n this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris Speir delves into the importance and uses of cordage in outdoor settings. He discusses the benefits and applications of various types of cordage, including paracord and bank line, and shares insights on making natural cordage from plant fibers.
Show Notes:
Introduction:
Importance of Cordage:
Types of Cordage:
Natural Cordage:
Making Cordage:
Practical Tips:
Conclusion:
Welcome back to the primitive camping and
bushcraft podcast. My name is Chris Spear
and I'm going to be your guide to
enjoying the great outdoors. So who
actually enjoys making their own rope or
cordage or string in the woods? No, not
me. I don't. It's very time consuming. It
takes a long time to actually to actually
make it. But if you hang in there at the end of this show, we're going to discuss how to make it.
But up until then, we're going to just
discuss cordage today. All right, cordage
is another name for string or rope. And,
you know, this rope is going to be used
to make other tools or conveniences while
you're in the great outdoors. So, and
whenever I say while you're in the great
outdoors, I'm really talking about why you're out there camping. Essentially what
it is. You know, if you're in the great outdoors, you know, you're in the great outdoors.
I'm really talking about why you're out
there camping. Essentially what it is. If
you're going to leave your house with
some gear and you're going to head out
into the woods, you're going camping.
Plain and simple. You're going primitive
camping. Now, and you're going to
practice some bushcraft skills or some
survival skills while you're out there.
But you're going camping. And I'm just
going to throw that out there. And if you
don't leave a comment, let me know what
you think about that. Whatever. But this
rope is going to be used to make other
conveniences and tools around it.
So, it would be best if you carry some
variation of cordage because cordage is
hard to replicate in the wild and very
strong cordage is very hard to replicate
because one is extremely time consuming
and two is very challenging. And it's
kind of difficult to make out of natural
materials. Now, that's not
to say that you can't do it.
I've done it. I've made it. And there's
other things out there that will allow
you to make cordage out of natural
materials. So, I'm not trying to
discourage you from making natural
cordage. Everybody needs to practice it
at least once.
Everybody needs to make it.
But still, while you're primitive
camping, you do not want to spend all
your time making rope when you can be
doing other things to enjoy your time in
the great outdoors, such as fishing. I
love fishing. And I would love to be out
there practicing fishing. Not practicing,
but just actually fishing
and catching something to eat.
Making primitive rope is actually easy,
but like I said a while ago, it's
extremely time consuming. Stream made
from yucca or the inner bark of a willow
tree can be extremely robust. And certain
roots from pine trees and various vines
can also be used as cordage in a pinch.
So, after a little bit, we're going to
talk about making natural stream, but I
want to go ahead and break down a couple
of the other things that most commonly
are brought with you. And that is going
to be paracord or bank line.
So, typically I'll carry 100 feet of
paracord and or a roll of number 36 or
number 48 bank line with me in my pack.
Now, paracord is handy because it
contains seven strands of nylon string
inside the braided sheath. And that
braided sheath has 32 individual
interwoven strands in it.
So, typically or theoretically, if you
cut you off five feet of paracord, you
can pull those inner strands out of the
paracord and then tie those together and
you have essentially 35 feet of fishing
line or 35 feet of something else. You
know, a line to go ahead and use for some
other task or duty or whatever.
But paracord is amazing stuff. I mean, it
is exactly what it was used for is for
parachutes and it was developed in the
early what 40s, 30s, 40s whenever they
were developing the jumping out of an
airplane from for World War Two.
And these guys with the Bristol lives
with experimental stuff. But, you know, a
lot of common items that we use today was
developed for in the military. They
either became, you know, commonplace to
be used or it was like used for the
military and they phased
out with something better.
And then they offered it to the civilian
world and that's where we get it. But
paracord is amazing stuff. And it's
actually called 550 cord. And what it is
is each strand is going to hold 550
pounds. It's got 550 pounds tensile
strength where anything under
550 it'll hold up or support.
Now, each one of those individual strands
in there holds up to 35 pounds. So they
got seven strands in that. And then the
sheaf itself is like it holds up to I
forget how many pounds it does for 50 or
60 pounds, something like that. So it all
adds up to where it will
support 550 pounds of weight.
And I believe that is correct. If I'm not
somebody leave a comment, let me know.
But anyway, you know, you have if you cut
off five foot of paracord and you tied
them all together, then you're going to
have 35 feet of fishing string, you know,
and a five foot case that
you could use for other things.
And that casing I've used, I've made
paracord. I've taken, what was it? I made
a video on my YouTube page and you might
want to check it out where I made a bed.
And I took a 26 or 15 feet of paracord.
Yep, that was it. It
was 15 feet of paracord.
And then two 15 foot sections of
paracord. And I took the inner strands
out and then I wove a net with the
intersections. And then I took the sheath
and I used it to tie each side of the
paracord to bed frame. And I actually
made a bed out of this paracord.
