Making Light 2-Ply Hemp Rope

[Pict]

I went out to our rural property today. While we were waiting for a truck that never showed up I was sitting there idly twisting some single ply hemp cordage into 2 ply rope and the guys I was with took an interest. We had the camera right there so I had Renato film the process. I did the explaination in english for the video and went back and edited out alot of the portuguese. Editing video is like magic.

Making light 2-Ply Hemp Rope (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRKNXlRgTfA)

Mac

[Rick]

Just curious, Mac. Did you learn Portuguese prior to going down there or was it "on the job"?

[crashdive123]

Another great video. Thanks Mac.

[Pict]

I lived here for two years 90-92 teaching in an American school. My wife grew up here so she already spoke fluently. I picked up alot but really did depend on my wife too much. I didn't really hit the books back then.

When I got back in 99 I spent nine months taking formal 3 hour lessons five days a week. My Portuguese teacher didn't speak a word of English so it was like total immersion after being away from it for seven years. After that I had another six months of conversational Portuguese for one hour a day several times a week. When I got here the language barrier seemed like the Rockies, now its like a barbed wire fence that rips my pants every so often. Mac

[Rick]

I'll bet that was an interesting one sided conversation when your wife got ticked at you early on. I'll bet she would turn on a flood of Portuguese and you stood there like a deer in the headlights. I know I would.:D

[Pict]

The first time I heard her speak Portuguese we were at her parents house and she answered the phone in english and then changed channels. I thought, "How can someone just switch back and forth like that between two languages?" That's my life now. My kids even mix english and portuguese in the same sentences. “Só we podemos think assim.” Mac

[crashdive123]

"We can only think so."

[Pict]

"Only we can think like this." Mac

[Rick]

Notice how adept he was at side stepping the angry wife question? Smooth. The man is smooth!

[Rokas]

How can I get fibbers out of nettle? It's pretty common here... And in what season or month of the year I should do that?

[danmc]

How can I get fibbers out of nettle? It's pretty common here... And in what season or month of the year I should do that?

If you have access to Mors Kochanski's "bushcraft" book, he talks specifically about this on p150. He says fall after its turned brown is best but a mature green plant can work. He also says peel it starting from the top of the plant. I have no first hand knowledge of this though.

-Dan

[danmc]

Pict: Neat video. I hadn't seen the way you made the loop at the end before. Thanks for posting it.

[Pict]

Thanks for watching. I had filmed that type of loop before for my other cordage video but the cordage was thin and you couldn't see what I was doing. This rope was big enough to show up well. Those loops hold real tight but you have to thread a tail about twice as long as the loop itself. It also helps to work any slack back up through the splice but that takes a while and wouldn't make for good video.

I've never made nettle cordage before so I'm not the guy to respond. Mac

[Pict]

Notice how adept he was at side stepping the angry wife question? Smooth. The man is smooth!


OK, fine. My wife can lay it OUT if she gets rolling in either English or Portuguese and sometimes I even deserve it.

On the upside, my wife is hot (IMO), she can cook, she buys me guns, and has never complained about a knife purchase. Its a package deal but I got a good one. Mac

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/4315/avatarpattyjf8.jpg

[crashdive123]

Nice family Mac.

[Rick]

In making the loop, you can also back braid the two ply into the body of the rope by skipping over each ply. Sort of like you did with skipping over the 8. One ply would go in the lower loop of the 8 and one ply would go in the upper loop. The advantage is sort of like a Mexican finger lock in that the harder you pull on the loop the harder the loop holds.
Back in the day when we worked outside with horse hair ropes we had to learn how to braid loops like that. It's takes a bit of playing to get it right but you wind up with a nice flat piece of rope that looks factory made.

Ditto on the family.

By the way, was that knuckle in the video courtesy of a slipped wrench? Been there done that!

[Pict]

By the way, was that knuckle in the video courtesy of a slipped wrench?

Nope, slammed it into a cement beam. Mac

[danmc]

In making the loop, you can also back braid the two ply into the body of the rope by skipping over each ply. Sort of like you did with skipping over the 8. One ply would go in the lower loop of the 8 and one ply would go in the upper loop. The advantage is sort of like a Mexican finger lock in that the harder you pull on the loop the harder the loop holds.


You wouldn't happen to have a picture would you? Do you need to cut the tip off the loose end and untwist the 2 ply first? Or have I missed something here?

I've made a loop in the end by starting with two bunches of fiber and starting out making the first bit of rope while leaving the two ends sticking out. Then after I've gone several inches, I folded the end over and spliced the loose ends in. I don't think I'm describing this well. I saw that on a dvd by Prarie Wolf.

