Here's a DIY for all the scouts, outdoor folks, anyone who likes knots , or if you're just plain cheap. While I'm waiting for my bokashi to ferment, I thought I'd do something productive. I'm rigging up a tent for seedlings through vegetative growth (doing a dry run right now with non-cannabis), and I didn't feel like buying pulleys to hold up the bar that my lights are mounted on. However, I do know a few knots--you'll learn the retraced figure eight loop, the fisherman's knot, the alpine butterfly, and two half hitches--and I always have some 550 paracord kicking around. It's cheap, something like 50 ft. for $5-10, and it may well have almost as many uses as our friend cannabis. Just remember, it's synthetic and melts, so keep your electrical wiring neat, tidy, and away from it, just in case. Always use a lighter to tidy up your ends! This tent is 6 ft. tall, so for this tent, I needed about 7 feet of paracord for the pulley on each side, and another 1.5 ft. for the hangers on each side of the bar. All together, that's about 17 ft., but I didn't measure it. First, you need to make the hangers. These attach to each end of the bar and have a loop in the middle for the pulley rope to pass through. To make one, tie a retraced figure eight loop (see the links above!) on each end. Tie each tail off to the center section of rope with a single (only one loop) fisherman's knot, and snug it up to the figure eight loop. Clip the tail short with a pair of dikes, leaving about an inch, then use a lighter to melt the ends. Put your finger through both loops, and then use another finger to stretch the main rope taut to find the center. Tie an alpine butterfly to make a loop at this point. The animation shows the hand-wrap method, but a much simpler method to tie a small alpine butterfly is to grasp a bight (loop without the ends twisted or tied or knotted, just held together), and twist it around twice, then holding open the space in the bottom loop, push the bight backwards, under the knot, back up in front, and through the bottom loop. Then, just pull the two ends of the hanger to cinch it up tight. If you did it right, you should have a short piece of rope with a loop on each end, and one in the middle. The loops on the ends go on the ends of the bar, with a ziptie on either side of them to keep them from sliding around. The loop in the center will have the pulley rope passed through it. Make one of these for each side. The next step is to hang the pulleys. I used the cross bar on the ceiling of my tent which is supported by the outer frame, as well as the other two cross bars. To hang the pulley, take one of your long pieces of rope, and use one end to tie a retraced figure eight loop to your ceiling support. Take the hanging end of the rope, run it through the center loop on the hanger below, and back up over the top bar (which acts as the actual mechanical pulley in this case). Hold on tight while you check out this next photo because you don't want to drop your equipment! Finally, you need to tie off the end of the rope you're still holding (RIGHT? ) to the rope coming out of the central loop of your hanger and going up to the top bar (the one the free end just came down from). Use two half hitches and then tie it off below with a fisherman's knot and cinch that sucker up tight. The top two "knots" in the next picture are the two half hitches, a bit widely spaced apart (keep them next to each other for the most friction) and the bottom knot is the fisherman's. Repeat for the other side. To adjust the height of the lights, simply grasp the hitch and stopper and slide them up or down the rope, tightening as necessary (though you won't need to mess with the knots if tied right). It shouldn't take any effort and will be quite secure. The stoppers are very important in this setup: they prevent your knots from accidentally coming loose, or the hitch sliding too far down. The zipties around the hangers are another precaution against the hangers sliding free of the bar. Keep your knots neat and well-dressed (laid flat and neatly), snug, but not overtightened, and make sure to clip the ends to a manageable, but not too short length. The tails on your hitch/stopper should be several times longer than the other ones, because these will be the most prone to slipping if you aren't careful in tying them. Melt the ends, and keep it neat. That's all folks, thanks for stopping by! I'll answer any questions or take more pictures if anyone wants. May you grow bountiful buds.
More pictures! The previous ones were taken in less than ideal lighting, so I took one of the pulley/hanger combos down and took close-ups where you can actually see the knots. In order, they are: an overview shot, the hanger (with pulley rope threaded through the center loop), the mounting point, and the hitch/stopper combination. EDIT: Hm, GC image upload seems down right now. Let's hope these stay up. Full size: Overview Hanger Mounting Point Hitch and Stopper Keep calm and carry on.