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!

Cómo hacer un telar de hamacas (English version coming later!)

Bienvenidos y gracias por pasar por mi blog!

Algo para recordar: Lamentablemente en este momento no he podido viajar a Yucatán para aprender a urdir las hamacas de los maestros. Sin embargo, lo que voy a presentar aquí es todo lo que yo he aprendido personalmente por estudiar múltiples videos de elaboración de hamacas. Sé que hay mucha variedad en cuanto a los patrones del urdido, el tamaño de la hamaca, etcétera. Entonces mantén en mente que todo lo que voy a presentar aquí puede variar de lo que hubieras visto anteriormente. Claro, esto no quiere decir que soy maestro de hamacas, solo quiero compartir mis experiencias personales con este arte sagrado.

Antes de empezar, quiero dar mis gracias a Derek Hansen, en cuyo blog encontré la información necesaria para poder empezar a urdir hamacas. Después de seguir sus instrucciones estudié otros videos de urdidoras y urdidores para cambiar mi estilo de urdir, y ese es el que quiero compartir contigo. Este blog se va a dividir en partes ya que la elaboración de la hamaca para las fotos va a tardar un poco, así que en esta primera parte del tutorial, solo voy a hablar sobre la construcción del telar de hamacas.

Ahora si no te atreves a construir un telar propio no pasa nada, porque hay otras maneras de crear un “telar” para urdir las hamacas. De hecho, hice mis dos primeras hamacas usando dos palos de escoba con uno atado a un estante en mi armario, y el otro a una distancia en el medio de mi habitación atado a un… realmente tengo ni idea de lo que lo llamaría, pero era como algún tipo de cómoda hecha de alambre blanco. Lo necesario es tener dos palos fuertes que no se curven bajo tensión, como los mencionados palos de escoba, pero también sirven dos troncos rectos de bambú o algo parecido. Hay que estar seguro de que los dos palos estén rectos y paralelos para que la longitud de la hamaca se mantenga igual de un lado de la hamaca al otro, y que los palos no se puedan mover mientras estás urdiendo.

Para esta primera parte, consulta la página de Derek y fíjate en el diagrama que él muestra allí sobre la construcción del telar de hamacas, porque allí él ya provee las dimensiones adecuadas para hacer el telar, etc. : https://theultimatehang.com/2013/07/26/weaving-a-mayan-hammock/

telar de hamacas

El diagramo dado por Derek da una idea básica de cómo construir un telar y quiero ayudar a la gente que no tenga experiencia trabajando con la madera ya que construir un telar requiere dos o tres técnicas que van más allá de martillo y clavos.

La primera de estas técnicas se llama una mortaja, que simplemente es un agujero rectangular. Las mortajas se hacen en los soportes verticales y permiten que las vigas horizontales puedan atravesarlos. Hay máquinas especializadas para hacer mortajas, pero se pueden hacer igual de exitoso con solo un taladro y un formón. Para empezar la mortaja, mide la altura de la viga horizontal y su ancho. Realmente solo hace falta encontrar una broca que apenas tenga menos ancho que la viga propia, y de ahí puedes hacer cuántos agujeros necesarios para abarcar la otra medida de la viga.

En mi caso, necesité 3 agujeros

Después de taladrar los agujeros necesarias para quitar la mayoría de la madera en esa zona, usa un formón y mazo para quitar la madera que queda, convirtiéndola en forma de rectángulo. Es super importante no atravesar la madera completamente por un solo lado, sino de los dos para evitar que la madera se arranque por detrás creando un lío astillado en la superficie del telar que necesita estar lisa. Entonces cuando marcas los rectángulos, hazlo en los dos lados para que puedas taladrar en un lado hasta el medio, darle la vuelta a la madera y empezar desde el otro lado hasta que los dos agujeros se conecten por dentro, e igual cuando cortas con el formón. 

No tiene que ser nada lindo :)

Se hacen dos mortajas en cada soporte como el diagramo muestra, una cerca de la cumbre del telar, y otro más o menos medio metro encima del suelo.

La segunda “técnica,” que no es nada demasiado complicado realmente es como hacer las ranuras en las vigas horizontales que las enganchan a las horizontales. Para hacer este trabajo más fácil, marca el espesor del soporte vertical en tres zonas de la viga horizontal para que el espacio entre las ranuras resulte 2m con otra ranura a medio metro más allá de la original.

