How to Make a Hammock Clew Jig

Finished clew jig

This tutorial series has been taking a while longer than anticipated, but hey, life can be a lot more difficult than you anticipate.

The next step in making a Mayan hammock is to create the clew. The clew is the name for the supporting strings that attach to the ends of the hammock. In traditional western hammocks, the clew is usually an array of ropes that attach a wooden spreader bar to a metal ring or something similar. However for a Mayan hammock, the clew is a bundle of hundreds of thin strings, just like the bed of the hammock. A special jig can be used to help facilitate the creation of the clew, although I remember reading one source that stated some hammock makers manage to use their ankle instead of a wooden frame and peg, so if you're feeling confident that might be an option.

To make this clew jig I used leftover pieces from making the hammock loom - you can use whatever you have on hand, but boards about 1 by 2 inches would be good.

The tools you will need are:

• A hand saw
• Chisel
• Mallet
• Sandpaper
• Some sort of bench or work surface to clamp your pieces down to

This jig is really easy to make and might not require much instruction beyond the materials needed and pictures, but basically you're just making a triangular wooden frame with a wooden peg 1 meter away from the base. For the jig in the picture, I added an extension to it to make clews for larger hammocks although the 1 meter distance is what most will require.

The first step is to create a wooden piece that has the shape of a hill basically. While you are threading the clew, the strings will lay on top of this shaped piece of wood, and will have their lengths altered by it. The strings in the middle of the clew will be longer because they are elevated more by the hill guide. Using this hill guide isn't technically necessary, but the end result will be more comfortable if you do. Having tighter strings on the edge of the clew puts more weight on the knotted bands on the edge of the hammock, taking weight off of the center and allowing it to open up under less tension.

To make this guide piece, just cut out 2 small rectangles from the edges to create two little feet that the board will be tied down with. After that use a hand saw (or table saw/bandsaw) to cut the 2 sloping edges of the guide. This picture shows 2 sets of lines: the red lines show where I made my cuts and realized that they were a little too shallow. The green lines show a better location for the cuts - none of this is too scientific so don't worry if it's slightly off.

The last step of creating this piece for me was to glue 2 small blocks to extend the width of the feet to give the whole piece more stability when upright.

Finished guide piece

The next step is to create the triangular frame itself. There is some room for play here, so just do what works best for the materials you're working with. The base of the clew jig should be about 4 feet wide at the bottom, and provide a point 1 meter from the center of that base to attach a wooden peg.

The small board at the top will just be used to support a horizontal crossbar from below while glue is drying

Glue/hammer a small horizontal board down that will hold the peg in the middle of the frame.

Make sure to clamp/otherwise weigh down pieces while the glue is drying

Now the last step to building the frame is to attach the base board with glue/nails. This is really straightforward, and afterwards all that's left is to drill a hole to accept the post at the top of the jig. It's super important to make sure that your post is in the exact center of the baseboard roughly 1 meter away, so make all of your measurements carefully.

Finally, just two small pieces remain: one is a short length of broom handle or something similar to pass through the loose loops on the end of the hammock - here I have a square dowel, which should be about the width of the base of the frame and the hill shaped string guide we made earlier.

The other is the small peg. I turned this one on my lathe, but any short length of round wood will do. To help hold the end of the clew strings in place it helps to have a slightly concave surface to the peg.

                         

And that's all there is to do to get a clew jig ready for use! Hopefully before too long I'll have the tutorial for making the clew itself ready, so until then!

How to Weave a Mayan Hammock

At last, the English version has arrived!

In this post I'll be covering all of the materials and techniques needed to weave the main body of the hammock. The weaving techniques that I am going to be sharing here aren't the only ones around - there are tons of other weaving patterns that I haven't explored yet, however, it is the most commonly seen. Taking a look at a Mayan hammock, It may seem daunting at first, but within an hour you'll have the weaving technique down pat.

