This was a very straightforward project that I was nevertheless reasonably pleased with the result. Sophia had asked me to create a swing for her for the large tree in our front yard. The challenge was to do so in an as efficient manner as possible, considering the limited materials that I had access to, and my desire to make it something that would be easy to fix or replace.
I originally entertained the idea of trying to create some kind of netted seat – a combination of some pine lengths strung between with rope, but that kept bunching in a way that was not entirely satisfactory. The second version was to glue together the pine to provide a more solid seat. However, I wanted to make sure this was strong enough to support the weight of the children, so I also added two lengths of plywood perpendicular to the seat (that is, one above and below, at each end, so four in total) to strengthen the seat. The final step was to drill holes in each of the corners, and then thread the rope through each side. I tied bowlines to create loops, and then attached these to chains, which I looped over the branch. I cut some hose to fit over the chains to protect the tree branch from the chains, but this wasn’t hugely successful.