Natural cordage

[Quixoticgeek]

In another thread, Toddy mentioned the following:

How about making cordage from sixteen different materials too ?
Fiona and I managed over fifty between us one year so it's very do-able.

I'm assuming the two of you were doing this in the UK and largely working with materials found native here. But I can't based on my limited knowledge think of what the 50 materials you used to make your cordage.

What natural cord materials did you make?

What other natural cordage can people suggest for a UK climate, aside from the obvious ones of Nettle and willow bark?

Thanks

J

 

[Tommyd345]

Sinew of sorts?

 

[Man of Tanith]

Lime bark works very very well

 

[Bishop]

Hair is incredible stuff to work with be it horse tail or human, though getting the latter is a labour of love.

 

[Mesquite]

I've seen cordage made from the following native plants:
1.willow,
2.oak,
3. Elm,
4.nettle,
5. sinew,
6. lime,
7. honeysuckle,
8. grass,
9. spruce roots,

There were others but I can't think of them at the moment

 

[John Fenna]

Bramble , long grass and leather have all worked well for me.
The fine worms of grain leather that you get when you bevel the edge of - for example - belts, can be twisted up to make great cordage.

 

[Tony]

I often, when sitting near my dog, start making dog hair cordage, it's great stuff and the length of hair doesn't seem to be an issue and it's a lovely white colour.

 

[Wayne]

Any long fibrous material will make a cordage of sorts some more effective than others. Have fun trying different plants and material post the results.

 

[Toddy]

Fiona and I were working a series of events for Glasgow Landservices in eight different parks throughout the city that year.
We only used native plants (and native animal hair).

Somewhere I have a list but, from the top of my head it included ……

Nettle,
Honeysuckle,
Ivy,
Fireweed,
Bedstraw (that came from my garden before anyone shimpfs)
Soft rush
Field rush (60 fathoms of this Fiona made for a Kishie)
Lake rush leaves (very beautiful twine)
Cattails leaves, as above
Chestnut bark,
Lime bark
Elm
Oak (with trees, it's three fold; either whippy roots, peelable (or rettable) inner bark or fibrous timber that can be 'stripped' )
Ash
Walnut (sent to us from a friend in England)
Sycamore
Clematis
Hop vines
Elder
Oat grass leaves (again a very beautiful twine)
Wild rose
Willow bast (this and lime are honestly two of the best)
Brambles
Spruce roots (not native is spruce, but pine works too, we just had heard of spruce)
Flag iris (makes a beautiful flexible rope)
Small veriscolour iris (again a beautiful rope)
Flax (beautiful, absolutely superb twine. Didn't grow enough for rope)
Hemp (we cheated on this one, and bought plumbers hemp, well oakum that was to be used in the boatyard, native though)
Daffodil leaves (beautiful colours as they dried out fully)
Grass ( several varieties with this. Leaves make string, but the whole makes a rope, and it's a good rope)
Heather
Broom
Mallow
Dockens
Sticky willie/cleavers (just because it was there. Dried out well though)
Bracken
Crocus leaves (another beautiful twine)
Bog cotton
Lobellia (it's a flax family plant, and it's remarkably good)
Privet (nice, but better for basketry we reckoned)
Potentilla
Clover
We had a go with seaweeds and with the long cress from a burn too. Both work, but they need a power of drying.
Not really worth the bother tbh, but we did make cordage.

I played around with scented plants to create twines for tying up seasonal wreaths as well. Everything from meadowsweet to sweet gale, from thyme to rosemary. They all work, they all hold together as twine, and while I wouldn't put any real weight on them, they did tie properly and take knots. My hands smelled wonderfully for a couple of weeks
Strawberry runners (the little wild ones run riot over some burnsides) didn't really twist well, they kind of rolled rather than twisted, but they plaited together into a braid, same with the buttercups when we could pull up an entire line of them. Really needed four to each strand, iirc.


and not really plants but it was to hand, so we used it…..
Dog hair,
Highland cattle hair,
Horse hair.

I'll add in the others if I can find the list

It's a fun way to look at the world for a bit, "Can I make cord from that ?". There have been more than a few threads on making the stuff too.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120400 for instance.

atb,
Mary

 

[Palaeocory]

There's usually a cedar about (thanks Victorians!), the hairy inner bark makes really nice cordage!

I tried a bunch of brambles this summer, but didn't dry it and re-wet it first, and it made a cordage that wasn't very strong. However, I kept it, and found it the other day... and it's really strong now! It seems to have dried out and become really tough. It's straps for a basket my husband made now...

 

[John Fenna]

I make baskets out of Brambles - all I do is remove the thorns first - and have plaited cordage from whole stems as well ... pretty useful stuff it lifted a good 12kilos over a tight radius branch...

 

[Toddy]

Looks sound John

Surprises folks just how strong natural cordage can be. Too many forget that pre the advent of plastics, it was all natural cordage

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Is not flax stem fiber made into linen? Plant some flax.

 

[Toddy]

It is indeed , but, and having done it I can say this from first hand experience, it needs a lot of flax to make a decent enough crop to spin enough to be worthwhile warping up a loom and weaving cloth. Even on a small frame loom it needs a lot of fibre.
Fun to do though, and a brilliant feeling when you know that you actually grew it, harvested it, retted, hackled and scutched it, spun it and wove it into cloth

On t'other hand even a small crop will give fibres and those make excellent cordage

M

 

[bushwacker bob]

Hemp and phormium(N.Z flax) both make very strong cordage. Phormiums seem to be part of every municipal planting for the last 20 years.

 

[boatman]

New Zealand flax was once the source of Royal mail string. Thought you'd like to know that.