Nothing can truly be appreciated without understanding its history first. These hammocks have been used by the Maya in the regions in and around the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico for several hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. The hammocks were traditionally made from cord hand-twisted from the fibers of the leaves of the agave plant - a very laborious task. Nowadays the hammocks that are sold to the general consumer market are predominantly made from nylon, but can also be woven from any strong plant fiber such as hemp, linen, or cotton. The Maya used these hammocks for their everyday sleeping needs which provided many benefits over sleeping on a solid surface. The hammocks kept the sleepers cool in the tropical jungles of Yucatán by allowing the breeze to flow over and under the body. It also kept them off of the jungle forest floor, which has a plethora of biting and stinging insects and other critters that you don't want crawling into bed with you in the middle of the night. The Maya were also clever enough to coat their hammock support ropes with poisonous tree sap to repel insects that tried to climb along the ropes towards the sleeping occupants. And whether it be for sleeping, relaxing, sex (the hamaca sutra for those interested), rocking your baby to sleep, storing pillows and blankets or whatever the heck else you can manage to fit in it, they are one of the most comfortable means of doing so that I've come across. Something else to keep in mind is that mattresses are expensive - at least $800 if you want a decent queen size. Depending on what type of yarn you use and how you obtain it, a Mayan hammock big enough for two people to fit in can cost as little as $40-$60, with the added cost of the production time. But trust me, this is one of the most rewarding projects you can undertake. 

As mentioned before, nowadays there are basically two easy options for cordage: nylon, and cotton. Nylon was too difficult for me to obtain at a reasonable price, but if you have it available, #18 twisted nylon cordage is the way to go, although the exact yardage I'm uncertain of - somewhere around 6,000-9,000 yards maybe? The benefit of nylon over cotton is that it’s much more resistant to mold and general weathering, but isn’t quite as soft. Either way you’ll end up with a ridiculously comfortable hammock. But a really clever way to get your yarn is to upcycle it from thickly-knit cotton thrift store sweaters. Not every sweater will do, but a trip to a well-known secondhand store (not all are as honest and kind as they’d like you to hope, keep that in mind) gave me on average 5+ sweaters, and although I have yet to unravel and use all of just one sweater due to wanting more colors, I think 5-10 big sweaters should be enough to weave most sized hammocks. And if afterwards you have leftover sweaters, well, then I guess you’ll just have to put up with having more sweaters to cozy up with – better safe than sorry 😊

Here is a good resource for helping you learn how to unravel sweaters to reuse their yarn: http://www.craftstylish.com/item/9839/how-to-recycle-yarn-from-a-thrift-store-sweater/page/all. And please, be VERY picky with the sweaters you deem worthy. Old half-tattered sweaters could make for weak yarn, and you don’t want any weak spots in your hammock. This happened to me in my second hammock, and trust me, you don’t want to see the day when your hammock splits open and starts unraveling. Although don’t throw in the towel right away if it does, you can always re-mount it on your loom to re-weave the damaged spots. In the accompanying video tutorial, you can see how thick of yarn you want to end up with more or less. Even if your sweater isn’t thick enough on its own you can take 1 strand from multiple dissected panels at a time to double/triple/etc. the number of yarns that constitute your 1 working yarn. So, if you see a color that you like in the thrift store, and it’s a tad on the thin side, go for it and double/triple it up. Regardless of what kind of yarn/cord you end up using to weave your hammock, you’ll still need a small amount of the previously mentioned #18 twisted nylon string to make the clew (end strings) of the hammock, approximately 640m-960m (700-1050 yds).

Let’s get weaving!

For this tutorial I’m going to be weaving a 2.5m hammock, which turns out to hold two people comfortably side by side. But really, a 2 meter hammock will suffice, so don’t overburden yourself on your first go. This hammock’s outer support bands have 18 partitions, for a total of 36 picks per row, with 230 rows for a total of 8,280 individual stitches, whereas a 2 meter hammock with the same tension and number of rows would total about 6,400 stitches.

Weaving a Mayan hammock begins with tying the two bastidores (“stretchers”) – the two bands of tied knots that form strong edges on the hammock. These bands help bear a slightly larger percentage of the occupant’s weight, so the interior net can open under less tension, giving a looser, more comfortable hammock. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, Derek Hansen has already provided great diagrams and a video for how to get started tying these bands, so go ahead and check that out on his website: https://theultimatehang.com/2013/07/26/weaving-a-mayan-hammock/. One of my personal preferences with using thick cotton yarn though, is to leave 5 inches (13 cm) of space between knots instead of the 3-4 mentioned on Derek’s page as I like how loose the weave is at that tension. 3-4 inches may be more appropriate if you are using #18 nylon however. Don’t be afraid to set up different short test bands before going all in if you’re not sure.

Also, before being able to start doing any of the work on the hammock, you’ll need to get yourself a netting needle, like this one which I whittled out of a paint stir stick:

 Paint stir stick needle

These can be found online, but are quite easy to make out of a variety of materials, so get creative with it, and here’s a diagram of how I made this needle from the paint stick:

Small circles with Xs inside represent holes to drill. Cut along the dotted lines after drilling the marked holes, then use a knife to whittle away the area up top leaving a small needle behind in the space. The small bottom rectangle can be easily snapped off after being drilled and cut.

