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Fabric for portaledge bed 24-Oct-2010 At 9:56:12 AM hargs

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Massive fail. First, the steel tubing was heavy enough to construct... I don't know, something very heavy. When it was all assembled the frame was absolutely, completely rigid. Didn't bend at all, which Dad thought was excellent. Compared with FishBoy's Fish ledge, I'd say my tubing was 2-3 times heavier.

Second, 1000d fabric would do the job, but you definitely need an industrial sewing machine. Because it took so long to organise everything, I was still sewing the bed together at 10 o'clock the night before leaving. I chewed through 6 needles -- the standard one on the machine and then 5 heavy duty "leather" needles -- before throwing in the towel with the bed only half sewn. (I was going to get a sailmaker to sew it up, but the minister for domestic affairs placed an immediate embargo on foreign production after hearing from the estimates committee.)

Which leads to: Third, building a ledge is actually pretty expensive and I reckon you're better off buying one.

From memory, the steel tubing was about $20-$25 per metre through an industrial supplier, so at a bare minimum, 6m = $120. Fabric was $25 per metre. I bought 3m, which was just enough to make the bed and a bag. Also 4 steel elbows*, some machining and welding which dad took care of, so add another $100 if you have to pay for those, or more if you get corner pieces machined from alu block. 6 x 3m of 7mm cord for the suspension system was about $40, and $30 for a nice big locker. (I was planning to use tape, buckles, and a rigging plate but there's another $100 so I settled for cord and rolling hitches.) $35 for half a dozen heavy duty needles, heavy duty thread, an eyelet punch and eyelets. The sailmaker would have charged about $200? So what's that? About $400 sew your own or $600 sewn properly. $700 with tape, buckles and rigging plate. More if you pay for fancy aluminium connectors. A Fish single is $800, and that comes with a rainfly.

*There's a reason commercial ledges use fancy aluminium corner blocks: fitting tubing into corner blocks is much, much easier than fitting elbow pieces into tubing.

If you're still keen, my suggestions are: [1] get the right tubing, it makes a massive difference. [2] work out how to make corner blocks and the long-side connectors because elbows suck. [3] unless you have access to an industrial sewing machine and you're a competent seamster -- I was going to write sewer, but that didn't come out right -- get a pro to stitch it up. [4] check ALL your costs before you start buying bits and pieces and then spend some quality time checking the exchange rate and drooling on the Fish website.