I asked about rope some time ago. Soaking the rope that I had did get rid of the smell. Too bad it was manilla and useless. I eventually chucked it.
Since then, I've learned a ton of knots. I bought lots of clothes line and used it to learn knots. I almost always have a few short lengths with me so I can keep my hands busy during down time.
Quite a few people think I'm crazy, but OMG rope and knowledge of knots comes in damn handy. Constantly using braided nylon for little bundles and to hold various things. A few weeks ago, a 6' length saved the day when I was in a sticky situation with a power cord. Just last week I bundled up a bunch of couch cushions with an alpine butterfly and a sliding sheetbend for quick and easy carrying. Then I proceded to lash the couch in no time at all with various conducive knots for transport. Boom, done deal.
I showed Girlie #1 how to make a bracelet out of a single strand and she's been doing that particular braid for various things. Then Girlie #2 was throwing a fit about something, so I distracted her by helping her make a necklace with a double-coin knot and some beads. Not to mention the friendship bracelets all over the place.
I've also learned a few things about rope itself. For example, why braided is more expensive than twisted. I didn't think it would make much of a difference, but braided really is much better and worth the extra cost.
I've been playing mostly with cotton and nylon. I eventually decided to try some hemp because I've heard so many good things about it. I bought a ball of hemp string. The girlies and I went through it in no time at all.
Very happy with the string, I decided to look into hemp rope. I couldn't believe what I found and didn't find. What I couldn't find was braided hemp rope. Every place that I've seen sells twisted hemp at one helluva price. I can't imagine how much braided hemp would cost if I had found any. What I did find was how to treat hemp rope. Not only soak it, but boil it, and several other things ("Epic Hemp Rope Treatment").
I know the braids and I know what size rope that I am comfortable working with. So I bought a ball of slightly larger hemp string and braided my own. Then I treated it. OMG I love this rope. It's so soft and cozy. And, for the diameter, can take quite the strain. But I'm scared to use it for anything serious because its my first hemp rope and has sentimental value. I mean, I spent all night braiding it and the next two days making it cozy. Dun break! Not just that, but it knots kind of funny and a whole different school of knots have to be used, which limits its uses anyways.
It's been an awesome learning experience since that first crappy manilla rope.
Great stuff WarJ, love it.
One of the very first accomplishments I remember achieving was some badge or other in the boy scouts for tying knots. I remember I felt like I was learning some of the dark arts and how happy was I to master the reef knot and to discover how damm useful it really was. This seven year old was getting ready to walk in the world with no fear.
Braiding was the next level, at least in my mind. Not only could I make strong pieces of rope from rather weak string or even thin strips of certain bark, (though I never managed much with bark). I could also make necklaces and wristbands in the same manner you describe. In fact I have a wristband on now that I have braided I'll take a photo and upload it in a minute or so.
Meanwhile...
You also reminded me that I like to fasten my shoelaces or better boot laces in different styles either for practicality or just for the hello fit. Hello fit??? heh bloomin' tricksy fingers, I mean hell of it Looksee Lots of knots there too!
From: The Land of one Headlight on. Insane since: May 2001
posted 09-29-2009 19:04
When it comes to tieing knots for any practical purpose I'm completely useless. In fact it's painful watching me try.
That said knots string and rope played a pretty big in my life for quite some time..that would be when I was heavily into flying kites.
Adjusting the knots on bridals and shrouds can be extremely tedious but ultimately rewarding when an erratic kite straightens up and flies right.
I've flown kites on basic cotton thread even dental floss thru to 5K pound test. That big stuff 5K (not mine) and the like can be pretty scary when it starts to sing.
But through it all... the various kevlars nylons and the like, my favorite remains braided Dacron. Not much stretch and it just feels good. Takes knots well and backs can be broken quite easily. I still have reels of he stuff..... 500 lb the max.... down to about 6 or 8 pound. Check out a fishing tackle store. Some of the other fly fishing line I've used hve some nice qualities too.Might want to check out some those.
Then of course there's yoyo string but that's another story isn't it. =)
___________________________________________________________________________
?Privatize the Profits - Socialize the Losses.? Randi Rhodes
I remember back in the 80's that funky lacing was in style for bit. Never knew how far lacing can be taken. I might have to play with some of them.
Kite flying rocks! I'm too much of a maniac and don't do it often enough to put any real money into it. Give me some of those cheap, plastic delta wings and I'm good. Last time I took the girlies kite flying, I busted all three kites in about 1/2 hour because I was so insistent on flying them in wind that was way too high. But it put a big smile on my face.
I had a buddy in boy scouts. I remember being absolutely fascinated with the dark art of knotting that he was capable of. Only a small handful of knots, but the envy has stuck with me. It was such a dark art back then, that I was too scared to ask him how to tie them. Very much akin to having a Playboy magazine under the bed.