And don’t forget to sand it really well, any little rough spots that might even be too small to see will catch on all of your yarns and get annoying pretty quickly.

Now that you have your needle full of yarn in hand, start by winding on 10-12 rounds of warp. In weaving terms, the warp are the stationary strings that the weft (loaded on the shuttle/needle) is woven around. It’s my personal preference to make my bands 12 rows wide to compensate for cotton being weaker than nylon, but 8-10 would probably be just as sturdy. But again, better safe than sorry.

Here’s a diagram showing which direction to wind the warp on and which direction to weave (this is for the actual weaving, you will be on the left of the loom as shown in Derek's video for tying the bands):

Wind the warp clockwise starting at the far end, and weave counterclockwise starting at the near end. Over time I found that putting myself on the left side of the loom instead of the right gave me less wrist pain, so give that a shot once you're comfortable with what you're doing.

Now there are two ways to go about tying these two bands. I prefer to tie both of them before the actual weaving to ensure that they are both spaced the same and under the same tension, and I simply leave the second band pushed all the way up on the loom until I need it later. However, you can just tie the first one, weave the main body of the hammock, then tie the other band right off of the weaving. I used this technique for my first hammock, but opted for tying them at the same time for the next two.

Once your band(s) is/are tied, it’s time to finally get weaving for real! The weaving technique goes a lot faster than the knotting, don’t worry 😊. The following video is broken down into the different techniques needed to do all of the weaving, along with some written directions:

-Make sure to load up at least 10 rounds of warp on to your loom at once, but adjust the tension of them so the bottom warp string you’re currently incorporating hangs loose below the level of the weaving zone. It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but you want extra slack in your yarns so that when they become the 3^rd and 4^th yarns for the coming rows, they have enough extra length to tighten up into the zigzag shape instead of being tight and inflexible.

-Every row of the band is composed of 1 warp yarn and 1 weft yarn, and it’s not necessary, but I suggest you grab both of those yarns and treat them as 1 for when you begin the weaving, so the net has a stronger anchor – you’ll see in the video.

-Starting off with 3 “yarns” (doubled up) from the band and 1 warp yarn, giving you the 4 yarns that the pattern requires you to have. The pattern goes as such: under 2, over 2, back under 2. Each section of the band holds 2 stitches/picks each, so going back into the same box again: under 2, over 2, back down under 2, HOWEVER. For the second stitch in each box, when you go back down under 2, advance the second-from-the-top string ahead to the next section – the video shows this clearly.

-After finishing the first row, walk around to the other side of the loom and lower the next warp string – this row you’ll be working with 2 “yarns” from the band and 2 yarns from the warp. If you look at the first row, you’ll see the weft lying in a series of peaks and valleys. ALWAYS grab the warp yarns from in between the peaks (in the valleys) to incorporate into your weave. The following row will use just 1 of the band yarns and 3 warp yarns and from there on out you’ll just keep pulling 1 warp string down every row and keep weaving for around 200 rows to end up with a hammock that opens sufficiently wide. Keep in mind that while there is no weight in the hammock (as is the case with the hammock on the loom), it will be able to open wider than it can with you actually in it, so even if it looks a little wide just remember that it will tighten up a good bit once you’re in. The whole weaving process will typically take between 15 and 45 days (or nearly 2 1/2 months like the hammock for this tutorial) depending on how many hours a day you can put in. Which sounds excruciating right now, I know, but it’s a really meditative activity that was very stress-relieving for me (and trust me, during grad school you need a lot of that). And of course, after all is said and done you’ll be able to toss yourself into one of the coziest hammocks you’ve ever been in that you made with your own hands 😊 it’s worth the struggle.

-After you have woven the hammock to a sufficient width, it’s time to attach the other band to the final edge of the hammock. Cut your final warp string with an excess of a few feet and lower the band into your working zone. Now, instead of incorporating warp threads, you’re going to incorporate “threads” (doubled) from the band. Start off with the top three threads from below and one thread from the band, continuing with your normal weave pattern, trying to put 2 stitches into each of these boxes again. At the end of the band, you might find yourself putting only 1 stitch in a few of the boxes like I did, but don’t worry, it hasn’t made any difference for me if it’s just a little bit off 😊.

-Continue in this fashion for 2 more rows, giving you a total of 3 rows of weft interwoven into the second band, just as you have with the first band.

