Material for making frame around ladder stand?

[3rdShot]

In March I set up a two person ladder stand at a natural chokepoint along a draw that runs across our lease, 22 yard shot to the game trail / fence line, and about 20 yards to a nice little opening to the left where we’ve been scattering a few pounds of corn every time any of us have been out there, and where I intend to put in a pig pipe feeder to stop the animals for a minute.
Problem is, it is on the only straight tree tall enough and barely thick enough to work with the ladder stand, kind of by itself with no close surrounding brush, or any low limbs to break up my outline. The ladder stand has the shooting bar that can be raised when bow hunting. I want to rig some framing around it that can be wired to the base, so I can hang up some camo netting with tarp backing to break up my outline.

I am thinking of using 1” thick-wall pvc pipe and a bunch of “t” and angle fittings to frame out sort of a cage, with a few crossing bars at the correct height to cut out a shooting gap in the netting that will hang from this framing.

Has anyone done something like that? It won’t need to carry significant weight, just thin tarp and netting. Do y’all think plastic pipe would do the trick?

Or, I’m open to other ideas for lightweight framing I can use, keep in mind I’m not a welder.

Thanks,

Dave

[cheez]

I would recommend 1/2" emt conduit (metal). If you have a bender it is easy to shape the conduit to what you need and you don't have to worry about fittings and such. I think it would work much better than PVC. If it don't fit bend it to where you need it. I've done similar to what you are talking about but welded some 3/4" to the base of the platform and stuck the 1/2" inside that so it was removable.

[TheGasMan]

The PVC will work, but it will get brittle over time. Probably not a big deal until you get some wind or a storm to shake it around. The process takes a while so it depends on how permanent you want it to be. The more sunlight it is exposed to the faster it will start breaking down. The conduit would be a pretty good solution.