Survival Guide: Make YARDS of natural cordage in MINUTES
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Cordage making is a core skill that humans have depended on for millenia. In our modern world of manufactured convenience, comparitively very few people still know how to do this ancient craft. Practicing this not only hones a usefull survival skill, but also rewilds us, brings us closer to the land and changes our perspective. Suddenly, you will see useful materials and plants where you have never seen them before. At least, that's been my experience. I hope this video help you! Comment with what you'd like to see next!
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Holy shit. This was a masterclass in plant fibers and natural cordage. Color me impressed
Masterclass is an exaggeration. This is a very basic demonstration
To speed up fibre collection, traditionally in some cultures a spiked brush tool was carried around with a twill. You don’t have to beat the material and even tall grass stalks work with this method since it creates a thin fibre material. The brush can be made from wood so long as you sharpen them and dowel into pockets in the head. The back of the head is used for cracking the fibre out through rubbing it back and forth. When using the brush part you grab your bundle of fibre and wack it and pull towards you repeatedly until it becomes closer to hair, then it should be just about ready to use and you can make the decision whether to make it finer material by using a fine comb version of your previous tool. Some material will get lost refining it further but it will start to look like actual hair at a certain point.
what is this tool called? how could i make it?
@@wolfie1703 Sounds like a primitive version of what was used for refining flax fibres, essentially a comb/brush with sharp iron nails, these search terms should give you an idea; hackle / heckle / hatchel
@@oddstr13 Thank you so much!
Just incredible knowledge. Thank you for sharing!
I've used this method with cedar bark - you have to splice more often because the fibers are shorter, but it works well. Interesting note: anything you can make cordage from also makes wonderful tinder. Process in the same way, but instead of wrapping into cordage, just fluff it out into a "bird's nest." This will light well from a spark or bowdrill coal.
I live in the U.K. and Nettles are abundant. Stems for cordage, leaves for tea and cooking = minimal waste.
I had the same thought, though I'm from America XD
My mom loves elder berries, and our lake has a trail full of them and nettles. My first concern was if you needed older plants, because if so, it'd be great to gather when we get berries. If my mom doesn't want to help, I'm making wine while I work on my cordage.
There is also a plant that grows near the nettles that takes the sting away if you rub up against the wrong way with the nettles do you know what that is called
@@kenthatfield4287 It's called plantains or fleaworts.
You can eat the roots also, and they're supposedly very nutritious
@@mattjohnson9727 Going to make an assumption here and that you're not referring to actual dogbane, but of plantains or fleaworts, yeah?
Basket weaving is another primal skill that's well worth knowing....
i took underwater basket weaving in college
@@derreck9068I attended the methamphetamine symposium and participated in the the African killer spelling bee. Did anybody go bowling at the ice hockey rink?
Okra stalks make EXCELLENT cordage. Cordage is definitely the first thing people should learn. Once you have cordage, you have a bow drill. MUCH easier than a hand drill.
Groundhogs just murdered my okra...thanks for the tip now I can do something with the long stems still growing
You certainly have a knack for explaining things.
Well that's the point
These instructions are very clear and anyone who has never tried this will have
success following the video. I'm forever making cordage from what ever comes
to hand. I'd like to try plastic from a soda bottle cut as thin as capellini or angel's
hair pasta just to see how it works and horse tail hair cordage to create a viable
fishing line that is less obvious than plant fiber.
Such clear and effective instruction! Thank you! I love the clearly shot closeups of the finger work and splicing in new fibers.
This video popped up cause I was googling this yesterday and for once, it did NOT annoy me, lol. He gets right to the point and keeps it engaging with a variety of topics covered on channel, easy sub from me! Thanks:)
Once you learn cordage making and flint knapping, you can logic your way back to society. Tie the flint blades to sticks with cordage for tools, use those tools to make better tools and gather better resources for tools. Maybe learn to identify Tin and Copper for bronze, or just skip to Iron when you get some bricks and bellows set up. The point is, finding and making cordage is a foundational skill that, while we don't need nowadays in society, we might need if we're ever outside of it.
Much easier than that. Just get two sticks and 3 oak planks to make a wooden pickaxe, use it to get 3 cobblestone and boom, stone pickaxe.