-With the second band attached, everything is finally done with the weaving of the hammock bed, congrats! Now all that’s left to make are the clews, which will be coming in the following posts.

Until next time! 😊

How to Make a Hammock Loom

Note: unfortunately in this moment I have yet to be able to travel to Yucatán, México to learn how to weave hammocks from the Maya who maintain this weaving tradition alive as their ancestors have done since precolombian times. Although I haven’t had the chance to meet the masters, what I am going to share with you here is a culmination of all of my own personal hammock weaving experiences, and techniques learned from studying tourists’ videos of traditional hammock weaving which have produced very good results.

Before getting started, I want to give a huge shout out to Derek Hansen, whose website theultimatehang.com is where I learned the basics of hammock weaving from, which also has a plethora of general hammock wisdom to get lost in for several hours. By following this link, you can view Derek’s guide and videos, which will still be good to get acquainted with before tackling a project of this size: http://theultimatehang.com/2013/07/26/weaving-a-mayan-hammock/

In this first post I will be supplementing Derek’s page with more detail on how to construct the hammock loom which can be used to weave not only Mayan hammocks, but also to weave more traditional western rope/spreader-bar type hammocks as well, or any other type really. Go crazy with it. Don't make a loom that’s too flimsy because it may not hold up to the weight of a heavier rope as well.

Making a hammock loom isn’t very complicated, although there are a few techniques used that go beyond regular hammer and nails that you might not be acquainted with. And if after reading this first post you don’t feel up to the challenge of building your own dedicated hammock loom, that’s fine! You can make an improvised loom out of a pair of broom handles or bamboo poles tied to 2 vertical, sturdy objects as anchors. In fact, I wove my first 2 hammocks with a similar setup where I had one broom handle tied to a shelf in my closet with the other tied to a sort of wire dresser thing in the middle of my room which I then weighted down. But now having more experience weaving, having a proper loom makes it much easier (and portable!), especially if you see yourself making multiple hammocks. So long as you have 2 parallel broom handle-like poles perpendicular with the ground that can’t move, they should be good to weave a hammock on.

Note: if using your own sticks, try and use handles that have constant diameters from one end to the other.

Completed hammock loom, roughly 6 feet tall with adjustable length for 2 different sized hammocks

Tools needed:

- hand saw

- drill with a bit approximately 3/4-1 inch depending on the dimensions of your lumber

- chisel

- wood glue

- clamps 

- mallet

Optional tools:

- plane/spokeshave/drawknife

- miter saw

Anyways, on to the tutorial. First off I recommend some sort of pine for this project, since it's easier to work with and plenty sturdy for this project. I suggest you consult Derek’s page and scroll down to the image of the diagram for the hammock loom, as you can take your measurements from there and get a sense of how the loom is built and assembled. As I mentioned earlier, making one of these looms will require 3 techniques that some might find difficulty with.

The first of these is called a mortise, pronounced like MORE-tis [ˈmoɹtɪs], which is just a rectangular hole. Mortising machines do exist, so if you have any serious woodworking friends, they might be able to help you. However, I prefer to do things the old fashioned way for now with hand tools: a drill, chisel, and mallet.

To begin the actual work on the loom, cut the pieces (close) to the dimensions given in Derek’s blog (or freestyle it!), and take aside the two vertical end posts to cut mortises into, one in the top and bottom of each. To cut the mortise, trace the dimensions of your transverse beam centered on the vertical end post, one roughly 4 inches below the top, and the other approximately 1.5 feet from the bottom, on the front AND back of your piece. More on that later.

One of the easiest ways to cut a mortise is to take a drill with a wide bit and drill out the majority of the wood inside of your rectangular area, then use a chisel to square up the corners, bring the hole to its final size, shape, and to just clean the joint in general. I believe I used a ¾ inch bit for mine, but you should use as big of a bit as you can without surpassing the width of your markings. Did you remember to mark your wood on both sides? That will be relevant now. When you’re drilling out the wood for the mortises, it’s really important that you don’t drill all the way through the wood from just one side, or else the wood will tear out on the back side, leaving you with a splintered mess on what needs to be a smooth surface to avoid snagging your yarns/twines. So, keep an eye on how deep you’re drilling and stop about halfway, turn the piece over, and then the two holes will meet in the middle and leave the surface clean. Same goes for chisels, work inwards from both sides.

