Science & Outdoors
Outdoor Edventures: How to make rope: It’s not as hard as you may think
Science & Outdoors Reporter
It is one of the tricks the old-timers used to do: making rope from what you have around you. Rope is very useful if you go into the woods without it and suddenly need to tie up that yeti you just captured or hang your pack. The easiest way to make one, although it works only for light stuff, is just to find 3 blades of long grass and braid them. This is good for setting a snare for a mouse, but if you really want to catch that yeti there is a better way.
The first thing you need to do is find a Basswood tree. Other trees may work, but a basswood is best because of its fibrous bark. Just look for the tree with the largest leaves you’ve ever seen, about the size of your face and in the shape of a heart. Take your pocket knife and make a line as long as you want the rope to be (four feet is best) down the tree. Make another line about one-quarter inch away from it and connect the two at the top and bottom. The wider the bark is, the stronger it will be, although it will tear easier and be tougher to weave in the end. Next, peel the bark from the tree by prying with your fingernail or knife into the top of the slice. As long as you don’t do this very many times to the same tree, it shouldn’t hurt it very much. On the backside will be a wet shiny layer that needs to be peeled free from the green part.
Once you do this, the possibilities are endless. It is very strong vertically, although horizontally it is rather weak, so make sure that you don’t tear it. The simplest thing to do is peel three cords like this and braid them into a nice piece of rope--a strand of three cords is not easily broken. If you know how, it would also be possible to weave it into an even stronger strand. It is said that this would be strong enough to climb with.
So there you have it--making rope like it’s back in style. Just make sure that you are allowed to mess with the basswood tree that got selected as the lucky candidate and give it a try!
