baler twine?


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.338WinMag

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Any one use good old baler twine as we called it for your bushcrafting cordage ?its cheap or free and the sisal or what ever the natural variety is made of is biodegradable many shelters have we reinforced with it and left knowing that in time it will go back to the ground ,and i know horseman out here know the value of it during back country excursions ,heck on the farm it was and is used for all kinds of binding purposes ,and waaaay cheaper than p cord or most any other cord that i'm aware of, your thoughts would be appreciated . .338winmag:4:
 
Yes. We used to braid it to make temporary leads for my Moms escape artist gelding. Mostly we'd stash them by the apple trees - that's where he eventually wondered too, lol.

I still keep sisal twine for gardening and to give the kids to play with. If they leave it laying around, it will be gone in couple of seasons.
 
I'm a farmers son and we always had a big roll of baler twine in the shed used for ...well you name it really.
Loved the smell of the natural twine .

Nowadays I still usually have a hank or two in my work jacket as we bale small hay bales on the nature reserve where I work.
It's amazing what can be done with baler twine a feed sack and a pocket knife :).
I keep telling the young trainees to cut the bales at the knot thus saving a long length of twine.

Pete.
 
I have nightmares about the plastic stuff. Well, both sisal and plastic. Used to have about 120+ hd of cattle here on the farm, fed tons of bales every winter. Had to cut the plastic off so it wouldn't end up in their bellies or wrapped up in the bale processor (which it did anyway). Sisal twine rots on the bottom of the bale so half the bale falls onto the ground when you pick it up (on round bales). On square bales the stuff rots off then the bales explode when you try to move them.

It does make OK cordage. Used to be a fella here that had old rope making equipment and would make pretty strong ropes out of plastic twine (about 2 inches in diameter). The sisal stuff is OK for the short term but when exposed to weather it rots fast. It will rot in the roll too if you don't keep it well protected. I can't count how many times I've tried to pull the end out of a roll of sisal baling twine and got about a foot to come out. That, or the core collapses and you just have a giant mess.

End rambling :D
 
Yup. Grew up on the stuff. Fancy kids had 550 cord, I had sisal twine. Made rope from it for a how-to paper and demonstration in high school.

Oh yeah...hated tossing bales just to have the bottom twine bust. Plastic stuff was horrid...I hated that. Didn't hold knots well, broke when you didn't want it to and cut your hand instead of breaking when you wanted it to break/cut.

Would not mind getting a hold of a big ol' spool of the natural stuff. Not real reusable, but never had to worry about leaving it behind in the woods. give it a few weeks and it'll be back to dirt.
 
Ugh, I have so many hundreds of feet of that stuff stashed in a plastic bag from my horses' hay bales....Hah. Um, it's not my favorite. It rots fast, and actually frays quick(fairly) under any sort of weight if you're hanging something from it especially outside. Speaking of the natural kind. Plastic is a bit better, and woo...Does it give lovely ropeburn =p Got scars from it. Paracord for me...
 
I use binder twine all the time. Made rope out of it, used it for tent rpoes and lashing. That stuff when you fluff it up a little bit is home growed, down on the farm, napalm. Makes fine tinder if you fluff it up too much it is flash tinder.
 
I've often wondered how binder twine would work for a fire starter a dry piece was dipped in wax. Maybe I'll try it.
 
if all the baler twine inthe world disapeared at once my farm would probably fall down its just to handy for those speedy little repair jobs great stuff
 
Used to use it all the time for lashings. The natural cordage doesnt' stretch like the synthetic cordage, so it works better for lashing. As it has been mentioned it does rot away fairly quickly, but we were doing temporary projects at scout camp so the next year after all the pieces rotted or were burned by other scouts we could start all over the next year.
 
Man I feel for you guys that have to hold the farm together with twine. We at least had baling wire, or, if the circumstance was particularly dire, #9 wire!
 
I use it a lot. I used t save strings from freinds bales when I was feeding for them, but once I had to buy a couple spools (have to buy 2 at a time) for pulling an electric line. I gave one spool to the electrician, and kept one. I've been terrifically wasteful of it, when pulling wire, I just cut it up as I pull it and throw it away, I never try to salvage it when using it and give some away to others whenever I can, and it's still lasted 6 years. I've made a 700 ft pull, and several 300-400 ft pulls, just throwing it away as I pull it out. I think 2 spools of 10,000 ft was about $25.

