Treehouse Step by step: Day 2

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Lots of progress made today- 6 of us down working on the tree house (although 2 of us don't climb trees so I suppose it's more like 4).

The 2 remaining 4m poles were lashed to the base today and then a block and tackle attached to replace the single block we were using. Decking boards (marine ply boards) were then raised up and tied down to the base. Our decking boards have 15mm holes drilled along all four edges- very handy for attaching them to structures like this.


Later on, it started raining so the next step was to build a temporary roof to protect the decking and keep the treehouse dry. This was done using a large tarpaulin.

Most of the heavy work has been done. Tomorrow we will work on the roof (we want to raise it higher and I'd like to make something a little interesting) and the monkey bridge/commando bridge to the other tree.

Treehouse Step by step: Day 1 Afternoon

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Once a pulley is in place, poles can be hoisted up. This treehouse springs from two trees that are about 4m apart. two 6m poles on opposite sides of the tree span between the two stems (you can see them already attached in the above photo). The first pole is the most difficult to hoist and secure: 3 people are needed: 1 to tie the pole and hoist it from the ground, and one person on a harness in each tree, with ropes and frapping mallet ready to secure the pole. The best option is to hoist the pole up horizontally if space allows, and then to tie the supporting rope off when the pole is at about the right height. The scouts in the trees then proceed to attach a further support to each end of the the pole, directly supporting it using branches above it. You can them fine-tune the level of the pole before beginning the square lashings.

Remember that one of the poles in the square lashing (the tree trunk) is very thick and you may end up using 3 or 4 normal length lashing ropes. It is best to start with one rope and attach more as needed using sheetbends- trying to tie a lashing with a very long rope is rather inconvenient. Having lashed the first spanning pole on, the second can be placed in position and levelled with respect to the first. Once this pole is lashed, the other poles that will support the platform can be added. At this point I had to go home but one of my Assistant Scouters stayed on to continue, and 2 4m poles were added.

The tree to the right of the image will be the site of a hammock using a cargo net, and a monkey bridge will link the platform to the hammock. Speaking of monkey bridges, this is the coolest one I have ever seen: used by the Orang utans at the National Zoo in Washington,D.C

If you have any design suggestions, e-mail me and we might try them out

Treehouse step by step: Day 1 morning

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My troop is busy building a treehouse: I will track the progress over the next few days on the blog.

The first task on day 1, having chosen the trees, is to get up into them. The trees we have chosen are trees we have used before- the lowest branches will anchor our platform and are some 7m (22ft) off the ground. To get up there, you need to throw a messenger line weighted with a monkey's fist or mallet (or half brick) over the branch, then use the messenger to pull a heavier line over. lower the heavy line to the ground and tie a bowline in one end. Then feed the other end through and pull it up,fastening it to the tree. The photo above shows the situation after the ropes have been attached to 3 trees that we will use for the treehouse. To climb the rope, use Prussiks. The Prussik is a very useful knot if you have not come across it before. Having climbed up, the next step is place a pulley so that the poels can be raised up into the trees to start the first lashings...

Pontoon ferry

UPDATE: download this as a SketchUp model here.

A pontoon ferry is a raft that travels along a cable across rivers - actually called a cable ferry - There are quite a few places in the world where you can use a pontoon ferry to cross a river in your car (as far as I know there is only one in South Africa).

What do we need for this project?
A body of water to cross
A rope long enough to cross it
Anchoring points on either side (either trees or tripods with solid anchorages
A simple raft design

You can see that the raft design I have used here has 2 large A-frames that the rope through. You could run your rope 2 pulleys but when I built this (way back in 1998 as a Springbok construction project) I found the pulleys created more problems then they solved. A troop of 10 or 15 should be able to build this easily in 2 days, even if they have not built a raft before. The sequencing when I built it was:
day 1 (evening): build raft base, attach barrels
day 2 morning: attach decking,superstructure, prepare anchorages and tripods
day 2 afternoon: launch raft and travel to pontoon location, ferry rope across, attach ropes and tension up

I can't stress this one enough: REMEMBER TO MAKE SURE THE ROPE IS RUN THROUGH THE RAFT BEFORE TYING THE ENDS DOWN. It's rather embarassing to realise that you need to untie your main rope to be able to feed it through your raft.