And it was actually extremely comfortable
and it actually supported my weight. And
I couldn't believe it, you know, when the
35 pounds interweaved and everything. And
that was doing the overhand knot. And so
I'm sure it would have been stronger if I
had actually done the actual fishing
knots or slip knots or whatever it was
there. But it did, it supported my weight.
Now out of this paracord, you know, you
can use the inner strands for various
different tasks. You can use the outer
casing for tons of different tasks. This
sheath or case is impressive. You know,
when you use it in conjunction with a jam
knot, you know, it especially from the
handle of a booksaw, you know, when
you're using the jam knot, it holds extremely important.
It's very tight. And so if you don't
believe me, you can go watch the the
Bushcraft channel, damn WOWAC or whatever
his name is. He does a extremely good, a
very good demonstration on a booksaw
using the sheath of a paracord and the
Canadian jam knot or the jam knot or
arbor knot or whatever it's called. And
it does a very good thing.
But I forget his Bushcraft platform, but
I know his name is damn WOWAC or WOWMAK
or something like that.
All right. So here is my absolute
favorite use or cordage to actually bring
in the woods with me is tard and twist
bank line. You know, this tard and
twisted bank line has 340
pound breaking strength.
All right. So they typically is giving
you more bang for the buck already. And
for nearly the same price as a hundred
feet of paracord, you can get 125 yards
of bank line. Think about it. So 100 feet
to 125 yards. Now, bank line comes in
pounds or hashtags as people call it
today. So and in pounds, for example.
So you got pound 36 pound 48. So that's a
you so forth. The pound or the hashtag
designation is the diameter of the line
and each roll a bank line is sold by the
pound. So the smaller number designations
equal thinner strings, which equivalent
to long with equivalent length.
So number 36 bank line is perfect for
your outdoor tasks. And you know, so the
smaller is going to be less tensile
strength and it will break. But you can
still I've done it. I have done a bow
drill with the real thin stuff.
The 20 pound line stuff like that. I've
done bow drills and everything, but I use
bait line for catfish and everybody down
here in South Mississippi does. It's
called trot line. T R O T. And we use the
tard twisted bank line or trot line to
set lines for fish. It's easy. You go
ahead. You tie one in on one side. You
come out and you make a stage with an
overhand knot, leaving a loop, put your tail in there.
You go ahead and leave in the loop, put
you put the loop through the eye of your
hook and slip it around, put it on there
and you're good to go. And you just do
five or 10 hooks across this line. Go
back to the beginning, bait your hooks
up, come back and you know,
you catch catfish like crazy.
One of the demonstrations that I use that
they I filled up a we filled up a boat
slam full of catfish on a catfish and
trip doing trot lines and put that
picture in my original manuscript of the
perimeter camping and bushcraft book, but
it did not get used.
But in South Mississippi and Louisiana
and Alabama, trot lines are everywhere.
If you get lost on the river in South
Mississippi, you would have enough
cordage to build you anything that you
want because, you know, people come and
they go out there and put their trot
lines out and then they either forget
where they put it or they just don't even
bother to come back.
You would find you plenty of fishing
hooks. You find you plenty of trot lines
out there. You know, it's sad to say, but
you know, it's make a work and combined
with a prussic knot and you can you can
adjust where you put these hooks and
where you put these lines anywhere and everywhere you want.
Now I use bank line for catfish and I use
it for bow drills. I use it for
guidelines on my tarps and tents and
growing up. The only thing I knew it by
was called trot line. Like I was just
explaining a while ago. Now I was
explaining how trot line is the method of
fishing where you run a line across the
water and you know, you string yourself
up five or six trot lines and you're
going to have enough fish to to you.
You're going to have enough food. So when
it comes to cordage, the actual bank line
is going to give you more bang for the
buck and you know, paracord is versatile.
So I do recommend and I personally do
this myself. I do carry a hundred foot
strand of paracord in my pack whenever I
head into the woods camping.
But I also carry a roll of bank line in
because for 15 bucks, you're going to
get, you know, 400 and something feet of
bank line as compared to a hundred feet
for 10 bucks of paracord. And so I do
recommend carrying both and and the
reason why is because there's going to be
instances where you're going to need the
strength of the
paracord for certain tasks.
But then again, the bank line, you know,
I have used it for everything and
sometimes that's the only thing I've ever
brought with me in the woods is the bank
line or the trot line is what I'd like to call it, you know.
And so this stuff, you know, is amazing
and it is stranded as three strands of
nylon that is twisted together and you
can actually take this nylon from this
cordage and you can free it up and you
can make you can make fire tender out of it.
You can actually make fishing string out
of it, you know, if you wanted to make
regular fishing string. And so I mean,
the options are endless. You can do
whatever you want with these cordages.
But regarding cordage, you know, paracord
and bank line are the two kings and
there's people that will say paracord and
then bank line and then vice versa. But
they are the two kings. Both are
lightweight. They're extremely versatile.
And can you tell me what they're doing?