Para quitar esta madera fácilmente, marca las tres zonas mencionadas y haz cortes verticales como el diagrama siguiente muestra:

Luego para quitar este rectángulo de un tirón, toma un formón que ocupa la mayoría del espacio entre los cortes y, con una tabla apoyando la viga entera por detrás, alinea el formón con la línea que queda y pega el mango con un mazo manteniendo el formón perpendicular. Así solo la madera entre los cortes quebrará.

La última técnica que facilitará la construcción del telar se llama una junta solapada, que adjunta las partes perpendiculares en las patas del telar. 

 Primero marca las dimensiones de la pata perpendicular como indicado en estas fotos en rojo:

marca por el lado con la flecha roja

La otra dimensión para marcar

Ahora que todo está marcado usamos una sierra de mano para quitar esta porción superficial de la madera 

Aquí una sierra de cortar al hilo es más apropiada

No pasa nada si los cortes no quedan perfectos, porque luego de cortar se usa un formón para allanar la junta y llevarla hasta sus dimensiones finales. Así que cuando cortas, asegúrate de cortar un poquito dentro de las líneas, dejando madera para quitar más precisamente luego con el formón - es la técnica para todo. Nunca hagas todo el trabajo con la sierra, deja un poquito para quitar con una herramienta más precisa luego (formón, papel de lijo, etc).

Después de allanar la junta, las dos piezas de madera se encajarán (casi) perfectamente:

Ahora solo hace falta centrar las dos piezas juntas y pegarlas con cola de carpintero:

Nos acercamos al fin del camino - no te preocupes. Para terminar el telar ahora solo hace falta cortar los 4 calzos como la foto de Derek muestra, y terminar las patas. Para terminar las patas, corta dos soportes diagonales que abarcan desde los extremos de la parte de abajo hasta justo debajo de la mortaja inferior, y mantén por lo menos 4-6 centímetros (que yo no hice al inicio, y tuve que corregirlo luego - pero no será posible arreglarlo en todos casos, entonces, cuidado) de espacio entre ellos.

los tres agujeros al fondo son errores míos, fíjate en la mortaja de arriba

Después de medir y cortar soportes adecuados, haz un corte de 45 grados en un extremo de las tablas y recolócalas para sujetarlas con clavos.

¿Ves ese espacio allí entre los dos soportes diagonales? Es más importante que los ángulos sean iguales que las piezas se toquen, por si la madera se mueva mientras estás clavando. Si queda madera bajo el extremo inferior, quítala con una sierra como yo hice con el lado derecho aquí.

Lo creas o no, ¡estás terminado! Lo último que queda para hacer es montar el telar e insertar los 4 calzos con un mazo para darle rigidez al telar.

 

Los calzos unen las partes del telar bajo presión.

Espero tener más información sobre la elaboración de la hamaca en las semanas que vienen, junto con la versión inglesa de esta y todas las demás partes.

¡Hasta pronto!

Mayan Hammocks Coming Soon

Mayan hammock loom

Hola todos!

I'm really excited to talk about the next project that I'll be sharing with you all here on my blog - how to weave a Mayan hammock. Since this project will be on the bigger side it's going to take some time, but I can't wait to be able to share this really obscure and rewarding craft with you all.

Stay tuned!

Medieval Festival

Well, this is embarrassing. I started this post literally like 5 months ago and forgot about it. Well, here we go!

So awhile back in Alcalá there was the yearly medieval festival, which now I don't remember why it was celebrated, but I think it was a "just because" thing. There was a lot of cool stuff, lots of vendors, delicious food, costumes, rides for goods, music, parades, etc. But my favorite part was that I got to become a part of one of the exhibits. Sort of. So there was this one big tent showcasing a lot of traditional spinning tools, etc. and there was a sign saying something like "public demonstration at 6 pm" So I came back around then and as per Spanish custom they were late, so about half an hour later I came back and there was actually someone there.

So I casually pulled out one of my drop spindles that I brought with me to Spain and started spinning some roving into a really fine single, and the lady demonstrating seemed to be impressed with the yarn, and the spindles I brought to show them. Alisa commented how she can't take me anywhere without something like this happening. Which is true haha. But here are some photos to commemorate the day:

"Black merino wool"

"Spinning wheel"

"Yarn spinning"

Demonstrator examining one of my Russian spindles

Showin' 'em how it's done. Dat focus though.

So for those of you who were wondering about spinning yarn in Spain, there is still a small community like there is back home.