@@justinbuddy56 Unfortunately, the Earth server's admins moved to a hyper-realistic modpack quite a while ago, so we have to deal with these slower, more "realistic" tool-making recipes. The graphics are unmatched, sure, but sometimes it gets way too grindy for my preference.
@@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606 😶🌫
There's a variety of yucca, possibly Adam's Needle, that grows in Oregon that I am certain would do very well in southern Idaho. It is hardy to zone 4. If you're looking for plentiful material that grows wild, yucca is probably not the thing in northern areas since even though some varieties are very cold hardy they're mostly limited to curated landscapes. A similar landscaping plant, the New Zealand flax, also produces extremely strong, long fibers that make superior cordage. The flax processes down somewhat thicker than yucca and can be difficult to work with when dry.
On an unrelated note, I have found that the inner bark of cedar makes an extremely soft twine that, once it has been thoroughly worked to remove fine splinters, is very comfortable against the skin. Another excellent skin-contact fiber source is day lily. The dead leaves, when collected early in the morning when they are still damp with dew, are easy to twine and produce, flat out, the most comfortable skin-contact twine I've ever encountered.
On a very unrelated note, i never start with the "halfway" technique of starting my twine at the center of a bundle of fibers. I _always_ start with two bundles so that I can double the loose, starting end back over and splice it in to make an integrated loop at the beginning end of a piece of cordage.
Ima keep rolling with the unrelated. I also make narrow rope using three strands of twine. Keeping the position of each strand relative to the others is critical for making three strand rope by hand. The method is exactly the same as the reverse twist but instead of a pattern of A, B, A, B, A, B the pattern is A, B, C, A, B, C. I've also tried four strand, but the resulting rope is too loosely wound at that point. You can continue doing three strand twining with each finished rope, so three strands of twine become one thin rope, three thin ropes become one thick rope, three thick ropes become one cable, etc. It takes a BOATLOAD of fibers to make any rope of decent length. Three ten foot sections of twine make a three foot section of thin rope and three ten foot sections of thin rope make a three foot section of thick rope, so figure that for every nine hundred feet of twine you'll end up with about ten feet of thick rope. You'd better _really_ need a thick rope to dedicate that much work and materials.
Final unrelated. If you're clever, you can use twining techniques to make a knotless net. It seems hard at first but once you get the hang of it you can crank out a lot of net. Again though, it really uses up a lot of material, so you'd better actually need a net.
Excellent video on making cordage. Thanks for sharing. I was down in Williamsburg Va at a Native American display and an elder showed me how to do this. He captivated my learning immediately. Then he used a flint and steel and char cloth to light his pipe and these skills increased my interests in the old ways of surviving
As I'm sure you know, when an elder speaks, we must always listen!!! That, too, is the old way of things that are unfortunately disappearing. Natives survived and thrived many moons longer than the white men.
Boiling the fibers with ashes will make a long lasting cordage. (Ray Mears tip)
How?
@@liawatson5789 witchcraft.
well im sure at least boiling makes them more pliable for when you twist them by softening and relaxing the fibers meaning there won't be any microtears from twisting and after it dries it shrinks back up so its nice and tight. i can't speak for the ashes but who knows maybe some chemical stuff happens. you are impregnating it with carbon and other chemicals after all. i guess for the ashes the only real way to find out is to run some tests.
@@rays5163 maybe the potash (potassium hydroxide) inside the ash when reacting with water softens the fibers and makes them more maleable.
@@AaronC.
Maybe?
It's Ray Mears dude, there is no maybe involved.
Ray has forgotten more bushcraft than this guy knows.
We are really lucky here in New Zealand we have a few plants that give extremely strong fiber.
Harakeke (Phormium tenax ) was a major export for extremely strong rope and Tī kōuka (Cordyline australis) which while a shorter leaf gives an extremely strong fiber and was the primary line for fishing.
I have fished with it and landed fish of more than 12 pounds.
Tī kōuka is found as an ornamental in the American upper mid west coast known there as Cornish palm.
