Siesta Fiesta (Part 1)

The weather has taken a despicable turn, with the arrival of an awful 20 centimeter dump of wet snow for the weekend that is plastering up everything. Even though the radical change in the scenery outside makes it look like a perfect weekend for people to want to start decorating their own necks with tight nooses, it has not deterred me from starting a project related to anticipating and enjoying a warmer and more temperate season. . . if it ever comes. My place is getting festooned with stray wood chips and sawdust anyway, so the remaining spring cleaning can wait.

On my first attempt at it (an exercise of futility in retrospect) a week ago, I began poking through some forgotten corners of my storage nooks in my home, and then dared to check outside though the chaotic mess in one spot of my deck space where other bulky and dirty random stuff is stowed. Another past eight months of neglect over the winter didn't make it look any prettier. There is over 1.5 hectoliters* of nutrient depleted, possibly blight and mold spore contaminated potting soil and peat moss to get rid of, along with various other miscellaneous useless implements. It's all stuff that no longer serves me well here. Four consecutive seasons of attempting container gardening up here, all of them yielding disappointing and fruitless results, is enough. Ridding myself of the clutter would free up between three and four cubic meters of space. Now, I'm just trying to figure out what to keep and possibly re-purpose, and what to pitch out as trash.

This is my favorite frame design I found on Pintrest so far:
I wish I were so talented to carve a ship's figurehead like this
one. Once I finish mine, I believe I shall christen it . . .
The S.S. Lazy Ass . . .  S.S. as in "siesta sling" 

What I did recover from probing around in my inside storage was the nice handcrafted hammock that I bought over 15 years ago when I traveled in South America. I almost forgot I still had this. For all this time, I never had the right living space nor found the time to hang it up right and use it. The trees in the back yard of my last dwelling were too far apart for a rope rigged system, and I never troubled myself to find or make a decent frame for it. Now, I decided not to let this fine hammock go to waste; so after a bit of cleaning up and space reclamation, I thought I might actually be able to set it up outside on my deck now. I can't get ready for the siesta just yet. There is some work to do. I just need a proper frame for it; hence my new carpentry project. Because of my particular spatial constraints and limitations, it has to be custom built. Pinterest and other sites gave me ideas, but nothing I found was 100% satisfactory for my needs. I have the following considerations to abide by, plus some other objectives that I want to aim for:

• It can neither be physically mounted onto the exterior of the building, nor to the support beams of the deck above me (condominium regulations)
• It has to be portable and as compact as physically possible, such that when disassembled all the components could easily fit into the trunk of my car, or stored in my closet over winter.
• Easy to (dis)assemble at a moment's notice, simply with just a couple of taps of a hammer if possible; thus . . .
• No fasteners like nails, screws, nuts, or bolts**: instead I'll opt to creatively use mortises and tenons, notching and other special tricks with custom joinery.
• The use of the principle of dMass***: the most minimal use of material that achieves an optimal amount of support to hold the weight of me (and the dog)
• Usage of tensegrity***, i.e. the dispersion of stress put on one part of the system, that can be used to provide support within it. So in theory, adding more weight to the hammock would actually make the frame structurally stronger (aside from the strain of what the weakest points of the material used can handle).
• Using local Canadian homegrown lumber, and other such material
• Just as an added special challenge, to stay within a budget of . . . $40.00 ****

It also has to be feasible to make with the tools I already have, which are all hand tools. I have

The only tools I've needed thus far.

nothing against using power tools; I just don't covet them. Hand tools are cheaper, they are relatively easier to control. They are more compact; lending to less bulkiness to store. Plus, they work everywhere, whereas power tools are useless when working in a spot without an electrical outlet (or a bulky, fuel-slurping generator). I see no sense or justification in spending extra hundreds of dollars on things that rob me of more of my space, and when I only have enough time to commit to one or two small projects in a year. My respect for hand tool craftsmanship goes back to the days of working as a cataloguer in a museum, and seeing specimens and the variety of examples of antique furniture made long before the advent of electricity and power tools; things that can be accomplished and produced with the mindful use of just a simple hand saw, a square, a plane, and a hammer and chisel. Another thing that I'm utterly enthralled with is the craft of traditional Japanese carpentry: more specifically, their discipline and techniques of forming joinery. It has a splendid geometrical precision; yet isn't

My best hand-crafted mortis and tenon so far using soft wood,
I don't think I could have done this well by using power tools. 

primarily based on taking numeral measurements. It stems more from following and forming on the character of the wood being worked with itself. Carpenters of their tradition have fashioned some of the oldest wooden structures still in existence, some temples and other historical buildings being over a thousand years old, lasting in a country with a high frequency of earthquakes; their support structures all built without using nails or other metal fasteners.

I took a long enough break to examine and rethink my process. More to come later. . .

*- That's 150 liters, or 5.3 cubic feet for the benefit of you non-metric Neanderthals.
** - Actually, I lied. I'll need a couple of eye screws, along with a couple of quick release carabiners for each mast point. I could do the same job with rope or heavy cord, but the carabiners would allow me to pack things up quickly if it starts raining instead of wasting time untying fancy hitches and knots. This weekend's snow was the prompt for this decision.
***- Do yourself a favour: read up on the work of the visionary, R. Buckminster Fuller.
****- Just because it is a sum of money I already saved as change from my SARCAN returns since the beginning of spring. It was $30.00 initially, but I included allowing myself ten bucks to spare to buy some extra "boo-boo boards", just because I know I'll have a high likelihood of having a mishap or making a mistake. Watching a passive collection of waste getting transformed into an energy-event/resource of exploitable value is a beautiful thing to see happen.