Drill as many holes as you need to remove most of the wood

Then square it up with a chisel

It doesn't have to be anything pretty :)

The second “technique” isn’t so much a technique as just a general tip for cutting the notches in the horizontal transverse beams. To do this, mark the thickness of the end post on the thin edge of your horizontal beam and extend those lines down about 1.5 inches or so, roughly half the width of the piece. After marking a rectangular area like the diagram shows, cut along the dotted lines and stop at the depth you marked. Find a larger board to support the whole width of the horizontal beam from behind before doing this next part, or tearout could rear its ugly head again. Removing this little rectangle is as easy as lining up your chisel with that bottom line and, holding it upright, give it a wallop with a mallet and it should just pop off and not mess with any other part since we isolated it with the saw already.

These notches should be measured and cut so you can weave a hammock with a bed of 2 meters, and an extended section to weave a longer hammock. I personally added a 2.5m extension to mine, as I like hammocks that are a little longer, but 3m isn't practical for most situations in my opinion. 

Cut along the dotted lines and line your chisel up with the solid line on the bottom to cleanly break off the rectangle.

The final bit that I want to touch on is how to cut a lap joint – a really basic way of joining 2 boards together without the thickness of 2 boards. So to start out, the lap joint is going to be cut at the bottom of the vertical posts where the triangular feet will connect.

Lay the perpendicular piece of the foot flush with the bottom of the vertical post and mark the dimension along the side indicated by the red arrow:

Then, mark the other dimension of the board like such:

 This block outlined in red is what we’re going to be cutting off. Any hand saw will be good for this, although having a rip saw handy will make it easier to cut the wood along the grain.

While you’re cutting this block off, always make sure to cut a little inside the lines so you can bring the joint to its final dimensions with a chisel, which is much more precise and controllable than a saw.

A crosscut saw will make the quickest work of cutting the wood in this direction.

Whereas a rip saw will cut more easily in this direction, but isn't necessary.

After the joint has been cut, use a chisel to bring its depth to its final dimensions so when you put the horizontal piece back, the two surfaces lie flush with each other.

Then you just need to glue it in place with some sort of wood glue and clamp it to dry. But before that, make sure to mark the centers of the joint and the horizontal part so everything is centered and balanced.

Almost done, don’t worry 😊

Now we just need to cut and nail the 2 diagonal supports for the feet on each side. 

If you have a miter saw or miter box that would be great, but if not you can make do with a protractor and hand saw as long as you can get it close enough.

If you’re following Derek’s diagram exactly, the dimensions of those pieces are provided too, however if you’re just freestyling it how I did, these pieces should be long enough to reach from the outer ends to a few inches below the bottom of the bottom mortise. I didn’t leave that space at first and had to cut away wood from the diagonal parts – luckily there weren’t any nails in the way. The extra space is needed for when the horizontal beams fall into place and lower in their notches.

I had to cut off the top pointy bits by the bottom of this mortise because I nailed the diagonal bits too high.

So really just cut 45 degree angles on one end of both of these slats and nail the two of them in place to complete the isosceles triangle-shaped feet. That means if for some reason your angles get off during nailing, like what happened to me, it’s more important for the angles to mirror each other than to have the 45 degree ends touching each other flush. If you have any extra wood sticking below the bottom of the horizontal part, just cut it flush with a saw.

Now all that’s left to do is (optionally round) and sand the horizontal beams and make the 4 wedges that will hold the loom together. The rounder your horizontal beams are at this stage the better, because if they’re left completely rectangular you’ll really only be receiving friction from the sharp corners, which won’t hold the yarn in place as well and could potentially wear on the yarn more. I personally ran a number 5 plane over the corners to give them rounded edges with a flat back then sanded them smooth and finished the wood with boiled linseed oil. If you happen to have any sort of plane, spokeshave, or drawknife, those would be ideal for this type of work, but even rough sandpaper can get the rounding job done to a good enough extent to make a difference. As would some sort of power sander or Dremel. 

Finishing is optional for a project like this in my opinion, but feel free to use your favorite wood finish on it if you want that added bit of protection.

After those things are done you can finally assemble the loom! Put the horizontal pieces through the mortises on the vertical bits and tap the wedges into place until they’re snug (not too tight), then you’re done! Whenever you want/need to move the loom just do that in reverse.

I'm not sure why, but I feel like it's better to drive the wedges in in this direction, with the thicker side on the inside of the loom.

This project is taking longer than I had anticipated, however I hope to have the tutorials for the actual weaving of the hammock written sometime this month (fingers crossed). Although I’m going to write the Spanish version of the tutorial first, the visual aids will probably be enough to get you started weaving.

So until then, take care!