Separating hemp fibers from stems at home

PerAsperaAdAstra

Active Member
I have a handful of 6" to 1' stems from a grow I did a while back and want to make a bracelet for my girlfriend. I searched the internet for how to make hemp rope/string/twine and found information mostly from an industrial point of view. I have retted, dried and separated the outside layer which I've already rolled into 2 decent strands.
I am coming up short in finding home remedies for processing the woody inner cores for small pieces of hemp. The only real ideas I've encountered for processing them at all or separating the fibers is to use a decorticator (which I'm not sure how to produce a small easy home made version of) and a hackle (which I have constructed a model version of by sticking needles through cardboard in a hairbrush pattern).
At the moment this little model hackle is the only thing that looks promising but out of the 2 stems I've separated it is an extremely slow painstaking process and I'm not sure how the core rope will turn out. I'm trying to make the fibers as thin as possible so the string comes out softer but the more I try to separate the fibers the shorter they become.
I have seen a couple of videos on making rope with fresher stems but none that really achieve the end result I'm after which is a fine hemp rope.
Does anyone have any suggestions on easy home remedies for separating the fibers? I considered trying to cook them in a crockpot slowly until maybe that start to fall apart but I'm not sure if that will ruin what I have and can't find anything suggesting that will work.
 

PerAsperaAdAstra

Active Member
I guess it is but I have no experience with either and when I search pictures of hemp fiber I see fine silk looking long strands. I have one stem left to do and my fibers don't look as fine as what I see online and I feel like they are considerably shorter. It's almost time to make some string but I also can't find much info on turning the fibers into string. Can anyone help me go from short semi course fibers to string? I feel like there must be some kind of binder I could use as a kind of glue to keep it held together. This is a very painstaking process but I'm committed to it.
 

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
I guess it is but I have no experience with either and when I search pictures of hemp fiber I see fine silk looking long strands. I have one stem left to do and my fibers don't look as fine as what I see online and I feel like they are considerably shorter. It's almost time to make some string but I also can't find much info on turning the fibers into string. Can anyone help me go from short semi course fibers to string? I feel like there must be some kind of binder I could use as a kind of glue to keep it held together. This is a very painstaking process but I'm committed to it.
Watch making flax bow string vids on youtube. lengths don't matter. it gets twisted together to form continuous lengths
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
you're using too short sections to begin with, they bred hemp to grow 20 feet high for a reason, can't get long strands of fibers from a short plant

i'm thinking about making hemp paper myself, understand part of the process really stinks, ought to give my neighbors something else to bitch about
 
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