Natural Fibre

[PatrickM]

Been awfully busy lately, but I thought I would show you all a new rope which I finished last week, 100ft of elm fibre.
Further breaking strain tests will be done over the next few weeks but so far it has held my weight using the South African abseiling technique - promising results!
Also a selection of other natural fibre cordage with many different applications. Making natural cordage requires a huge investment in time, therefore the fibres I select are ones which have strength and durability.

 

[mountainm]

Impressive stuff. Are they the natural colours?

 

[Toddy]

Absolutely beautiful

Patrick that must have taken weeks of work; the preparation alone......

Thank you for the photos incredibly inspiring.

cheers,
M

 

[lannyman8]

dude thats awesome....

 

[JohnC]

Thats an astonishing amount of time/prep must have gone into that.

 

[RonW]

All I can add to the previous comments is :"WOW!!"...

 

[addo]

Serious amount of work there Patrick, really nice.
I like elm bark for cordage and it makes a cracking knife sheath too.

 

[PatrickM]

Thanks for the kind comments folks

 

[g4ghb]

I'm amazed every time I see your work Patrick! - your ropes are stunning, do you actually use them for anything? They look so good, after all the work they obviously took I'd be darned if I would use them it would seem like sacrilege....... then again you could just 'knock a few more miles of cord up' in a couple of days whereas it would be years of work wasted for me.

 

[Ed]

Absolutely fantastic work there .... I wish I had the time ... as well as the patience to do that

Ed

 

[Barn Owl]

Lovely work but how long would you expect natural rope to last?

Is there a way of preserving them other than birch or pine tar?

 

[Toddy]

There's a bit of willowbast cord still attached to a sunken logboat lying off the Danish coast, and it's thousands of years old and it's still unmistakeably willowbast cord.
It's the conditions that cause decay, or not.

For many 'wet' wet is good, but left damp and foosty and mouldy and they'll rot in gun time. Bone dry, desert of either ice or heat, and the preservation's good too. It's just our temperate climate that encourages anything organic to rot and decay. One of the reasons our soils are so good

cheers,
M