It was a food resource for my people in areas where other staples would not grow, it can be felled and the pulpy center can be eaten, it was called "millionaire's cabbage" in my childhood because it costs the life of the plant.
dead cabbage tree leaves are also good for starting fires with the ol flint if you scrape it fine with a knife
Our family of 7 recently found your channel, and we absolutely love it!!! I homeschool my kids, and we watch your videos together. Can you do some plant identification? We're a very outdoors family, and survival is a common topic as we're a medically retired military family.
Awesome! Thanks for your support! I can definitely do some survival related foraging videos
@sagesmokesurvival awesome thank you!!! Also, look for The Foxfire books. The oldest edition you can find. It's packed full of great information!!!
@@fallenangelwi25
There are digital copies on the Internet Archives site.
@@fallenangelwi25 @sagesmokesurvival Yes, the Foxfire books hold so much useful knowledge!
You just answered a question I’ve had for 4 years now! I have some land that I only get to in the fall/winter months, and I always find a stalk that has fine fibers and makes amazing cordage. Never knew what the heck it was until now, it’s Dogbane. Thank you!
Elm bark, hickory, juniper, thistle, ash bark, I've even used oak bark. Wild grapevine, elm roots, pine roots, and honeysuckle don't need processing to work either, there are others as well.
ive used this technique to make bowstring before (with standardised length artificial fibres) so its been great to learn how to chain together fibres!
I really enjoy the longer videos rather than the short kind of the reels. I hope that you keep at it, but i anderstand if you don't. Anyway, thanks and good luck!
More longer videos is what I want, but the way TH-cam wants the game to be played favors a mix of both
RIGHT ON ! Excellent- exact- info / demo. ! THANKS ! As a USN SERE - POW Inst . I was spoiled by 550 cord , etc. Thanks to our Negrito Troopers at the P.I. jungle school JEST, 1968 I moved into many useful primitive skills - teaching all types of students. Making CORDAGE is a " must have techniques ! " You are an excellent Inst. Mtn Mel -Ret 59- 82 USN, still learning- sharing- teaching .😊
Great tip from Sally Pointer: lay your new fibres across both strands, and twist it in. This results in seamless splices with no knobby bits sticking out.
I have a new favorite video about making rope!
You can use bast fiber from certain trees. Milkweed makes good cordage, but please don't harvest it until after the monarch butterflies are done with it; they eat it as caterpillars to make themselves poisonous to predators. Around September should do.
herbicides have about eradicated it around here. been working to get it going in my butterfly bee and hummingbird patch.
Milk weed is very strong, would make great line for fishing. Indians made sandals out of Sagebrush cordage.
i take the broken or chopped stems, summer thunderstorms wrekt a bunch of tall ones at the community garden and some of our volunteers are elderly or disabled so its important to keep the space between beds clear so they don't trip. At the community garden we get milkweed stalks nearly an inch across and taller than me (and I'm 5'3".) my town isn't all that aware of milkweed. they chopped a ton of common milkweed all down the main drag of town. and then in the rich half of the main drag where the tourists go they planted pollinator gardens with REALLY small plants including swamp and showy milkweed. V.V;;; which is much smaller and doesn't have anywhere near the volume. meanwhile they left most of the spots they'd chopped the milkweed from on the poor side of the town (including a massive patch that was BLOOMING!!!!!) bare of anything to replace it. guess where the only beds they replanted were? near two restaurants that tourists go to. UHUH. my town government is oblivious and dumb!
Some kind of oily substance was always used, while making the cord, for elasticity and durability. An outer layer of wax or tar if available, can make it good for underwater usage as well.
I’ve been using tulip tree inner bark but it’s a bit difficult to get even strands. I recently tried dried daffodil leaves. Produces a pretty cordage. Will be trying dried dandelion stems next. Thanks for the tip on fast twisting! Good video. New sub.
Try using dead day lily leaves picked in the morning when they're still damp with dew. The cordage isn't particularly strong but it's _extremely_ comfortable against your skin, even after it dries out.
Could you make a video on how to make a net in nature and a other short with a list of tree that have alot of tanins and plant good for cortage depending on region i would really like it please day 1
Yes please
I’ve wondered where the heck ropes and cordage came from in survival applications for years, thanks so much for this!