They can be used for more than one
purpose. They're relatively inexpensive.
But as I stated before, you get more
value out of the bank line. So now that
we've discussed those two common types,
there's natural cordage, you know, and
when I say natural, I'm talking about
Cecil or hemp or whatever kind of rope.
And you can use that they've used these
natural ropes for centuries and they made
it, you know, it's not till recently in
the past hundred years or so that this
nylon and these these artificial style
cordages have become the king.
But before that, all rope was made out of
some kind of fiber, plant fibers, some
type of plant fiber. Now, at the
beginning of this podcast, I told you
that we would get into some plant fibers.
And what we're going to be using is the
palmetto, what I use to make plant fiber based cordage here that is called the
make plant fiber based cordage here that
is real strong and very prevalent down
here in the south, especially on the
rivers and, you know, stuff like that is
palmetto is everywhere. Now, you're not
going to use the leaves because the
leaves are actually very brittle, but you
can use the leaves for other things.
It's perfect for weaving together like a
basket or something like that. But as far
as making a strong durable cordage,
you're going to actually use the stalk.
You're going to use the stalks come there
about three to four feet long. And you
could cut the leaves off and cut it at
the bottom down there.
And then you take some kind of a hammer.
Like if you brought an axe, you use the
backside of your axe to hammer into a
stump or something like that and break
them fibers up and then just pull it down
and break it into its
smallest fibers that you can make.
And then you want to do the reverse wrap.
So you'll take the fibers and you'll do
the reverse wrap and twist and make your
own cordage. Now, you can make it small
enough and this doing this method is
strong enough to make fishing string.
Now, one of the best kinds of cordage
that you're going to be able to make out
of natural cordage is going to be with
the yelka plant. That's going to be one
of the strongest. But you can actually
make it with anything.
You can make it with grass.
You know, there's the grapevines here in
South Mississippi and I've seen them all
the way up through Tennessee and Georgia
and all in the South. So I'm assuming
they're pretty much everywhere in the
Eastern woodlands. That's everything east
of the Mississippi River.
But so these grapevines, as they grow up
into the trees, they have they start
shooting out. I don't know if it's roots
or if it's just additions to the vines,
but you can cut those off and they look
like when you walk in and you walking
into the woods and you see these things
hanging off of the vines.
They look like string and you could cut
them off with your knife and then you
weave them together. You don't wrap them
or twist them or anything like that. You
just weave two or three of them and they
are extremely robust and
they are extremely strong.
Now I have not used them for like a bow
drill or anything like that, but I have
tied up a ridge line with them or a ridge
pole from to make my own shelter out of
and I use that natural cordage instead of
nylon bank line or the,
you know, the paracord.
But you can use all kinds of any kind of
any kind of material to make you natural
cordage. Another one that I've used
before is the inner bark of a willow
tree. Now it's easier to get the bark off
in the spring of a willow than it is in
the summer and the summer times.
I don't know how it works. It's like it's
got more more fluids running through it
in the beginning in the spring. It's got
more water coming up there and the more
fluids or whatever. And it's easier to
get to the inner bark.
But so what I did is I did it two
different ways. I watched a YouTube video
of this gentleman over in England or I
think he was over in England, you know,
the United Kingdom somewhere over there.
Where he said that you take the inner
bark of the willow and then you put ash
from hardwood fire ash and
I'm assuming you needed the lie.
But you take the ashes and you boil all
the inner bark of the willow tree in the
ash water and then you take that out. And
then once it's done, it changes the color
of the willow bark to a reddish color,
you know, and then you hang it up, let it dry.
And then once it dries, then you start
making your small fibers out of that bark
and then you start weaving your bark
together. You're doing the reverse wrap
and twist method there
to start your cordage.
And before you know it, you got 10, 15
feet, 20 feet of cordage. And I did it
with that. I made an entire belt.
What I did is I weave the cordage
together with cordage, weave the cordage,
and then I braided them and then made a
belt like that. It was pretty cool.
And so I did a loop on one end and a knot
on the other, pull it around, pull the
knot through the loop and it did pretty
good. And I still got it to this day.
Matter of fact, I wish I'd have brought
it in here for the people watching the
video and I could have demonstrated it.
But anyway, cordage is something that you
have to have when you go into the woods
because you're always going to need to
make something. You're always going to
need to have something, you
know, made out of cordage.
You're always going to be making it other
tools and other conveniences. You're
going to have to hang ridge lines. You're
going to have to tie
things and make things with it.
And so cordage is very important. And
also cordage is something that you're
going to need for fishing if you don't
have any fishing string or any woven or
nylon or what do they call it?
Minofilament for fishing. You know, you
can always use some kind of cordage like
this for fishing and catching fish. So
anyway, cordage is important to have with
you. Always have. And like I said, you
get more bang for the buck with the bank
line instead of the paracord.
So I hope you enjoyed this video. And for
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And I will see you in the next video or
the next podcast. God bless you.