Making Cordage

yellowtulipfinch:

Despite my interest in wild skills and primitive knowledge, I hadn’t pursued playing around much with cordage. This past weekend, we went and visited a man who has attended all the Tracker School classes, allows Earthwalk Northwest Wilderness School to teach a portion of their classes on his land and has been practicing primitive skills for the past twenty+ years. In our down time, while we talked, he walked us through making cordage with a pile of Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum L.) he had harvested.

Here’s the rough rundown:

1. Flatten the stalk and use your thumbs or a rock to put enough pressure to cause it to split. Do this along the entire length.

2. The wood is fairly easy to remove. Starting at the thick end, snap off inch-long section of wood. To avoid peeling, pull up one end, then the other, until the strip is removed. I’ve known some people to do this process very quickly and in larger sections, but you’ll save more of the fibers in the long run with a little attention to detail and patience.

3. After you have cleaned the fibers of all bark material, we rolled the entire length in a clockwise direction, to give it some “muscle memory” and which helps along the next process.

4. Now, fold the strand so that one end is about 1/3 longer than the other [Picture 4]. This is done because if the ends were even, you would be creating a point of failure in the cordage when you splice more Dogbane in. By offsetting them the weight load is dispersed throughout the rope.

5. Now for the part that is infinitely easier to explain in action. I hold the top section of the rope between my thumb and pointer finger. The bottom section is held with my middle and index fingers. Twist the top section clockwise very tightly (have as little distance as possible between your right and left hands, to give yourself a tighter wrap) [Picture 5].

6. Next, rotate your wrist, counterclockwise, bringing the bottom strand to the top. You repeat this process until you are finished or reach a couple inches from the splice point. I’ll cover splicing in a different photo-documentation.

7. The weave should begin to look like the final photograph. To finish, or continue later, simply tie a simple knot at the end of the cordage and it should hold fine.

Again, I am new to cordage, and step-by-step tutorials are obviously not my strong suit, but if’in you have access to a fibrous plant, I vote give it a go!