Swinging through bubbles

When our property was cleared and graded in preparation for housebuilding the guy who did the work left two good-sized trees standing in the backyard. It's hard to say whether or not he did this intentionally or if he just got close enough to being done and decided to call it quits. Either way they seemed like the perfect spot for a swingset and if there's one thing Mr. O loves to do it is swing. I think he would gladly spend hours in a swing if someone is willing to keep pushing him.

I had been trying to figure out how to safely attach a beam between these two trees that would be big enough and stiff enough to withstand a couple kids and maybe an occasional adult on the swings. I originally thought about using lag bolts to attach a 16' 4x6 beam between the trees but that plant didn't seem workable for two reasons - 1) I couldn't find lag bolts at Lowe's any bigger than 5/8" x 8" and, 2) it seemed like a 4x6 beam across a 14 foot span was going to have some deflection when the swings really got going.

After some internet research and a visit to Agri-Supply for some serious hardware I came up with the final plan. Instead of a 4x6 beam I decided to use tripled 2x10s for the beam. Instead of relying solely on lag bolts to both attach the beam to the trees and carry the weight of the beam I would use two 30" sections of doubled 2x10s per tree and lag bolt them to two sides of each tree to serve as supports for carrying most of the weight of the beam in a sort of cantilever fashion. At Agri-Supply I found 5/8" x 12" lag bolts that I used to attach the supports to the trees. I used three bolts per per support in a triangle formation. I also found found 3/4" x 12" lag bolts at Agri-Supply which I used to attach the beam directly to the trees. These are more for preventing the beam from moving than they are for carrying the weight of the beam. In order to get the three 16" 2x10s to act as one beam I nailed them together with 3.5" nails about every 6 inches along each long side. The second board was nailed to the first and the third to the second. Getting the first long board up and leveled was the toughest part of the whole project. Those 16 footers are heavy.

I thought Dianne and I worked pretty well together to get the beam up and secured. I tried to explain things as we were going along but I'm sure there was still some mind-reading required on her part to figure out the plan.

I'm happy to report that the swings are a huge hit with Mr. O and that there is virtually no movement or deflection in the swing beam.

Another thing high on Mr. O's list is bubbles. He has an automatic bubble blower that puts out swarms of bubbles. What could be better than combining two of his favorite things?