That Whoopie Sling Thing

My brother asked me a few weeks ago if I could make him a set of Whoopie slings.  As usual, he sent along a Youtube video that showed some instructions.  He has done this before with his request for a fishing bracelet.  That reminds me, I need to make a few more of those.

Before he sent me that video I really didn't even know what a whoopie sling was.  In case you don't know, a whoopie sling is used to attach a hammock to a connection point.  Its benefits are the fact that it is light weight and adjustable.  After watching the video, I told him I could get it done.  Of course, life got in the way.  Several business trips later though, I finally sat down and knocked this little project out.

As with most things, the thought of creating the whoopie sling ended up being much more difficult than it truly was.  I made my first one in probably 20 minutes and the second one in less time.  I could provide a tutorial, but really, just go check out this video by Matt Ukhammocks.  I will say that his method is a bit fiddly, I actually ended up using a piece of wire to pull the ends through, but I think it may have had more to do with my bad taping job than anything else.  No matter how you do it, removing a few strands from the end of the Amsteel cord was a tremendous help.

The fixed loop at the end of the sling, called a fixed brummel, is actually pretty easy and the technique that is shown in the video is exactly what I did.  The difficult part for me was hiding the tail within the cord itself, its a tight turn with a short end to work with.  This was also true for the back splice ending after the constriction splice was done.

I paid $7 (US) for 25 feet of Amsteel Blue plus shipping.  I probably should have looked around a bit more, I have a feeling shipping charges were a bit on the high side.for sure.  The other materials I used were items that I already had at home, a pair of scissors, a pen to start my holes (as seen in the video) and some wire to help make the splices easier.

Trust me, you CAN make these.  It takes a little bit of patience and some time, but it is very doable.  Why pay $15-$20 for a set of these when you can make your own for a fraction of that cost?  The slings made here are scalable.   You can easily increase the length of the slings just by adding more cord.  These are 6 foot whoopie slings.

Thanks for reading, go out and make something with your hands.  You won't regret it.