Pretty much all of the longer hemp rope that I have braided has been a regular 3-strand braid. But I recently learned the 'whip' braid and I absoutely love it. Plaits. Round plaits? Bloody awesome and I can't wait to get a decent length braided.
Gonna macrame Girlie #1 a belt. The preliminaries are awsome and I have a nice collar with a 2 D-ring buckle. It actually took me a few to figure out how to macrame a belt. Well, settle on a pattern that I like, that is. The popular method thas 2 problems that I don't like, so I fixed both in one swoop by tossing in a hitch.
I've been getting my hemp string from Walmart where it comes in three sizes. The smallest size has been proving difficult. It is really too thin for anybody over here to want to use it. What to do with really thin string that nobody wants? Well, I made a frame and weaved some. I actually sat and weaved really thin hemp rope. Everybody that I've showed it to thinks that it is absolutely awesome. It really is soft now that it is broken in... and really is just plain awesome.
As a result I have been learning more about weaving and looms. I made simple rigid heddle out of cardboard and rocked it with some yarn. Learned about tablet/card weaving and rocked some more yarn. For the tablet/card weaving, I used chair legs for a loom. I just turned a chair on its side and loomed it up. Hahaha. Inkle loom or something. And I have been giving some serious thought to buying a cricket loom. When I get to it, I'm going to carve a shuttle from a paint mixing stick. Heh, gotta love low-tech.
I have some small hobby dowels. I used some of these for weaving some hemp cloth. One of these days I'm going to make a plant hanger using said dowels and traditional bondage knots. Free-style some stuff. Then give it to my mother just for giggles. She's got a green thumb and can't resist a plant hanger. I can't help but wonder if she will recognize or think that its my creatively shining through. Heh.
In addition to table/card weaving, I've learned about finger loop braiding. OMG more awesome! I can teach this to kids in no time at all and keep them busy. I highly recommend looking into finger loop braiding.
Oh, something or three I forgot to tell y'all about.
Epic Hemp Rope Treatment
I have been kind of following epic hemp rope treatment. Mostly, but not entirely. I have kind of learned where I can deviate depending on what I am after.
So, one day I had shit tons of hemp string. I spent all night doing 3-strand braids. Made two really big large and three mediums. Seriously all night. Both of the larges are just ove 20' each and the three mediums are (were) just under 20 each. So I did this and that and got down with boiling.
Unfortunately I fell asleep for more than a few hours. The water boiled out and my rope got burned. Something like five hours and sore fingers tips down the drain. Ahhh! I was so pissed.
Salvaged what I could. Lost a few feet here and there. One one of the mediums I lost about 4'. I carry this lost strand with me and play with it on occassion. It broke in damn nice.
Anyways, my burned rope has far more personality than I ever expected. I thought it was ruined, but it is awesome. Full of personality and irony. It is burned, so it smells naughty. And I didn't bother de-fringing it, so it is pretty rough for being hemp. I have come to love my burned hemp rope. Happy accident if I've ever had one.
Another thing I have been learning about is sewing. Like with a sewing machine. In particular, I'm interested in recycling old clothes into something that I can use. For example, cutting off pant legs and turning into a mini duffle bag. My burned hemp rope is in a denim pant leg tied off with an awesome whipping knot on the inside.
I also have a bag that I sewed from an old button up shirt. I sewed it like a mini duffle bag with both lapel pockets on it. The draw string on this is a sliding sheet bend. I can't wait to make more of these. You know, go to Good Will and load up or something.
From: The Land of one Headlight on. Insane since: May 2001
posted 12-26-2009 11:22
Good stuff.
Another source for braids/ing, just in case you've missed it is leather work. I have a great book that shows just a ton patterns and knots and of course it all plays nicely into sewing.
My neighbour recently picked up a big old industrial strength sewing machine. Can stitch through steel I'm sure. We're just now waiting for the woman who used to own it to come over and show us how to thread the damn thing. And there's a bit of urgency there... she's in her mid 80's currently holidaying in Hawaii and won't be back till early spring.
Another source for hemp and similar in bulk is a farmers mercantile outlet.
oh... and a great way to 'contain' a spool of whatever is a clay plant pot and drip tray. Spool sits on the drip tray... invert plant pot pull string hemp... up through the hole in the plant pot. Just keep pulling thru the hole. works well.
Another handy tool... if you're cutting a lot of the lighter strings/hemp... is a butchers ring knife. It fits on your little finger and has a small hooked blade. Bit hard to explain but you sort hook the string in the blade and flick
your wrist. Cut.
