Fun afternoon

[Kepis]

At long last the temperatures have dropped a bit and spending a bit of time in the workshop has been a little more comfortable, had a few things i wanted to get done, first up were some Wizard Wands for a customer

20180711_143941-1 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

20180711_143952 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

Second, was removing the inner bark from a load of Aspen to make cordage, the Aspen gave up its bark as willingly as Willow, never used it before for cordage, so a bit of an experiment, but thats half the fun;

20180711_145201 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

20180711_145541 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

20180711_145553 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

20180711_160021 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

Waiting for it to dry now, then i'll re wet it and clean it up a tad before spinning it up into string.

Third up was a small spreader from Aspen

20180711_193111 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

 

[Toddy]

Nice....and that inner bark looks the business too

I was playing around yesterday with a bag of sample lengths I'd made years ago (used to use it for display/demo) and it's amazing how well it's lasted even in a cold damp shed. The willow and lime cordages look like new. The flag iris is still supple and strong, even the rush rope is still sound.
Be interested to see what you make of the aspen.

M

 

[Muddypaws]

It does look like you have had an interesting day. I'd be interested to know how the aspen bark rope turns out.

 

[Kepis]

Cheers both, i hoping the Aspen will make some nice long lengths of string, certainly the longest bark strips must be 5ft long, fingers crossed i can keep them even and spin up some reasonable cordage, if i can i thinking i might make a small net bag out of it - keep you posted.

 

[Kepis]

Eventually got round to making some cordage from the Aspen, its ben sat in my workshop since the day i made the original post so it was definitely dry, first job hydrate it

20180725_160159 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

Then spin it up, i only did one length of bark, but still managed around two meters of cordage, will be interesting to see how it fares when its dry, will it be pliable or brittle, will the wrap loosen or remain relatively tight, guess i will see in the morning, when its dry i'll trim off all the ends and tidy it up a bit

20180725_170729 by Mark D Emery, on Flickr

The bark did roll nicely once you had got it going, i know one thing though, dont hold spare cordage in your teeth, its as bitter as anything

 

[fhaggis]

Loving the wands! what wood did you use?

 

[Kepis]

Loving the wands! what wood did you use?

Aspen