I live in Indiana and use both dogbane and milkweed but since my wife died and i have been struck with severe spinal stenosis I'm concentrateing more on teaching others than doing as much myself. To me strong cordage is invaluable so i concentrate on the three plants you mentioned. Sometimes willow is the best material available in certain areas but even fibers from cattail leaves works well enough if your stuck in swampy areas. Dont forget mulberry. The young cambium layer is pretty good. Ive even used the tassles from ears of corn. Not great but it works and you dont see many people using it. Got to get it when its at the right point or its too weak. Too late it will just crumble.
I find that sunflower stalks are also very time-sensitive. Too early and the fibers are weak. Too late and they're brittle.
That’s nuts. I would never imagine you could make cordage from corn husk
@@hedwardd
The husk, yes. The "silk" tassels, no.
I'm not sure what he meant but that is not accurate. Just try to twist one and you'll see.
Maybe he just meant he likes to twist it up like cordage.
@@mechez774
Listen, if you need to, cardboard and other paper products work surprisingly well.
Even the tape from boxes, strips of plastic bottles, plastic bags, etc
BlackBerry, Willow and yucca are a few that should be really easy to identify and they make great cordage.
Okra makes a pretty good cordage as well and many grow it in their gardens
Amazing. I was just thinking about cordage. When things go south, it will be important to have. Was wondering where people of old got theirs. Thank you so much!
If things ever go south far enough that there's a shortage of cordage, twine, rope, etc, it's going _all the way down._ I'm talking, *_I Am Legend_* level SHTF.
Wonderful video. Thank you!
I love all the quick explanations you do!
A method I use to judge a fibers suitability for cordage is to just wrap a small sample tightly around a stick or my finger. If it doesn't flex enough to wrap properly, or snaps under the combination of tension and flexion, it's usually unsuitable. If it survives, the test also gives you a sense at how it acts under the conditions cord is used in
Thank you! 🙏 🌄
Traditionally, NW indigenous people used inner bark of cedar for making rope and the fabric of capes.
Excellent video
Awesome video! Thank you for going into so much Detail in this! You Rock!
Great video, thanks!
I'd always wondered how it was made. Such a great invention.
It will be much stronger if you make 3 cords from 2 strands each (as shown here), then twist those 3 cords together (twisting the opposite way) into a larger cord or rope. I don't know exactly why this is but it is. If you look at manilla rope, it's usually 3 strands. This info is from The Ashley Book of Knots, the world's foremost authority on knots and secondarily, rope.
Ooo, I grow milkweed for the butterflies but I can try this when they die back
Ah! Thank you for showing how you peel a little from both directions so you lose less fibers! I was getting so frustrated by how i kept losing fibers.
Could you use rendered animal fat to water proof the cordage and make it more pliable?
i have been thinking about melting tallow and resin together to make a salve, could probably be nice to use on cordage to. pine tar would be nice as well.
Yes you can!
@kringsja9913 pine tar is some awesome stuff. Ask any duckhunter: tarred decoy line was the standard for years.
@@notreallymyname3736 yeah i love tarred bank line, super grippy, and stays fresh
Beeswax as well for waterproofing
Good TO Know Thanks For Share 😊
It's amazing what you can make cordage out of. Was camping with my friend, he was out on a nature walk and we had been cutting firewood. I picked up some bark and realized the shredded inner bark looked good enough to twine and sure enough, cranked out a couple feet for the hell of it.
Great video, bet I've ever seen on cordage 🙌. Thank you
Thanks for the Education. I will try this, this fall!!
Very cool.
Awesome video, thank you!
Great video, thanks. Subscribed.
Excellent post. As an OG, I call these skills "bushcraft" as "survival" has distracting connotations. All such skills teach confidence in nature and, when you least expect, survival.
Nice way of thinking about it.
This is a very useful abd interesting video.
Good enough for me to subscribe.
That net looked great.
Keep these videos coming.✌
This was very cool,Ialways wonder how they had no knots also.
Would do a video making cordage from sinew?
That would be excellent 👍
I use the hair from my hairbrush. Been doing it for years and have tons of cordage
Awesome video! Southern Idaho is so beautiful and full of amazing places!
