Advice for kids swing

[benjhind]

Hi All,

I want to put a swing up for the kids. I have a little 7 foot swingset in the back yard that isn't cutting it as they grow. I like to sling a rope over a 25 foot limb and toss them around in their harness, but I'd also just like a higher plane jane swingset for them to play on. I will be using normal playground swings for the project, so I won't be hanging them too high for safety reasons.

I have some red pines planted in a row that are spaced between 6 and 12 feet apart. Lots of options. I really don't care for these trees and my initial thought was fixing up a beam between the trees with lots of giant nails and whatnot. Now that I think about it, it wouldn't be a bad option to use some of the tighter-spaced ones and just hang my ropes/chains directly from each trunk.

My new thought was girth hitching some webbing loops around the trunks. To maintain the height I can use matching branches or just drive nails. This would allow the trees to grow as there would be very little pressure on the trunk when not in use.

I would like advice from you folks. Again, I don't particularly care for these trees, but I don't exactly want to girdle them and have my swings last for only a couple years.

Thanks in advance!
Ben

 

[Burrapeg]

Soft, strong webbing slings sound like the way to go. If you need to support them at the same height and there are no limbs, use one large nail at rear of sling, not a bunch. In my experience, trees don't seem to mind one nail; they grow round it OK. But several too close together and the wood between them can die and that creates a bad scenario in more than one way, rot, insect entry, etc.

 

[benjhind]

Wow. These are awesome.

The reason I asked is that I'm worried that movement caused by securing the swing to a webbing sling would likely erode the bark over time. Again, these trees aren't valuable to me but anything that affects the health of the tree will also affect the safety of the swing.

I think that the eye bolts are the perfect solution. I can't believe I didn't come up with that on my own.

I'm going to do up some traditional seat swings with the eye bolts, but I definitely also need to do at least one of these Y-swings as well!! These look like a great option and better than my usual technique of hauling a line over a branch I've bookmarked. I like the idea of a permanent single-rope swing.

Thanks so much folks!