aka opie Soft Shackle (oSS). opie at hammockforum.net has a tutorial on making a variety of items. I use these oSS made of spare lengths of AirCore, DynaGlide, Amstell in place of the mini S-Biner. The pictured oSS was ~30"of line resulting in a 1.25" diameter loop when closed. oSS made of Amsteel 7/64 has supposedly a static load break strength of ~900# before failure at the constrictor barrel knot.

I searched and had no luck finding the instructions to make these. Do you have a link for them?

http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18996

http://shop.whoopieslings.com/Soft-Shackle-SS.htm

www.sampsonrope.com has a good resource page on splicing, WS, technical info. pdf downloads. Applicable to most types of braided line.

The oSS have replaced the snakeskins for furling the hammock tarp. Almost weightless. The 2 x 6ft WhoopieSlings(WS) used to hang the hammock are ~12gm vs. the ~50gm snakeskins. Mini-WS may work better but have limited mult-purpose use. When conditions are glove/mitten cold mini-WS would be my choice.

Edited by arborrider08 on 08/10/2010 10:38:09 MDT.

Noel, are you saying that you use the constricting loops of your Whoopie Slings to bind up your tarp? I thought snakeskins were used only on the hammock itself for packing.

Sort of yes. Right now I'm using 3 oSS. The WS may work better under real windy and adverse conditions. The oSS stay on the tarp. Just sliding them to the ends like snakeskins. Prefer to sleep under the stars. Skins or the oSS allow hanging of the tarp ready for rapid deployment if needed.

Hammock is stuffed into a double open ended Bishop style bag made of silnylon that is generously sized. Allows for fast easy stuffing and packing. Not dealing with a hard sausage package.

Noel,

You don't happen to have a photo that you can post do you? I've considered snakeskins but have always been put off by the extra weight...

Thanks!

Kevin, photos of skinned tarp or my current set up? Below are photos of the tarp & shackled in the oSS.

Gusty (10-25mph) winds while setting up for photo. No more difficult than using skins. Only advantage skins have would be some protection from abrasion and uv when tarp is not deployed. Tarp is a 1st gen OES MCDeluxe Spinntex. ~8.5oz with oSS. Current OES version is a bit larger.

Edited by arborrider08 on 08/15/2010 17:29:06 MDT.

I have to say that these "soft shackles, nacrabiners, etc..." are great. They are very easy to make (takes less than 5 minutes), weigh in at 1 gram and are dirt cheap. I would think a much better alternative to some of the min-biners that are around for attaching things to your pack or for around camp use and remember they only weigh in at 1 gram.

The ones below were made with 2mm 500lb spectra cord.