Two or three people can easily pull a raft like this (with a deck area of 24 square metres- approximately 250 square feet) across a river- once you start moving there is surprisingly little drag. This is a 10 barrel raft, 6 or 7 people can comfortably and safely travel on it. 1 barrel per person on the raft is a good safe number to remember for flotation.

As always when on the water, remember safety It is best if everyone on the raft is a competent swimmer.

A bit of fun- Escher as a scout

Clarke Green at Scoutmaster posted these construction projects- which would be interesting to try and build. If you have any other project ideas or things you'd like to see, let me know- but if it's anything like these projects don't be in a hurry to see photographs!

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Obstacle Course

UPDATE: download this as a SketchUp model here or step-by-step drawings here.

This was a simple obstacle course we built for a market day our cub pack held. If it looks a bit 'tame', remember that most of the children who used the course were outsiders to the movement.

So, walking through from start to finish (click here for step-by-step drawings):

1.tires- simple run through the tires,not much pioneering required here

2.balance beam-2 4-m tripods with a 4m beam suspended on ropes beneath them. Secure the rope to the beam using a rolling hitch or round turn and two half hitches, never a clove hitch

3.cargo net- two tripods (actually one of them is shared between this obstacle and the previous one) have a beam lashed across between them at about 1.8m off the ground. A cargo net is fastened to this- the object is to climb up and over, down the other side.

4.oil drum slalom- run between the drums. Again, not much pioneering effort involved here

5.tarpaulin- staked to ground around edges, need to crawl through underneath. If you are feeling mean you can water the ground underneath this obstacle...

6.big swing. 6m tripod with a rope suspended from the centre, a bowline tied for a footloop.

7.see-saw- 2 6m poles lashed together and resting on an oil drum. We discover too late that you don't want to do this if you have bigger kids using the obstacle course- the oil drum will dent. Drum is staked in place and poles are loosely lashed on, with poles over towards the starting side so that you are able to walk up onto the seesaw and have it drop back for the next person after you have walked across.

Please remember to secure all tripods by locking them and securely lashing the legs to stakes

Equipment list

5 x 6m (18ft) poles
11 x 4m (12ft) poles
7 oil drums
8 tires
1 cargo net
1 tarpaulin
20 stakes
30 ropes (actually I count 27, but it doesn't hurt to be safe)

2 Barrel Camel Raft

UPDATE: download this as a SketchUp model here.

This might be the simplest possible oil drum raft. It is based on a barrel binding technique called 'Camel' after the Camel Trophy adventure race- one of the scouters in the district took part in national selections and used this barrel binding to make a raft in record time.

The basic idea is to take the two barrels and tie them to each other using reef knots- 1 rope at the one end of the barrels, and one at the other end. Then, two poles are placed above and beloq the barrels- as you can see in the image the next step is to lash these two poles to each other, clamping the barrels in between them.

This scout is punting using a 3m pole and has decided to go out in shallow water without a life jacket- this raft is pretty stable and well behaved- it will support about 180-200 kilograms- so easily enough for 3 scouts- but remember to use the buddy system and follow all safety procedures, and be careful using this raft in unfamiliar waters. THIS RAFT IS ONLY RECOMMENDED FOR SHALLOW, STILL WATER

Table and Chairs

Here is the 'altar' coffee table as well as a tripod chair made with an empty hessian bag- we carry our ropes in these and when we get to the campsite we use the empty bags to make these chairs. Seat is fastened to the frame with strong sisal binding- make sure you use plenty of half hitches or a good solid constrictor.