Where do you buy those flannel shirts they’re awesome
Graet show man. Liked and subscribed. Peace ✌️
In the NW ceder bark is the go to😊
There are two tests you can do with unknown plants to get a general idea if they're good for this. The bend test to see if fibers splinter off (less splintering is better), and the yank test to see if the fibers break when given a quick jerk. The only thing that's a kind of a real unknown is breakdown, because some materials don't survive weathering or get eaten rather quickly by environmental mold and bacteria after being extracted from whatever plant they came from.
So did you make that hat from cordage? If so, that is a brilliant way to EDC alot of cordage!!....
Ah was waiting for this one
We have vines we used to swing from trees on as kids that would be perfect. The vines were already 20+ feet long tons of those fibers. I think they were dead poison oak vines that had been there for some time.
Writing is the greatest invention humankind has ever made. Followed closely by string. Followed then closely by the wheel.
I wish I knew how to identify Stinging Nettle.. The taste of boiled Nettle.. Oh! The aroma! My mom and dad used to make it all the time. It SCRUBS your intestines and makes you regular!!
In this insane world, in which we live in. You have to ask yourself why in the name of god . Is proper cordage (string & rope , not made more available to a world which is always looking for such. With the mass propagation of building grade hemp. For the installation of building materials (insulation, blended bricks, and hardwearing clothing materials.) Why doesn’t some entrepreneur with half-a brain realise that this cordage string ,rope, para-cord is a needy go-to nescessity that everyone needs most of the time, everywhere 24/7 .From supermarkets to hardware stores. Just like proper made shopping bags? And the good news is that the cultivation & processing of Hemp is getting better!
Great video, thanks for sharing your knowledge. have a great day :)
Artemisia works well too
Finally someone who lives in south Idaho😭🙏
you can also take dogbane, nettle or milkweed and a pet detangling comb and brush it very very fine, then make your own drop spindle and make yarn out of it. I tend to have a very bad reaction to stinging nettle. But one youtuber who does experimental archeology, Sally Pointer, told me she's immune to it. Nettle stings contain histamine and acetylcholine, and the barbs are like the hairs on a tarantula; they stick and they irritate. To get rid of them, you need something sticky like tape and then you need as much cortisone ointment and benedryl as you can tolerate. If its not available, jewelweed and bitter dock can also bring some relief. Haven't tested comfrey on it though, my comfrey took a hit this year when the landlady "renovated" my garden (aka I got shiny new raised beds to replace all my giant shrub pots).
So experimental archeology, think of it as bushcraft's nerdy little brother. Experimental archeologists try to figure out how people made the things they did in the distant past. Sally Pointer (I'm a huge fan of her work) once made an entire bronze age period accurate dress out of nettles, another time she made a primitive "warp weighted" loom. All bushcraft is regional, so you probably won't have the same plants in your area as Sally. But the techniques hold true.
Normally I don't use trees. I just don't have the muscle to select a tree, fell it, peel it and process it. But I also live in a city, people don't like it when you cut trees period, let alone ones that aren't yours. Even if its in an abandoned lot. But this year we got a whole bunch of thunderstorms, and a whole trunk of willow went down in an empty lot! a tillia cordata linden tree also lost a trunk out of a clump of two or three. So I got some pretty good sized pieces of wood out of it. I'm going to scrape all the bark off then turn them into tomato stakes. The option I use more commonly is fallen sticks and branches, partly decomposed. The bark comes off easily and is ready to be worked. Bark cordage typically requires that you boil it or soak it in rainwater or a pond for a couple of months. This process is called rhetting. Sometimes cars will come by and crush the linden branches. If they can be safely retrieved, these branches need much less processing to get usable fiber. Fallen linden branches in my area (New England) also occasionally develop teal streaks in the wood. That's the result of a fungus, and it looks very pretty.
With willow the rhetting procedure is different. You need a mixture of wood ash and water to process it. My hypothesis is that it has to do with the tannic acid and salycilic acid (tannin and asprin respectively) that's in the bark. I think the bacteria that do the rhetting for you don't like the acidic water created from soaking the willow. Regardless of which you use, you know either bark is ready when you rub the strips between your thumb and forefinger and start getting either fibers rolling off or whole sheets of fiber flaking off like strong damp paper. While linden bark gets very slimy, willow bark is much less so and smells spicy when processed.
