This tutorial explains how to build a rope tree swing in the backyard for the kids. My daughter really enjoys it, however I made it large and strong enough to seat two adults.
Rope Tree Swing
Materials:
- Pressure treated 2in x 8in board, 4 feet in length
- 5/8in diameter hollow-core braided polypropylene rope, ~100 feet length.
- 3″ corrosion resistant deck screws, Qty: 10
- Sanding block
- Course and fine grit sandpaper
- 2-7/8in by 5/16in chain link, Qty: 2
- Gorilla Wood Glue
- Roll of kite string
- Oak tree
A Note about Rope
The 5/8 inch braided hollow-core polypropylene rope I used in this project has a safe working load of 294 lbs. The “working load” of a rope is about 1/5 of it’s total tensile (or breaking) strength, about 1400 lbs for this particular rope. In the next photo, the rope appears to be 3/4 inch diameter; under load it thins to 5/8 inch diameter. The only difference between the two ropes here is the color.
5/8in Braided Hollow Polypropylene Rope
It’s important to use a large diameter braided rope for the swing. The use of a smaller diameter and/or twisted rope will be too slippery on the chain link and may cause the seat to tip over.
Twisted Rope - Too Slippery - Not Recommended for Swing
Braided Rope - Recommended for Tree Swing
Nylon rope would be an upgrade over the hollow-core braided polypropylene rope used here because it’s a stronger (and more expensive) material.
Tools:
- Cordless Drill/Driver
- Saw
- Carpenter’s square
- Pencil
- Tape measure
- Carpenter’s level
- Butane Lighter
The Challenge:
Building the tree swing presented a bit of challenge because my 24 foot extension ladder wasn’t tall enough to reach the high and strong branch on the oak tree. Normally, I’d tie the rope to the tree branch using a Swing Hitch knot, but it requires putting your arms around the branch to tie the knot. Since I couldn’t reach the branch, I had to figure out a way to tie off the lines from the ground. I solved this problem with kite string and a Running Bowline knot.
Construction:
Making the Seat
- The seat is a 36 inch length of 2in by 8in pressure treated lumber.
- The seat reinforcements are a 4in length of 2×8.
- Mark and saw the 36 inch long bench seat and the two 4 inch reinforcing blocks.
- Bevel (i.e. round off) front and rear edges of the bench seat with sandpaper. This is so the edges of the board won’t cut into your thighs when sitting.
- Attach the reinforcing blocks to the bottom ends of seat with Gorilla Glue and the five 3 inch wood screws. Notice the screw pattern is laid out to avoid the drill holes for the rope.
- Locate and drill the 3/4 in holes for the rope 2 inches from the outside end of the seat and 1-1/2 in from the front and back sides. See the photo below for details of the reinforcing block attachment and holes.
Seat Bottom Reinforcements and Stopper Knots
Tying the Rope to the Tree Limb
As described in The Challenge section, the tree limb was too high for my ladder and climbing the tree was possible. The solution for attaching ropes to the tree limb is a Running Bowline knot, a type of slipknot. A benefit of a slipknot is the rope won’t strangle the tree limb as it grows.
Not any knot will do when personal safety is at stake. The knots I used in this project are:
- Very strong
- Secure
- Won’t significantly weaken the rope
To reach the limb, I tied a small rock to the end of the kite string and threw the rock over the tree limb, letting the string run off the spool. This took a couple of tries to get it where I wanted.
I then tied the kit string to the 5/8 rope and pulled it back up over the limb. (You’ll need a double length of rope to do this!)
Next, I tied a Running Bowline in the rope and pulled it up snug against the tree limb, all from the comfort of standing safely on the ground. Here’s the result:
Running Bowline Knot around Tree Limb
Do the same for both ropes:
Running Bowline Knots
Cut each rope hanging from the tree limb off at ground level – remember it took a double length to get it over the tree limb and set the Running Bowline knot.
This project is continued in Part 2.
Enjoy,
Bob Jackson
February 14th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Keep it up! Thank you for these good moments reading your blog. Just subscribed to your feed.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Sehr gute Seite. Ich habe es zu den Favoriten.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Thank you!
I searched many sites looking for clear directions that I am my 2 girls could follow. We now have a wonderful swing in our front yard oak. This was a great Mommy-Daughter project!
August 15th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Hey man awesome project. Very descriptive. I had planned on hanging a swing from a very high branch and had thought of using the Running Bowline but had no idea how to tie it or what it was called. This was surprisingly very helpful, great resources on those knots.
October 5th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
We made this tree swing over the weekend. Your instructions were very detailed and easy to follow. Our problem is the swing does not swing straight. We think it might be because the only branch we have to use is not parellal to the ground-it has a fairly steep incline. Do you have any suggestions or have you encoutered a problem like this? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks
October 5th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Hi Tiffany,
I’m pleased you found the my instructions helpful. If your swing isn’t swinging straight, the seat probably isn’t level left-to-right as when sitting in the swing. This makes one side “heavy” and the swing will be off balance and tend to move toward that side. If you don’t have a carpenter’s bubble level, eyeballing it should be close enough because great precision isn’t needed here.
To correct the problem, you’ll need to adjust one (1) seat bottom stopper knot on the low side to raise and level the seat. Again, only a single stopper knot needs to be adjusted.
The tree branch and the ground for my swing are both uneven as you can see in the project photos, but the seat is level so it swings straight.
If you’re still having problems, post a picture of your swing at http://tinypic.com/ (it’s free and requires no account registration) and reply with the link to the photo so I can see what you’re doing.
Thanks,
Bob Jackson
June 9th, 2010 at 6:42 am
In making our tree swing I found your website to be helpful…. Thank you