Nettle fibre shenanigans

[palmnut]

No fibres left when I checked dead standing nettles here in Dorset in early Spring :-(

Peter

 

[Toddy]

Aye, ours seem to go to dusty black mould and then crumble to nothing but inner core
I think the continental long hard dry cold is just a different kind of retting that dries the leaves off and seperates the skin and fibres from the chaff. It must do something to the 'glue' that holds the fibres in the skin too though something that we either have to rett out or simmer apart with soda.

I'd love to break out enough fibres to spin enough yarn to weave more than a foot square

cheers,
Toddy

 

[British Red]

Cycling relf....

Thank you so much! Every now and again we get a great thread on here that isn't just about people buying things but is about people doing things. With photos. And mistakes. And an enquiring mind. And wishing to understand why things work. And trying techniques. And just generally getting stuck into a topic.

It makes the whole forum worth visiting

Thank you

Red

 

[yarrow]

Ah.
Liking this thread a lot!
I haven't given up my hope to make nettle bow string, and will have another go this autumn (I hope).
Will most certainly follow this thread.
Thanks for the inspiration!

Awesome thread! It has been a long standing ambition of mine to make an effective bowstring from natural material and information like this is great brain food. I have seen some great cordage work at a primitive archery meet in Germany made from nettle and the guys wife's hair It was very thick and I would not have fancied pulling it to full draw at the 50lb he said it could take. He said he left the nettles over the winter to separate the fibres concurring with Toddys Estonian lady's reference to being left over winter.

Thanks Cyclingrelf!

 

[Cyclingrelf]

Thanks folks, glad you're enjoying the thread. It makes it worthwhile writing it

I thought it time for an update with my latest efforts. I left my stook rather longer than a week (life got in the way) and the Cornish weather took a turn. We had large amounts of rainfall and generally damp days, so I was concerned the nettles might have gone mouldy instead of drying out. When I eventually got back to my stook, it looked like this:



The nettles were mostly quite dry, but there was definitely some mould. I tried breaking a stalk to see if the fibres had been very damaged and there still seemed to be plenty of fibrous material, so I decided to go ahead with the retting process anyway and see what happens. I found the sheep foot bath lying around unattended, so borrowed it for retting:



I had more time that week, so checked them every so often. The nettles seem very variable, with some skins rotting and going mushy quite quickly, and some appearing little-affected by the treatment so far! In the end, I gave them a week and then took them out to see how things were going.

This one the fibres still seem fairly attached to the skin and were peeling off in strips.


This one, the fibres seem to be about all that was left on the stem


I left the nettles leaning spread out against some hurdles for a day in the sunshine. They were fairly dry by evening, so I moved them into a barn to stop them getting rained on. I'm aiming to get them bone dry before I try to get the fibres out...

 

[Toddy]

That's looking very good
I find twisting bunches of the stems at the kind of stage yours are at now helps to free the fibres from the stems before they get too brittle and hard to crush. A flax break is blooming hard work, but it really eases up on the beating stage.

atb,
M

 

[yarrow]

Great food for thought, saves time watching someone else's experiments. Thanks for this.

 

[Cyclingrelf]

Thanks Toddy and Yarrow I've got PilotOfPenzance making a flax brake/break(?) for me - he thinks it's a great excuse to buy himself some wood working tools