___________________________________________________________________________
?Privatize the Profits - Socialize the Losses.? Randi Rhodes
I took a barstool and drilled a hole in it to make it into a marudai. I can do lots of cool things with it. Also learned a great about bobbins, counter-weights, and tension on a marudai.
Made some kumihimo disks out of cardboard and did some uberness with them. So did Girlie #1. We can whip out friendship bracelets like mofos with a little circle of cardboard in no time at all.
Also made rigid heddle out of cardboard and it was alright. Girlie #1 has her own looms of this sort and she makes pretty big bracers using them.
Major uber with barstool marudai. Massive 17' hemp rope. Belts with heart shapes. Super awesome pink rope, and super awesome purple rope.
Do some searches for 'marudai' and 'kumihimo'. You'll find plenty of the kinds of things that I have been up to.
I bought an $80 camera not too long ago and started documenting a lot of my things. Those are some of the various rope-centric snaps that I have handy.
If you have any questions about any of those snaps, I'll post ya the notes. Or maybe I'll BBL and just babble about dem dar snaps.
From: The Land of one Headlight on. Insane since: May 2001
posted 06-03-2010 16:51
Oooooh.... you must have interesting dreams..... this over that... that under this...and all those colours!! Nice work and I'm betting it's almost calming once you get on to it. At least that's what I found when I did a lot of leather lacing eons ago.
That stool set up is great...I love those type of hacks.... or re-purposing...or whatever you want to call it.
The one on the left is hobby hemp from Wal-Mart. I dyed it purple with Rit and did 4-strand on my barstool. It went damn fast and turned out better than I was expecting. Did the whole spool into two lengths and both are about 23' each. I do most in pairs like this. You know, like mated pairs of shoe laces.
The one (two) on the right is bleached hemp yarn from Hemp Basics that I dyed pink. Doubled it up for 8-strand on my barstool. Two mated lengths at approx 7' each. These ropes are damn awesome! Dye coverage was 100%, good and consistant thickness, has a very prim-n-proper braided nylon look/feel to it, and it passes all friction knot tests with flying colours. So far these are my ubers.
Sad this is, gonna put those ropes away and they won't get any real action. I just make it and archive it.
I'll work on getting some non-rope stuff up soon. Friendship bracelets and things like that.
One of the things that got me set down this path was wanting to learn how to make friendship bracelets. But I didn't want to learn just the knots. I wanted to learn about the different kinds of ropes and strings. What is the difference between cotton yarn and nylon? What about corded cotton clothesline? Things like that. All of it.
One thing I learned about rope is that I don't like twisted. I bought some twisted nylon and it sucks ass. Don't like twisted. Usable, but very muchly prefer braided. That's when I learned why there is such a huge price difference between twisted and braided.
Set out to braid my own lengths of rope. I heard good things about hemp, so I did some experimenting with braiding hemp into rope. I notice immediately that hemp rope knots very differently. You don't just tie an adjustable hitch with hemp rope. You have to learn an entirely different way of thinking when it comes to natural fiber rope. Learning about how to tie natural fiber rope is how I came across the sexier side of rope use. Whole new world.
Somewhere in there I learned about marudai and kumihimo things. Started making my own looms about of things that I had handy. Not just my barstool, but weaving looms and other things. Even did some tablet weaving with an old deck of cards and a kitchen chair that I turned into an inkel loom.
Oh, check out finger weaving if you want simple, easy, and useful fun.
I got some of the pattern(s) down and can do even more braids with the epiphanies contained within.
Ashley's Book of Knots has a chapter dedicated to marudai. I can't decipher the instructions as presented, but I can figure most of them out by looking at the line patterns.
NoJive, I watched that video more than a few times trying to glean anything at all. I would so love to make a day of a place like that!
Close to a year ago, I bought 100' of cotton clothesline. Left it in its original wrapper and in a drawer. Tucked it away for a rainy day. Pulled it out last week and made a net.
Did it old school style using mesh or netting knot. Some folks use square knot, but not me. Some day I'll make a real netting needle instead of using a dowel bobbin.
It is only half as wide as it is long. Gonna buy another 100' soon and square it off.
The rope is rated at 21 pounds, so mostly a novelty thing.
People seem to be rather impressed with my nets. I've done a few.
Close to a year ago, I bought 100' of cotton clothesline. Left it in its original wrapper and in a drawer. Tucked it away for a rainy day. Pulled it out last week and made a net.
Did it old school style using mesh or netting knot. Some folks use square knot, but not me. Some day I'll make a real netting needle instead of using a dowel bobbin.
It is only half as wide as it is long. Gonna buy another 100' soon and square it off.
The rope is rated at 21 pounds, so mostly a novelty thing.
People seem to be rather impressed with my nets. I've done a few.
posted 09-28-2009 15:44