I think it works good for general camp stuff, and setting up shelters.
 
Plastic only round here, and I get as much as my pockets can hold for free. We have 50 acres of ramshackle buildings, fences and machinery held together with the stuff and can't use up more than a fraction of what we gain in one day's feeding of 60 horse with small bales... Sure it's non-biodegradable, untwists and frays but it's baler twine. Only a countryboy would understand.
 
I probably have about 1000 foot of the plastic variaty stached here and there. It works for alot of things but not for dowdrills, thats the only thing i have found to mess it up.
 
Don't have any nowadays, but back in my Scouting days, we used to rebuild Kia Kima Scout Rez from the ground up with it every summer. It's short-lived qualities make it perfect for Scouts, who naturally use copious quantities setting up camp and stringing tarps, etc. My troop used to put a whole roll in a five gallon bucket and stick the running end through a knife cut in the top, kept it dry and neat.
 
Sisal yes, plastic no. Sisal bale twine is the only cordage I don't mind "wasting". It's so darn cheap!
 
We used it for teaching lashing in our scout troop. Years ago we used 1/4" sisal 3-strand twisted rope, but it got too expensive. We made lots of lashing-length strands of cheap rope with a hand spinner similar to the one in an article in the newest issue of BACKWOODSMAN MAGAZINE. 8-10' lengths are fast, easy and fun for the boys to whip out. We'd set aside a troop meeting where each patrol would spend the evening making up enough hanks of rope for dozens of projects. Whipping the ends killed another requirement that they needed.
 
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Dad just told me on Christmas he bale finally gave up the ghost. He wants a new bale. We used it on the farm all the time for everything.
 
Bailing twine (sisal) and bailing wire are staples around the homestead.

I almost always have a coil of bailing wire stuffed in my coat pockets along with some leather gloves.

The twine seems to be stuffed into about every thing. along with the flat beds floorboard.

I pick up hunks and use / abuse / throw it away.

I use the primitive cordage twist to make two strand string out of it then use the strings to make thicker rope till i get the thickness I need for the project at hand.

It is wonderful stuff for teaching how to make cordage from fibers.

The wire makes repairs of all kinds for more semi perminint stuff like getting a torn loose exhaust pipe to stay up off the ground or holding together an old engine etc.

Bailing cord / wire is like duct tape. Everyone ought to have some handy around the place, and out in the woods.
 
When I was a boy scout my troop leader (the best woodsman I know) made extensive use of bailer twine. Except for the more heavy duty tasks like ridgelines for tarps or guy line for prospector tents he had us use bailing twine.
 
A nice ball or roll of it rolled tightly and then "painted" with bees wax or paraffin makes for a good tinder bundle in you bob.
 
im gonna get some !!
i have used it acouple og times with my friends at their farm for about everything
it is amazing stuff and sooo usefull !!
 
The natural sisal twine does catch a spark pretty easily.
 
John Van Gelder said:
.338WinMag

Bailer twine has not been made of sisal for a very long time, it is all now some sort of plastic. The old stuff could be shredded down to make great tinder, but not the current stuff.
Click to expand...



Don't know what kind of livestock you have or what hay you put up my dad still uses sisal twine. As it's edible by his cattle. I can run down to the local farm and ranch store and buy a 9000' rool for $45 right now if I needed it.
 
Must be a midwest thing. I've seen the plastic stuff, but the farm stores around here still carry a couple different sizes of it for dirt cheap compared to synthetic cords.
We use it with our boy's group for lashing projects. Holds great, cheap and will eventually disappear but if you want to re-lash an old project you just cut off one lash at a time and re-do them. Good stuff when you don't want to have to salvage your p-cord off a lashing project.
Stick the roll in a 3-gallon bucket and drill a hole in the lid to feed it out of works great to keep it tidy and keep the loose fibers off of everything else.
We've also used it to make 3-strand twisted rope with a home made rope-making machine. Great project for boy's groups and you can make pretty much any size rope from just 3 single strands up to inches-thick tug-o'-war ropes.
 
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