Lime bark cordage

[spamel]

Got back earlier on from a nice day out with Ratbag. We went out to start the retting process on some lime bark so that we can make some cordage in a few weeks time. First off, we harvested some very heavy hawthorn staves to hopefully make the hardest walking staffs known to man. Time will tell with those! Then we went to get a piece of lime.

We chose a small sucker a few inches in diameter and removed it with a folding saw. I used my small GB pocket axe to score through the bark on one side and Matt scored through half of the branch with his Fallkniven H1 (I think!) and then set to making a spud. The spud took the bark off nicely, but it did split in places as we took it off. The strips were about an inch wide at their thinnest so it should be fine.

We found that when we had scored the bark, the tip of the knife was needed to ease the bark away enough to start using the spud. My F1 performed this task well, and also I used it to cut around some of the large knots and branching twigs so that the bark came off easier. After we had so much off, we just pulled the bark away from the branch and it came away reasonably well. Now and then we had to resort to the spud again, also some of the fibres were getting left behind so we prised those off with the tip of a knife and eventually had a good piece of bark for retting. We got a very good long piece and placed it in the river with some stakes to pin it down.

The stream is quite slow moving due to natural damming, so hopefully in a fortnight we will pull a stinky mass of retted lime bark fibres out of the stream. The missus will be happy when I bring that back home!

We'll let yoo know how we get on.

 

[rancid badger]

you've done well to get the bark off in useable bits, I never seem to be able to strip it at this time of year.
Be interesting to see what you come up with and how long it'll take to rett at this time of year.
I've always done my bark cordage over the late spring and summer.
Brilliant!
All the best
R.B.

 

[spamel]

We took our time, we also had a quick go on some willow but it was impossibe to get any useable bark off. Later in the year it just peels off nicely. The lime bark did split a bit, but we were left with some really good bark that will hopefully give us some good cordage. It is the first time either of us has tried lime bark cordage and the retting process so it's a bit hit and miss. Hopefully it will turn out right, but we kept the wood for some nice carving!

 

[Robbo]

Hawthorn can, if i remember correctly, make a fine bow too, should you have some of those staves left over from staff making and you simply havent a clue what to do with them.

Andy

 

[john scrivy]

had good success with witch elm bark making cordage also good for bow making