Twisting in the sun

[PatrickM]

Another new rope in the making - using up last years lime bast.
I started this in a sunny woodland last week - looks like it will be finished in the snow.

 

[udamiano]

Nice work there Patrick.

 

[Emdiesse]

Very impressive, very neat! Do you have any progress photos? I'd love to see the steps you took
Is it all from plant fibres you collected yourself? How do you collect so many!

 

[RonW]

Cool!
I need to find me some material here too and start practicing.

 

[Toddy]

Oh nice rope and from the best of stuff too
and there was me chuffed to make the rope from the old iris leaves
This sleety snow is not pleasant to work in, I tried and gave up and came indoors.


atb,
M

 

[grey-array]

Do you have any progress photos? I'd love to see the steps you took
Is it all from plant fibres you collected yourself? How do you collect so many!

exactly my questions ^^ and wonderfully neat job you did there looks really rugged yet clean as a whistle
Top job on that
Yours sincerely Ruud

 

[PatrickM]

You have every reason to be chuffed Mary Lovely work.

 

[Sappy]

You sir have serious patience.

 

[PatrickM]

I collect a wide variety of natural materials when they are in season - a year or two in advance sometimes, this allows me to use them when I want.
Nature provides many useful things at certain times of the year, try not to miss this opportunity or you'll have a wait on your hands.
I live on farm land and my neighbor is the farmer, he has an organic dump which tree surgeons, landscape gardeners etc bring their wastage, I usually get a call to
come and see what I can use.

On occasions I have found myself stripping bark from tree limbs at 3 in the morning before it goes into the shredder.

Top tip.......get out and about after a day of high winds and work with the seasons. This is some of last years elm and will go towards a thick rope sometime this year.

 

[wildranger]

Fantastic work Patrick, like Sappy said, you have serious patience, which probably is the single most important trait to be successful at the craft-side of bushcraft. The rope interests me greatly, I'm curious to know what the diameter is and what kind of maximum load it will support if you were to push it to its limits?

 

[PatrickM]

Here is examples of some fibre work showing a range of plant, root, shrub, animal (hair, sinew, rawhide buckskin, intestines, veins)
and the inner bark of many different species. These fibres are all picked for their strength although I test anything that can be twisted or braided and
discard many as unsuitable for my needs although they can still be used in other ways. The breaking strain will be affected by a number of things -
time of harvesting, condition of fibers, processing, construction technique etc. The new lime bast rope has not been tested yet but the one in the photograph will hold
my weight (nearly 12 stone) when using the South Africa abseiling technique as will the two thicker ropes. The breaking strain of the finer strings varies from anywhere
between 10 - 60 lb and can be more if multi strands are twisted up. The ability to work fibre into thread, string or rope is an essential wilderness skill,
it also leads into many other areas of this subject - an endless journey which is full of rediscovery - i still have a lot to learn. A new year is upon us and will provide you
with plenty of material to work with - experimentation is the key and you will find out that some of what you may read on the subject of cordage needs to be rewritten.

 

[wildranger]

Very interesting reply and amazing collection of ropes you have there Patrick. You're really pushing the limits of our knowledge in bushcraft and that's what I love to see, that's what's needed if we're ever to feel at home in the natural world, one simply has to expand one's skills and knowledge to a whole new level before one can live with only what nature provides.