Does your approach more or less end up with the same thing in the end only you can make the loop in the end instead of the beginning?

-Dan

[Rick]

The method I was taught is known as the "Over-and-Under Splice". For those of you that have The Ashley Book of Knots, it's on page 460. Here is a link that shows how to make it.

http://www.ropeinc.com/sp70_3-strand_eye_splice.htm

The only thing we did in addition to what the site shows is to trim the ends closely along the body of the rope once you have braided it as far back as you needed to. We generally made this loop around snap hooks for pulling tool bags or cross arms aloft.

[crashdive123]

Yep that's the way I remember it from the Boy Scouts.

[Rick]

This method and the way Mack does it are basically the same braid. Both will pull against themselves so it's unlikely the eye would come undone before the rope itself would break.

[Rick]

For those of you that make natural cordage, can you add pieces of fiber to increase the length? Would you do that as part of the twisting process?

I know wool has tiny hooks and loops (think velcro since that's what velcro was modeled after) so when you spin the wool the hairs naturally stick to one another and you can make a thread (yarn) as long as you want.

How do you do that with plant materials for cordage? Splice end to end?

[Pict]

Rick,

As you're working you have two tails formed by the two plys. As the one ply begins to grow short you simply lay another section of material alongside it sticking out about an inch past where they join into the finished cordage and keep twisting. Once it's twisted in it will run along until the first piece runs out and they you end up splicing more onto the other ply as it runs out. Try to space it so your splices don't happen on both plys in the same place. This method works well with bark.

Making Bark Cordage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXW95Ux-4GE)

The vid demonstrates how I splice bark.

With thin fibers like Yucca/Sisal/Hemp I just end up working with two loose bundles of fibers to which I continually add more fiber on whatever side is getting thin. After you're done making cordage go back and trim off the material sticking out at the top of your splices with a toenail clipper. Mac

[Rick]

Here is a nice web site on making natural cordage.

http://www.grannysstore.com/Wilderness_Survival/Cordage_Making.htm

[danmc]

Anyone know anything about that steam pit thing mentioned on the natural cordage site you found Rick?

I've used inner bark from tulip trees and also yucca leaves. On the yucca that I took time to soak for several days and scrape and scrape and scrape, I ended up with very clean fibers and some really clean looking cordage. But I walked away from that thinking that surely there is a faster way because it took way too long and too much work. I've also used yucca where I really didn't put much effort into getting out the green. It still make some good rope but it wasn't as nice.

I'd love to try making some of that hemp rope, but unless I'm mistaken I'd probably be committing a felony if I located and harvested a plant big enough. At least in some states it probably would be. Not sure about GA, but then again I've not seen hemp growing in ditches here like you do in parts of the midwest. "Really officer, I'm just making rope."

-Dan

[crashdive123]

You probably need to worry more about the grower than the law. I don't think they'd take too kindly to the "multi-use" aspects of their crop.

[Rick]

Here's an older post on it.

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/forums/showthread.php?t=56

[danmc]

You probably need to worry more about the grower than the law. I don't think they'd take too kindly to the "multi-use" aspects of their crop.

Actually in parts of the midwest hemp is (or at least it used to be) a common weed that can be found growing alongside the road. My understanding is the stuff you'd see growing wild was pretty much all a variety with no drug content but that doesn't make it less illegal. So I'd stay away from that.

Now if you found a cultivated stand hidden say in a greenhouse or maybe in the middle of a commercial crop like corn, yeah I'd be really worried about the grower.

[crashdive123]

When I was living in Hawaii my roomate was from one of the other islands (Kawaii). We used to visit quite often. One day while out playing in the mud holes with his Toyota LC we headed down a dirt road along side a sugar cane field. As we rounded a corner, there were three really large men (Samoan) with automatic weapons pointed at us. Kyle very calmly apologized, we turned around and left. Seems they were guarding the second largest cash crop of Kawaii.

[TrappinGal]

around here they smoke "hemp",lol.

[pgvoutdoors]

I went out to our rural property today. While we were waiting for a truck that never showed up I was sitting there idly twisting some single ply hemp cordage into 2 ply rope and the guys I was with took an interest. We had the camera right there so I had Renato film the process. I did the explaination in english for the video and went back and edited out alot of the portuguese. Editing video is like magic.

Making light 2-Ply Hemp Rope (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRKNXlRgTfA)

Mac

Some nice You Tube examples.

[Rick]

I'm learning that instead of growing a bunch in one spot, which can easily be spotted from the air, they are now growing one or two plants and plotting it with a GPS. Move along and the same thing. Etc.