Rope

Pre-requisite skills: none.

Rope (or cordage if you want to sound professional) is a length of fibers, spun into yarn, twisted into strands and retwisted into rope. The repeat twisting increases strength, which increases usefulness.

History

The earliest evidence for rope is an impression imprinted on pottery some 30000 years ago – 28000B.C. There is little doubt that whole cultures have risen and returned to dust with rope, wood and earth as their sole building materials.

Raw materials

Rope can be made out of any fibrous material that is both pliable and has a tendency to grip. In other words, the material is required to bend, not break, and the fibers need to grip each other when twisted together. Historically, several fibers from plants have been commonly used for mass rope making. These include coir (from coconut), flax, sissal (from agave), hemp, manilla (from banana), cotton and jute.

Any fiber -natural or not- which satisfies two simple tests can be used to make rope.
1) The fibers can be spun together and not fully unravel (ie grip) when released, and
2) The fibers can be wrapped around your finger without breaking.

twines and yarns - clockwise from top left: Hemp, nettle, coir, twine, sissal.

Rope making rules.

1. When adding fibers while making yarn, try to stagger the position of the ‘join’ on each yarn to increase strength.
2. The direction of twisting alternates for each successive step (this will make sense in a few minutes – and is depicted in thediagram below).

s- and z-laid rope, lke good and evil, can't exist without each other.

Some terminology.

Finished rope, can be described as s- or z-laid (see picture, the original was from here). Note that, an s-laid yarn, strand or rope cannot be combined with a z-laid yarn, strand or rope as one will unravel as the other tightens. Like sheep and cattle, s- and z- strands don’t mix.

Unfortunately, s- or z- are not convenient terms to use to describe the initial process. Often, instructions describe the twisting process as clockwise or anticlockwise. Personally, I find that a bit confusing, as it depends on which way you look at the job in hand (literally) and whether you’re right or left handed. Therefore, twisting in these notes will be termed towards and away. Its OK though, when we’re done you’ll be able to use s- and z-laid with abandon!

Starting

1. Find some materials to use. Kitchen string is excellent to practice with. If you’re a purist, pull up grasses, strip off bark, pull up weeds, mash them into a fibrous blob and subject them to the tests outlined above (raw materials). I had a ‘Robinson Crusoe’ moment and found a coconut on a local beach to use here.

2. I’m a right handed  ’away‘ twister – I hold the fibers in my left hand and twist them with my right. All you need to do to start is to have a long enough yarn (twisted fiber) to work with comfortably. Maybe about four inches.

3. About 1/4 to 1/3 of the way along the yarn, keep twisting the yarn until it kinks and folds back on itself – you’ve started!

4. Move your holding hand (the non-twisting one) over the kink with both loose ends hanging out to the same side. One will be longer that the other – this is so that the joins in the fibers don’t line up as the strand develops (see rule 1). Twist the top fibers away to tighten the fibers and then wrap this tight yarn towards you (rule 2), overlapping the other yarn. Inch the holding hand over the overlap and  swap your twisting hand to the other yarn – now at the top. Twist the fibers away to tighten them and then wrap this tight yarn towards you, overlapping the other yarn. Inch the fingers of your holding hand over the overlap of the two strands. Repeat this step until you are the proud owner of a few inches of cordage. If you let go of the whole thing now, it won’t unravel. This is because the away fibers in the towards strands grip each other due to the opposite twist direction and ‘seize up’ – which is why you need grippy fibers to make rope.

Continuing

5. Just keep going. twist away, overlay towards, inch forward…

Thickening – two- and three-ply

You have a choice to make at this point. Do you want a two-ply rope (which is quicker) or a three-ply rope (which is both stronger and neater).

2-ply

6a. To increase the thickness of the developing rope, simply find 1/2 way along your rope from the previous step and twist so that the strands tighten and then kink – the same process as in step 3 holds.  Twist the the top strand so that it tightens, and then overlay in the opposite direction. And repeat…

3-ply.

6b. To do this you need three strands – one twice as long as the other (the long one can be folded in half to become two strands). It’s important that both strands have been laid the same way, or the rope won’t work. Get the long strand and twist a kink into it. Before the kink tightens, thread the third strand through the loop. Then tighten. Place your finger on the overlap. You now have three strands ready to go.

6c. Start withone of the strands that comes off the loop – this will keep the loop tight while you start. Twist so that the strand tightens, and then overlay the other way. If you’re using the strands from the previous example, you’ll notice that the twist and overlay are the opposite to last time – adhereing gracefully to rule 2 above.

7. Each time you twist and overlay, a new strand will be at the top. Keep on choosing the top strand and overlay to make it the bottom strand – an angle of about 45 degrees seems to work well.

8. Just keep going. Twist, overlay, inch along and repeat…

Whipping.

The loose end of the rope will unravel if not tied up. It’s called whipping (again – use the term to sound professional). Presented here is a simple whipping which is both neat and effective.

9. Take a strand, make a loop (any size really) and lie it so that both ends hang off the end of the rope.

10. Using one of the strands – wrap it tightly around and around the rope. When it starts to get a bit short, feed the strand through the loop.

11. Pull the other end of the strand, which will close down the loop and grab the wrapped strand. Don’t stop! Keep pulling and the loose end will get dragged neatly underneath the whipping. Trim the other end.

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Rules-of -thumb.

1. To make a strand of any length, you’ll need to start with 1.3 times longer yarn. eg. making a three-ply rope 10 meters long, you’ll need three strands of 13m, each made up of 2 or 3 strands of 17m, requiring 22m of yarn per strand. This is why people have spent centuries perfecting knots that untie easily, and why cutting a rope is probably the 8th deadly sin!

2. Apparently, the effective lifting capacity of a rope can be calculated by working out the rope circumference in inches, multiplying this number by itself, then dividing by 5. The answer is in tonnes. eg. for a 1 inch (circumference) rope.
1 x 1 / 5 = 0.2t. The answer for the 3-ply rope made here is ~75kg – strong enough to hold most small animals in a trap or secure most manageable logs in a shelter.

And that’s that. This post has some clear spin-off posts. One is splicing – joining bits of rope together. The other is knots.

References.

Rope with no tools – instructibles
Knots – doit101
History of rope – shurdington.org

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