Home Made Portable Swing

What do you need?

- a piece of plywood to use as a seat (you can freely decide the size of your seat).

- a piece of plywood to keep the ropes from hurting your back (same lenght as your seat). This is the top of the swing

- a long and strong rope.

- a drill.

- a drill bit ( slightly lager than the diameter of your rope).

- a tape measure.

- a saw.

- a piece af sandpaper.

1. Take the first piece of plywood. This is the top of the swing.

2. Draw a line where you want to cutt the piece. Note that it is completely up to you to decide the size of the seat and therefore the lenght of the top.

3. Use your saw to cutt the piece to size.

4. Repeat these steps for the seat.

1. Use the sandpaper to remove the rough edges left over from cutting the wood.

2. Draw a line in the centre of the piece wof wood ( as shown on the picture), then draw another line where you want to drill the hole, make sure you keep enough distance from the side of the wood. Otherwise when you drill the hole you will have a gap on the side of the wood.

3. Use the sandpaper to remove the rough edges left over from drilling the hole.

4. Repeat the steps for the other side of the plywood and the seat. In the seat you will have to drill 4 holes.

1. Put one end of the rope through the seat (as shown on the picture).

2. Make a simple overhand knot at about 20 cm measured from the top of the seat.

3. Now you put one end of the rope (the one that isn't attached to the seat) and put it through one side of the top piece.

4. Sit down on the seat and measure the height from the seat to the top of your head. Now you know the minimum height the top piece of plywood.

The previous step is an important one, if got it wrong there you won't fit on the swing.

So measure twice, cut once!

You now have the lenght of the second rope, the one that you need to attach to the other end of the seat. Take the height you've measured in the previous step and add the lenght of the top piece of plywood to that number.

1. Before you cut the rope you have to protect it so it won't fray-out. You can do it by sticking a bit of tape on both edges. Then cut between those pieces of tape.

2.Put one end of the rope trough the holes in the same way as the previous step and also ty an overhand knot at about 20 cm from the seat.

1. Make another overhand knot above the one that is already there. Do this with both ropes. your swing should look similar to the one on the picture.

2. to attach the long piece of rope to the short one you just have to use the same technique as the one described above. Also look at the pictures.

1. Take your swing to the tree you want, take the rope and trow it over a branch.

2. Pull on the rope until you've reached the desired height.

3. To secure the rope, you can either tie it to the tree trunk or another solid object nearby or you can tie it to the piece of plywood on top of the swing.