How do you make hemp rope from plant material?

Discussion in 'Harvesting and Processing Marijuana' started by free the herb, May 20, 2011.

  1. #1 free the herb, May 20, 2011
    Curious to know if anyone knew how to actually turn marijuana plant material into a hemp rope or even a hemp fabric?
     
  2. #2 Storm Crow, May 21, 2011
    The process is long and smelly and involves actual physical labor! :( Here's the basics-

    You need to throw the hemp stalks into water and keep them submerged for a few weeks and let them rot- this is called retting.

    After you ret the stalks, you need a hackle to separate the fibers. A hackle can be easily made by making sort of a comb from a piece of wood and a lot of nails. Attach your hackle to a solid surface (a saw horse is good).

    Now you take your dried, retted, rotten hemp stalks and start "beating them to death" by hitting them over the hackle. This separates the fibers from the hurds. (Hemp hurds can make bio-fuel) Depending on how long you keep flogging it, you will have coarse fiber for rope, or with longer processing, fiber fit for cloth.

    Then you let your fibers for cloth bleach in the sun for a few more weeks- or use some chlorine bleach ;).

    Fabric softener is a must with homemade hemp cloth! Until it gets broken in, (or chemically processed, nowadays) hemp cloth can be scratchy. But once it IS broken in, you can just about count of leaving the hemp shirt to one of your grandkids! They simply do not wear out! This is one of the reasons hemp is so superior to cotton and synthetics! Another is that hemp is way cheaper to grow- cotton requires more expensive pesticides to grow than any other crop!

    Or you can start making yourself some rope. Run a search for the "How to"s on that. Have fun! :)

    Granny :wave:
     
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  3. #3 ant420ftp, Aug 24, 2013
    Do you know the basic on twisting fibers to make rope I'm gonna give this s try

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  4. #4 KryptoniteKing, Aug 25, 2013
    thanks for the information. awesome post :)
     
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  5. #5 Keeper of Time, Aug 25, 2013
    If only we could grow hemp in abundance in America... That post by Storm Crow makes me want to try my hand at hemp production haha
     
  6. #6 Elias1318, Oct 14, 2016
    Ah! I'd love to do this but my plant is so small... haha I want a large outdoor grow so I could get huge stalks to pound into hemp!
     
  7. #7 janemba, Oct 29, 2016
  8. #8 janemba, Oct 29, 2016
    It would be cool to make glue laminate boards, and plywood or hemp wood. With your dried stalks.

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