Silent - I dig those stands!

Yet another reason I'm asking Santa for a welder this year!

Thanks Hazcon. Just a little more info incase anyone is interested. What we do is drill holes through the back piece of tubing. We then place 2 shorter bolts in the middle about 4-5 inches apart and then we put a couple of more bolts a couple of inches outside of those that are a little longer. We take the bolts and sharpen them on a grinder wheel and then we run them through the hole and put a nut on them and you can either use a lock washer or a jam nut on top of the other nut. That leaves with about 3/4 - 1 inch of sharpened nut sticking out the back to dig into the tree when you tighten the turn buckle. On the bottom of the stand where the braces come together we take and cut a piece of 1/4 inch platel and and cut a sharp v-notch in them. That gives you something to weld your braces to and the v-notch also digs into the tree when you put weight on the stand. I go a step further and put a ratchet strap at the bottom though it really isn't necessary.

Nice stands....I was wondering how you secured the bottom. I too would go with the ratchet strap. A little added comfort that the bottom doesn't slide to the side.

Nice looking stands.

Is it hard to learn how to use a welder? I would love to make my own someday.

Thanks for sharing.

Cool looking stand silent,looks to be very roomy and sturdy,
I will post a pic of the stand I built about 3 years ago.It is made of steel tubing,with a mesh floor,padded seat and weighs about 19 lbs I think.Goina take it out of the tree this weekend I hope if everything goes right.I hang it with 2 car seat belts.It was just a fun project and turned out alot better then expected

Silent - those things look like I could curl up and take a nap on them! I keep thinking I need to learn how to weld. You mentioned that you've devised a way of making them fairly easy to put up since they are fairly heavy. Would you mind sharing how you do that? I have a hang on that is about 20 lbs and it's a tough one for me to put up. What I actually did this year was use my climbing stand to climb up to the level I wanted, then pull my chain on up. With my harness on and the stability of my climbing stand I was able to put it on fairly easily without having to hang in odd positions and worry about falling. The big problem I have is trying to hold onto it and keep it in place while I try to get the chain around... I guess that's what happens when you're so darn short!!

you may have inspired me to build one.looks great

A buddy of mine works at a machiene shop and built me a bottom, really really light with some metal v. I learned to climb with out the top. Use the deer seat when I get up the tree. I use a rope rapped around my gloves and tighten it up to the tree for climbing. I go so fast. Oh yeah and I rigged the deer seat to be able to slide until downward force is applied!

MRWAKE That is hard core tree climbing. Not to many people can climb like that. If so the climbing stand companies would be out of buisness. I don't know how many more years I will be able to climb like that. Getting older sucks for causing the body more damage.

Love the rather large platform. This coming from a guy who's 6'4" and 290lbs. The more room the better if ya ask me. They look like you really put some time and effort into them. That's great.

nbadg,

What I do is slide two seperate short ropes through the expanded metal at the very back about even when the outside bolts. I slide both ends of the rope through some type of latch with a sliding hasp and tie them where the latch is in the middle. I climb the tree and put an eye bolt up in the tree about a foot above where I want the top of my stand to be. I pull the stand up with a rope and then I hook the latch through the eye bolt. I don't have the weight of the stand in my hands but a few seconds. It's a lot safer safer because I don't have to wrasle the weight. The stand just hangs there in position. I can then take my hands off of it and use them to start tightening the ratchet strap. Once I get it snug I take the log chain and hook it up to the turnbuckle. You don't have to take out near as much slack that way. After I tighten the turnbuckle I loosen the ratchet and slide it down to the bottom and re-tighten it.