WEBVTT - Rope, yeah ROPE! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.680 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.880 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're going to rope 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:22.160 you into interest in ropes in this episode the Stuff 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:23.840 You Should Know on Ropes. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.920 Yeah, I had this idea, and this is one of 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.680 those where it was a very distinct situation that made 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.320 me think of it, which was on our trip to 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.440 Nantucket when Emily and I went there for the first 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.280 time not too long ago. We did a sailing trip 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.120 on a kind of an old school boat sailing boat, 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.400 and they let me. I volunteered to help out. So 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.040 I was hoisting sails and raising jibs and things. I 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.879 don't know if that's proper terminology. And I had that 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:54.680 rope in my hand and I kind of looked at 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.520 it and it was the old school, you know, rope rope, 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.560 not synthetic. It was clearly made from natural fibers and 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.360 it was braided and very thick and heavy, and I 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.000 was like, man, rope, It's like, what a what an 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:09.959 undersung invention? 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:12.679 Had you taken mushrooms? 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.640 No, not at all, Well, maybe microdoes, but it was 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:19.720 definitely one of those moments where I was like, what 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.319 an undersung invention? Like, if you pulled one hundred people, 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.880 you would get lots of wheels or maybe gears or 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.520 fire or sliced bread or the toaster or whatever. But 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:32.760 I doubt if you would get more than like a 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.120 ten percent unless you work in like a sailing industry 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.400 or another industry that heavily relies on rope. I doubt 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:40.920 if you would get a ton of people that said, yeah, rope, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:42.840 that's up there is one of the greatest inventions of 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.680 all time. But it has touched so much of humanity 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.240 and the forward progress of humanity. 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.520 Yeah, I mean, you'd make a great point. I hadn't 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.000 thought about it either. I probably would not have said rope. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:03.080 But Julie helps us with this, I think. And I mean, like, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.920 if you want to till some like really hard ground 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.200 to try to grow crops in it, try to do 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.960 that with an ox and a plow, but no rope. Sucker. 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:18.480 Yeah, if you want to shoot a wild boar from 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.120 thirty feet away, what are you gonna shoot it with? 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.280 You're gonna shoot it with a bow that has a 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.440 kind of rope. And you know we should point out 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.639 that what we're talking about is cordage. So any kind 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.679 of bundled fiber that's braided together, that's all sort of 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.720 a kind of rope. We wouldn't have had musical instruments, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.160 we wouldn't have had undersea cabling to make the Internet possible. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.160 And then what sailing came around that you know, you 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.440 think about, Yeah, big deal, it helps sailing, But sailing 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:49.639 is what helped discover the world. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.440 Yeah, you got to think of it beyond the America's Cup. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:54.640 Yeah for sure. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.720 So like you said, let's talk about rope. Let's get 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.119 into it, shall we do it? I learned a lot 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.400 in this and like you said, rope is a type 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.400 of cordage, not all cordages rope. Rope is essentially made 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:12.800 of different types of smaller ropes bundled together, like you said, braided. 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.080 You can also twist them. And you can make it 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.880 out of everything from synthetic fibers like jute or sisol. 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:21.800 Sisol comes from the agave plant. Did you know that 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.480 I did? Oh? I didn't. And you can make it 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.359 out of wire a little bit. You can make it 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.320 out of wire. There's all sorts of stuff you can 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.480 make it out of But the point is is that 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.960 all of them follow essentially the same method of making 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.720 a rope. That if you strip away all like the 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.920 bells and whistles that you have today, it's they're putting 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.280 this stuff together in the same way that people put 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.840 it together from the very outset of rope making. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.280 Yeah, and you know, I think that's the other thing 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:53.880 that appealed to me was I was looking at this 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.960 rope and saw the like an individual strand was frayed perhaps, 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.160 and I saw how just like human hair like that was. 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.720 And I just love the idea that somebody was like, 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.120 you know, this thing weak, but put all this together 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:09.000 in it strong. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.760 Yeah, it's very clever. I never thought about it either. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.039 But the way that rope is made strong and stable 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.479 in all of that is because they're twisted in opposing 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:25.040 like the fibers are twisted in opposing directions, held to tension, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.800 and that I think the impression I have is that 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:34.919 you're actually storing somehow some energy or force in the 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.640 rope when you start braiding it and twisting it under tension. 