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.
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.