Hair
In the American colonies, horse hair was most often used, but buffalo hair was used by the Plains Indians. A single horse tail can make six to seven feet of 3/8ths inch rope. Any great length means you need a lot of horse tails or manes. Horse tail hair is slick and hard, making it more difficult to work with than some other fibers. It is usual to combine tail and mane hair when making rope.[977] [976] [745] Mane and tail hair grow, roughly, at a rate of one inch a month. With a large enough stable of horses, and limited demand, this can be a sustainable source of useful fibers.
- George Washington ordered a horse hair well rope. Horse hair does not rot nor stretch when wet.[888]
- Not rotting or stretching when wet make horse hair ideal for fishing line.[790] [634] [283] [886] The most prized fishing lines are made exclusively from the tails of male horses, stallions or geldings.
Hide
- Raw hide and leather from land animals are like gut, in that they do not last long if they get damp.[553] [585]
- The frames of Alaskan kayaks are traditionally lashed together with strips of seal skin.[291]
- Hide ropes shrink as they dry. This can be useful if you need to permanently bind dry items.[610]
- Knots tied in damp hide ropes are very hard to untie.
Sinew
Sinews are very strong, and the fibers glue themselves together when dampened. Uses include:- Bow Strings
Otzi, the Iceman's bowstring (c. 3200 B.C.) was three-ply sinew.[070] - Spring Pole Lathes
- Often used to attach arrowheads to shafts.
- For sewing leather goods.
Like gut and hide, these ropes and cords must be kept dry, or they become soft and lose their strength.
Other Animal Fibers
There are other fibers, produced by different animals, that could be used for ropemaking, but they are either not local to the American Colonies, or are just too expensive for something as prosaic as rope. Or both.
- Silk
A single silkworm cocoon yields 300 - 900 yards of raw silk.[570]
It takes about 3000 cocoons to make a pound of silk.[300] 100 feet of 1/4 inch rope weights something over two pounds.
Silkworm eggs and mulberry trees were introduced to the American colonies in 1603.[530] Efforts to produce silk commercially in the Colonies continued through the 1760s.
Silk has been used to make cords to fasten the clothing of the very rich.[530]- Spider Silk
Where a single silkworm can produce 300 to 900 yards of silk, a single spider web has only 12 yards of usable silk.[570]
The diameter of spider silk is around 1 / 50th of the diameter of a human hair.In the 1770s, a French naturalist, Francois Xavier Bon de Saint Hilaire, made a pair of spider silk gloves, which he presented to the French Academy.[870] Saint Hilaire used the silk from spider egg cases.
The first time I tried to make rope from spider silk, I wrapped several large garden spider webs onto a stick one dewy morning, when the webs were easily seen. I found twelve webs, was able to squish/pack the webs into a long thread, then twist and fold a three strand cord from that. There was maybe a foot of finished "rope", thinner than one of my eye lashes.
The time involved gathering the material for a spider silk rope would put the cost way beyond anything any reasonable person would want to spend.[550] [920]
Figure 7.1: Spider Silk.- Sea Silk
Sea silk (byssus) is the name given to the fibers that one variety of clam, (Pinna nobilis), uses to anchor itself to rocks and ships.
Sea silk has a long history in textile production, but again, the material is far too costly for rope.[190] [220] [280] [855]- Baleen
Baleen, or whalebone, is the material filter-feeding whales use to strain krill from sea water. It is very fibrous, and has been used in whale hunting communities to make cordage.[200] [291] [535] Baleen has the advantages of not rotting in sea water, and staying flexible in sub-freezing weather. - Spider Silk