The Ainu people of Hokkaido Japan have preserved the art of turning tree bark into clothing. They even have special ceremonies when they harvest the tree. That includes thanking the tree "for your clothes." Tourists in the right place at the right time can join the bark harvest. So if you're ever visiting Hokkaido, make sure you pay the Ainu a visit. You might be able to learn another country's bushcraft ;)
I think most plant or tree that are a Monocotyledons are a choice for cordage. You will notice them with Fibers straight along its trunk, not those with rings around w/c Dicotyledons.
one good example bamboo and Coconut, abaca, palm trees
Ah finally, the Guide to Plant Fiber Cordage
I tried to make rope from fresh nettles quite a few times but have had difficulty getting long fibers. Would you recommand using dry nettles instead? It looks too "snappy" to be able to get some fibers from it. Will try your technique.
(I haven't finished the video while writing this) You may have already but you mentioned making it thicker for what would be rope, not thread; can you make a video for that
This isn't the first cordage video I've seen and I heard something on another one that I never really tested because I don't find myself actually ever having to make any. Maybe I can get your input on this....when you first start twisting, don't start on the middle that way when you're splicing on more material the weak points are staggered rather than both splices being in the same spot. Does that make sense?
That's what I do too so the splices are staggered.
Thanks for not leaving the desert out. A lot of outdoor survival videos I've seen are based on where the person's at, which is usually some kind of dense forest. Not very helpful if you live in southern Arizona.
Can cordage be made from live or fresh fibers not dried ones? Thanks
Some plants can be used either way, but in general I think dry is easier.
Hello long time listener, first time caller.. In my area I am having a hard time finding meat rabbits. Would you sell me buck and 2 does?
For those outdoor suicide attempts on the brink starvation!
Finally!! Something I can ACTUALLY use!!
if i retwist the cordage again with the same technique, does it make it even stronger? Like does rebraiding strands of braided cordage compund the strength?
amazing video like always thank man I’ve learned a lot from u ❤❤
Hey, I’m also in southern Idaho and would love to know what are you live in! Love your channel.
I’m just a little west of Boise
Bro's from Idaho 💀💀💀 (i live in idaho)
It's nice to see someone in my neighborhood (MT) doing these videos. Most bushcraft/survival vloggers are on the East Coast or overseas. New subscriber.
thank you. learnt something valuable today.
You're a really cool guy Seth
It's easier to make cordage with a rope or string stick, just a stick or bone with one small hole for string and 4 holes for making rope from that string. You just push the plant material through the hole while twisting it and maintaing it to a high degree of tightness and add fibers as you go along. After you have three or four lengths of string made, you run them through a stick with four holes in a line and pull through while twisting them. It's easier to make rope with more than one person but you can easily make string or twine by yourself.
Glad to have found your channel.
Hi, can u make a video about how u got started (the whole story).
How to get started.
pros and cons.
I was watching someone makes pots from mud before this... Now rope from weeds. The universe is trying to tell me something! :) Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
The pain those plants must feel when you harvest and brutally snap n beat the crap out of it.... 😮 The horror.. all jks aside thanks for the video I needed a refresher
Beauty-your videos are quick -to the point and well done!
Great video!
I *just* learned how to identify the dogbanes (and you're right, it's everywhere) so I think I'll definitely be trying this!
Side questions:
- Does spreading dogbane not work, or is hemp dogbane simply better suited?
- Would picking and drying live plants also work, as an alternative of waiting until autumn?
Wow. Thank you!
that wasnt Nettleyou showed in pic/vid... was snakeweed.... Nettle branches alternate leaves, not matching pairs.
Great video. Would love to learn about buscraft hooks and traditional native lures.
This was used in Britain's shipbuilding, pushed between the wood planks, and sealed with tar.
Women in workhorse for the poor were tasked with recycling old rope, by hand, very coarse material that made the skin raw.
All for the Royal Navy.
Okra stalk will work, not sure how strong it was.
I mostly use the paper liner from electrical wire. It's jute I think.
Learned to make twine from youtube. Same method you use. Much entertainmente.