Natural Cordage


justin_baker

justin_baker

Bushmaster
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Just wanted to show off some natural cordage I made. I made it from New Zealand flax that grows in my yard. I still have yet to master the art of natural cordage, but I have made some decent stuff. I just have a hard time keeping the strands equal and keeping one from wrapping around the other.
Anyways, if you have any natural cordage post it up!
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Here's mine I posted a little while ago. It's braided rather than twisted.
http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41684&highlight=cordage

I just have a hard time keeping the strands equal
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The next time you are in a pharmacy or similar, find a metal lice comb. It has teeth that are very close together. I used one the last time I made cordage to separate the fibers and it made nice little even strands that were a whole lot easier to twist together than my previous attempts.
 
I am in the process of making a fiber comb from a deer bone. I had one but gave it away a while back at one of my primitive skills demonstrations. They are real easy to make out of a piece of leg bone or you can make a larger one out of the shoulder blade. Just break or cut the bone to where you have a wide flat straight edge on it, then cut a series of notches across the straight edge. When you are done it will look like this: ^^^^^^^ across the bottom. Then just start combing your stalk with it. I used mine on nettle, yucca, and milk weed.

Best wishes,

Joe
 
I am definantly going to try the comb method for separating and cleaning fiber, good tip!

I was practicing cordage quite a bit last summer with nettle (green and dried), sinew, raw hide, cedar, shreded honey suckle bark, cedar roots and learned quite a bit from the practice. Lots of fun too. I still have alot to learn how to make the even fiber too. I'll throw some pictures up of some what I made.
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cedar root for stitching baskets
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cedar roots gathered and cleaned with a split stick
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Rolling green nettle cord that is being used for a neck knife cord and has lasted 8 months of regular use.
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Rawhide cord being made
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Cedar root for lashing frog gig and bone spear head
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Tapered nettle fish line with sinew leader.
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Cedar rope for quiver and basket straps. I here cedar is far stronger when wet and pretty week when dry. Rawhide for bow drill cord.
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Rawhide for apache thowing star
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I've made some "cordage combs" out of both bone and antler. The antler ones have wide teeth and not so deep grooves and the bone have more narrow, longer teeth. Both styles work great. I too use them on yucca, nettle and dogbane. Well worth making some and an easy project.

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Here's some dogbane cordage:

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And some dogbane waiting to be twisted up:

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If you want to take your cordage to the next level, try three ply. The splices are 30% stonger and its easier to produce longer lengths of a consistent diameter.

Swamp milkweed is my preferred cordage plant but the bowdrill cord below is dogbane. The arrow points are Onondaga chert with deer sinew hafting.

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cordage

This is an eye opening thread for me for I cannot make cordage and yet I use it for many applications at work and home and field. Come to think of it, the most important skills in an real outdoor living situaiton would be the gathering/procurement of food, sewing/cordage, and fire. The cordage skill carries over to food collection because of it's use for trapping, and cordage can also be used for the bow drill for fire creation.

Seeing that cordage is so important makes me appreciate it alll the more and realize that I've so much more to learn.
 
lots of fine cordage being made here.
any yall made yr bowstring outta plant cordage?
what did you use?
how did it work?
what was the final diameter of cord?

along with plant fibers, how bout rawhide?
twisted?
thickness?

thanks!
 
Neat old thread!

Bushcraft-kelso said:
I despise making natural cordage! But I'll make some tomorrow just to keep up on in :(
Click to expand...

I love it, lol...made hundreds and hundreds of feet of cordage this year, too :dblthumb:

On three-strand cord: It's possible to twist up all three strands at one time, done 'in the hand' just like two-strand twisting, but with a couple extra finger moves. You can also make two-strand cordage, then go back and add the third strand in separately. 3-strand cord is significantly stronger than 2-strand, IMO.
 
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