they will clear the hammock. Depends on how far the bipod legs are spread out.