Fieldmouse

That looks great Haz. A membership to SORE is on the way. You may need to make it look a little more rigged up to get the life time membership. Did you use any camo duck tape? That would suffice.

Good Luck.

HAZCON7

I appreciate the help with the pics GroundHunter !!

I have carabiners (oblong metal ring with a spring clip) attaching the bottom loops of the blind to the eye bolts on the posts where the steel cable is rigged. It is a perfect fit.

I didn't use any camo tape but if it'll secure the membership then I'll wrap the ladder rungs with it

Not sure if your advise was serious or not davidmil, but I like the idea of the fake ivy on the posts!!! I'll be stopping by walmart this weekend to pick some up in the craft dept. Thanks!

Thanks for all the kind words and for following this mini drama
I set my trail cam on the stand to see how the deer might react to it. I'll be picking it up in a couple of days so I'll take some daytime pics of the stand from several angles as requested.

Unfortunately, due to needing help moving it, I wasn't able to get it out until late evening. We busted out a lot of deer - but I think this stand is in a prime location for the coming rut. I have a complete view of the creek down each side for 1 mile. Last rut the bucks were traveling the creek edge cruising for does. With a good decoy setup and I am confident I'll take one of the big boys.

kry226

You could always get some old military camo nets from a surplus store and hang it from the platform. You could also augment it with some of that ivy or real vegitation.

davidmil

NOPE... believe it or not I sometimes Mean what I say. Totally serious. All weather non-fading plastic ivy, flowers or Xmas garland will work wonders.

kevin1

HAZCON7 ,
be careful how much weight you put on those legs , PVC wasn't designed to handle high structural loads . Do the leg ends have any kind of weight distribution plates ? You don't want them sinking into the ground , and if they sink unevenly you could take a tumble . Perhaps a few more braces ?

Tazman

Man it is quite appearant you put a lot of work into that, when I saw the very first pic I thought "This is a joke right?" but after I saw the following pics it looks great, keep us briefed on how it does. You know you have me thinking about how to rig up a semi-portable PVC ground blind..... I have ton of PVC that I have no real use for!

HAZCON7

Thats quite a compliment Tazman - I appreciate it!

I couldn't have imagined how much work or money this project was going to take. I may have been better off buying something premade but I'm awful proud having made this thing all myself from my own plans and ideas. Besides, what could we learn if we always let someone else do the work for us?

Hopefully you'll see some good pictures of great deer with my stand in the background this fall - while I'm dreaming, why not on the cover of bowhunter magazine

GroundHunter

Hey Haz, cut a big hole in the middle of the that "thing" and put a fire escape poll on it. Quick exit!!!

Kybuckhunter

PVC also becomes brittle when exposed to the sun. It will crack very easy.

HAZCON7

Really? Nobody has told me that yet - do you think I should tear it down?

Look fellas - I weigh 180lbs lets call it 200lbs with gear. The wood deck probably weighs another 40lbs.
Thats 240lbs on top of 5 verticle support columns with 4 cross braces to distribute the weight (when I'm on the left side, portions of the weight are distributed to the right side towards the bottom.) Thats a mear 48lbs on each support. I could build the thing out of toothpicks and it would hold 48lbs. If you don't think a 3" PVC will support 48lbs for a few hours a couple days a week then hold ur breath and wait for my post entitled "MY PVC Stand Broke - I was wrong!"