Portable Tube Swing

we had to make a swing for a school project, the swing could only have a maximum weight of 5 kg, it had to be portable so you could carry it around easely and it had to be strong enough for een average adult to swing on.

i'm going to show you how to make this swing, it's an easy swing to make and is very strong.

First of all you'll need a rope, I used a nylon rope ( 20 m long and 12 mm in diameter ).

A wooden staff ( 60 cm long and a diameter of 30 mm )

you'll also need a PE tube ( poly ethylene ) ( 60 cm long and a diameter of 160 mm ).

A rope clamp for a rope of diameter 12 mm.

and a thrust washer with a diameter of 20 mm

First you take the PE tube and you drill holes in the tube ( 14 mm diameter ) , in total you'll drill 4 holes, 2 on each side of the tube and 5 cm from the side of the tube. the two holes on each side are placed in an angle of 140° from each other.

than you make on each side of the tube a groove, each groove goes from the side to a hole ( shown on the drawing ) the groove is going to be slightly smaller than the diameter of the hole ( around 10 mm ).

First of all you cut the rope in half , so you'll get 2 pieces of 10 meters long.

On just one side of each rope you'll hang a rope clamp.

Than you put each rope in a hole and the clamp will hold the rope in place.

this step is optional, I did this so the swing will sit better, if you want you can skip this and just sit on the tube.

for those who want to place it, it's an easy step.

the staff wil be placed just above two grooves, you can see it on the photo. I screwd te stick with some screws from the inside of the tube so you can't see them on the outside. this makes it look more professional.

you put the rope thru the thrust washer and then you make a loop and you put the rope again thru the thrust washer, if you pull on the rope the thrust washer will clamp and stay in place , the thrust washer will eventually be placed in the groove once the swing hangs around the branch. because of the thrust washer you can set up hights easily, and it will be strong enough to carry you.

and now you're ready to swing ;)