Cordage Making

While not difficult, making cordage does take a few basic principles to learn. There are hundreds of needs and purposes for cordage in the wilderness setting, and it is a useful skill to know. Depending on the size of the cordage that you make you can use natural cordage for anything from dental floss to fishing line to snare cordage to climbing rope and every other need in between. While this is not a video, I wanted to make it as easy to understand and follow as possible. Like any skill this one takes practice. But if you will follow the pictures and narrative, and take some time with the materials in your area, you too can be making cordage in very little time.

There are many good materials for natural cordage varying in size and strength. For the most part you want to use materials that are abundant, strong, and easy to work with. Some plants take more processing than others thus making the task more involved. Some of the best natural materials are Dogbane, Hemp, Nettles, Cattail, Spruce rootlets, and the inner bark of quite a few different trees. On this skill lesson we will be using the stalk of Spreading Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum). It is also known in different areas as Dogbane and Indian hemp. Dogbane is a perennial herb with milky juice; leaves opposite, simple, margins not toothed; flowers small, pink-tinged, bell-shaped; fruit of 2 long and slender pods with many silky-haired seeds. I love the Dogbane plant because of its delicate red brown stalk that spreads into branches, and the hanging seed pods that typically stay with the plant throughout the winter, making it easy to identify. The resulting cordage is strong, tightly woven, and beautiful.

PLEASE NOTE: Dogbane is poisonous. It contains the chemicals (Resins and cardiac glycosides) from which "digitalis" is manufactured. It will not harm you to touch or work with Dogbane, but it is wise to wash your hands after working with it.

While walking in the woods I found a nice stalk of Dogbane from last year and pulled it up from the roots. Dogbane is best, I have found, when it is last years material already dried, but it can be used "green" also. This is the resulting stalk - approximately 3 feet tall.

Here is the same shot from a different angle...

The first step in preparing the plant is to gently beat the stalk, breaking up the inner pith. This shouldn't be too hard, so as not to tear the fibers in the plant, but just enough to cause the outer shell to break apart. I am using a wooden mallet on an old stump in the pictures below.

Once the stem is worked in this way you can take the stalk in your hand and gently separate the stalk pieces. In this case there are 5 pieces that I ended up with. As you can see below, they still have the pith in the stem, but it has been broken and separated into manageable pieces.

This part is a little bit tricky, but with care should not be a big problem. You now take the stalk in your hand, and break the inner pith into segments. Each segment is perhaps an inch or so long. Gently pull this broken pith away from the outter fibrous bark. When finished you will be left with long strands of "rough" cordage material.

When you are finished with this you should have "raw" material to begin cording. However, before we can make the cordage itself we still have to rub the outer fibers between our hands in order to break away any remaining wood, pith, or outer shell from the material.

Now we can begin making the cordage itself. This step is easier to do than to explain, so please be patient. Take the fibers in one hand, pinching the ends between your thumb and forefinger. You must hold this end tight throughout the process in order to keep your cordage "tight".

Now take your other hand and separate the fibers into two equal parts. These will be called fiber bundles. It is important for good cordage that these fiber bundles are of the same thickness.

OK... Holding the cordage tightly in your hand, take your free hand and grasp one of the fiber bundles and twist it between your fingers away from your body.

You now take the twisted fiber bundle and pull it back over the other fiber bundle. This twisting and "reverse wrapping" is what gives the cordage strength and symmetry. In effect, you are twisting the fibers in one direction and then twisting the two bundles in the opposite direction, causing the two bundles to "grip onto" one another.

Continue to do this over and over until you reach the end of your fiber bundle. If you need longer cordage simply grab a few more new fibers and twist them into one of the fiber bundles. Make sure that you do not extend both bundles at the same place or you will have a weakness at that spot in your cordage. Stagger the fiber bundles until you have the desired length.

The final step is to tie a knot in both ends of the cordage to keep it from unravelling. Then taking one end of the cordage in each hand "buff" the cordage over a stick that has been debarked and smoothed. This will soften the cordage and take out any remaining pieces of bark or pith that might remain.

The resulting product is a piece of cordage that is useful for any project that you might have need of it for. It is strong and beautiful, and something that you can be proud of knowing that you made it yourself!