Currently making nettle cordage... A few tips before I continue

[Emdiesse]

So I am making nettle cordage... right now. I am taking a break whilst I eat my tea and I want to use this time to ask a few questions

Why do you dry the nettle out and then rehydrate them?
How do I splice effectively? I am rolling two strands on my legs and then lengthening each strand by taking a couple of fibres, bending them, putting the V at the joint of the currently two attached fibres and rolling them into the current strands.
Have I rehydrated my fibres too much, It's making my thigh like a desert ice skating rink and the fibres are just slipping all over the place!?
When I prepared them I used the finger and thumb trick to separate the outside from the inside but I seem to still have a lot of woody parts in patches... I guess being able to separate the fibres entirely is just practice

 

[Toddy]

I find that the time spent prepping is more than worth the effort to make good quality cordage.

By letting it dry you get rid of the excess moisture in the cells. Rehydrating it doesn't fill those cells full and turgid again, it just kind of soaks through and around them and makes the fibre bundle flexible.
Basically, if you do it fresh it'll shrink; if you do it from re-hydrated fibres it'll stay tight.

If I'm doing spun and laid, twisted in my hands, then I insert new ends as you have done. If I'm rolling it I add the ends in entirely to one side or the other.
The reasoning being that I can 'open up' the twist enough at the v point to fold in the new strands effectively when I do the twisting in my hands, but I can't manage that tightly or smoothly enough when I'm rolling it on my thigh.
Both work you understand, just one way feels more even.

It's an other method entirely to create a roving, a coil of loosely bonded lengths, that are then pulled and twisted to make the cordage.
It's used by linen and hemp spinners; basically the lengths of nettle fibre are chewed at the ends and overlapped one after the other. It can be a good way to get a dose of the trots though if your gut flora aren't used to being challenged and don't do it if you have sores in your mouth or around your lips.
Very old fashioned skill, but known of for at least four thousand years.

Stripping out the woody inner core and knotty bits is just time and practice. Usually the thumb nail takes out the occasional random bit when I'm twisting.

atb,
Toddy

 

[Emdiesse]

I find that the time spent prepping is more than worth the effort to make good quality cordage.

By letting it dry you get rid of the excess moisture in the cells. Rehydrating it doesn't fill those cells full and turgid again, it just kind of soaks through and around them and makes the fibre bundle flexible.
Basically, if you do it fresh it'll shrink; if you do it from re-hydrated fibres it'll stay tight.

If I'm doing spun and laid, twisted in my hands, then I insert new ends as you have done. If I'm rolling it I add the ends in entirely to one side or the other.
The reasoning being that I can 'open up' the twist enough at the v point to fold in the new strands effectively when I do the twisting in my hands, but I can't manage that tightly or smoothly enough when I'm rolling it on my thigh.
Both work you understand, just one way feels more even.

It's an other method entirely to create a roving, a coil of loosely bonded lengths, that are then pulled and twisted to make the cordage.
It's used by linen and hemp spinners; basically the lengths of nettle fibre are chewed at the ends and overlapped one after the other. It can be a good way to get a dose of the trots though if your gut flora aren't used to being challenged and don't do it if you have sores in your mouth or around your lips.
Very old fashioned skill, but known of for at least four thousand years.

Stripping out the woody inner core and knotty bits is just time and practice. Usually the thumb nail takes out the occasional random bit when I'm twisting.

atb,
Toddy

I understand what you say about the V point, I found that quite often I would put the V in but it would become loose above the V so if you pull on each strand to tighten it it stops at the V anyway so the weak spot before the V remained.

Cheers, thanks for the reply I didn't quite understand the point in rehydrating when you could just start right way, but now I do.... Also I guess it works in the sense that you can get so far with your cordage leave it a day or too and then carry on again.

 

[Emdiesse]

This is what I ended up with. I saved the rest of the fibres I had to try and make a tidier, tighter cord.
I tried to turn this into some sort of monkeys fist... which is equally as slapdash