Hello again,
In the research I did for the flax project that Lorelei and I worked on, I came across some information on rope making and rope walks. The rope making machine was a device used to twist single or multiple strands of fiber into a twisted rope. This led me down a rabbit hole into ropemaking that I have begun to explore.
At first I thought this was only going to be a quick side note to the Linen work I was doing. I had spun some of the tow( lower quality fibers from the linen making process) into line. To make it into rope, i purchases a simple rope twisting device from The Woolery, called the Schacht Incredible Rope Machine. This I used to create a simple rope seen below:
This was fun and it did create rope, but it was only a toy copy of a true rope making machine. The rope was twisted correctly, but lacked the tension and tightness of good quality rope. So I began to explore more into the process of rope making or ropewalking as it was called. I went on Ebay to see id there was anything I could find that was more substantial. I found several with gears and then I cam across this: Rope Making Machine. I know nothing about the age or the manufacture of this item, but it seemed to fit the description of what was used as close to period as I could find. Based solely on the photographs from the listing, I set out to create my own.
This would have been mounted on an upright board attached to a weighted sled. as the rope was wound, the sled would be pulled forward to account for the loss of legnth to the twist. The other end of the rope would be fastened to a solid post.
The first thing to work on was the hooks. These needed the hook on one end and a double step down on the other. One level to hold against the wood frame and the next step to use as a rivet to attach to the turning bar. To create the hooks, i started with a 3/4 in round mild steel blank. I marked off 2 inches to begin the reduction for the part that would go through the wood frame. The decision to reduce this much stock down to 1/2 inch was a mistake. This drew out to almost 4 inches of 1/2 inch stock. This should have been 3/4 to an inch to draw down and that would have left me with plenty of metal. I then proceeded to cut the reduced section to one inch and then draw down the last 1/4 inch to 3/8 inch round.
This was then cut from the bar stock leaving an inch for the creation of the hook. The stepped end was done first to allow a good surface for the tongs to hold while the hook was worked. This was first squared off and reduced, then rounded into a taper. This was then worked over the horn of the anvil into the final hook shape.
Thus the first hook was created! There was way to much time wasted on drawing out the first step down. The next 2 hooks should go much quicker. I will get into more details and an update on the progress soon.