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.479 Yeah, it creates something that has high torsional stability, so 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.480 it can hold its shape even though rope is moving 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.320 around and being tied into knots, and it's constantly twisting 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.760 around and getting pulled on. And you know, it depends 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:55.479 on what kind of rope you have. But you know, 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.440 if you see these those giant ropes that they still 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.599 use to tie in like a cruise ship or something, 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.839 I mean, it's still the same stuff. It's fascinating to me. 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:09.120 That's right. Let's talk specific jargon, baby, let's I love it. 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:09.960 I'll let some jargon. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.880 All of this stuff is cordage. Like we said, a 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.559 cord is a rope that's three sixteenths of an inch 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.640 or less. That's right, use metric ts. It's still a chord. 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:23.000 You have to use inches for. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.800 That, that's right. A rope is a rope if it 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.800 is above three sixteenths of an inch. And then a 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.280 cable is when you have several ropes that are twisted together. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:35.840 And these can be made from all kinds of things, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.320 like we said, obviously the organic fibers you mentioned some. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.520 We also have hemp, you may have said hemp and cotton. 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.520 We'll get into synthetics. When that came along, it was 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.760 a real game changer because that provided a little stretch 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:54.000 so nylon and polyester and polypropylene, stuff like that, and 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.480 then wire wires usually steel. And you know, we might 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.240 call something like that a cable, but it's still the 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.440 same concept that it's a kind of rope, as a 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.080 steel cable is or a steel rope is basically a cable. 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.480 Yeah, wire rope is rope. A cable is a bunch 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.320 of ropes. You can make it out of sisol if 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.359 you wanted to a cable, sure, and then a bunch 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.400 of cables twisted together is called the super duper rope. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:20.760 Right, that's right. Good jargon. 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.760 So let's keep going. Let's talk jargon in as far 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.640 as construction goes. You said you can braid ropes, you 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.640 can also twist them. I never thought about this, and 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.400 I watched two videos. The one is it was a 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.000 how It's made video. God bless how it's made. Because 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.920 if you ever run into a written or verbal explanation 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.840 of something where you're like what, go find the how 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.280 it's made version and you'll see it with your own eyes. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.440 They've always done a great job. There's a lot, in fact, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.440 there's a lot of good rope making videos online. 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.479 I watched like three or four others they're mesmerizing. 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:55.440 They got far. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.680 There's another one we found called how Do They Braid Rope? 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.520 And it's from the National Film Board of Canada, the 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:07.640 Boards of Canada, and it doesn't even have narration. The 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.960 only soundtrack is the factory sounds like that really is mesmerizing. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.880 And so you see the two different ways rope is made, 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.440 and the first how it's made one uses twist, which 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.920 is a conventional rope. And as I was saying, when 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.920 I started talking, I never realized that most ropes I've 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.320 ever seen in my life are twisted. I always just 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.520 assumed they were braided, and that was just wrong, wrong, wrong. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.040 Yeah, And when you look at them up close, though, 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.120 you can definitely see the difference between a braid and 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.000 a twist. I love in twisted rope. This is when 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.640 you have twisted strands that are counter twisting around each other. 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.720 Usually it's three strands, and that's called a hawser laid twist. 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.040 But you can also have a four strander, which is 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.640 shroud laid. And that's if you've ever had a rope. 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.080 And then you've seen at the end of the rope 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.440 a little guy right in the center of it running 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.120 through the core. That's the fourth strand. It's like a 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.760 little core at the center of it all, and that 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:04.440 is the child blade. 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.160 Yes, and we should say another piece of jargon. You 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.040 don't make rope or produce rope or anything like that. 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.800 You lay rope, that's right, just like you lay a cable. 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.200 Oh yeah, I never thought about that. I thought that 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.840 meant like actually putting it down. But yeah, no, totally. 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:22.360 So what about the braid. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.600 The braid is something to see. Watching a braided rope 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.240 being created is amazing because there's all these little spools 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.160 during this amazing like ballroom dance with one another. It's 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:33.720 really cool. 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:34.800 Yeah. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.320 But they braiding is where you take a bunch of 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:42.480 strands and you braid, well, you braid them together into 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.319 an interlocking structure. Usually it has a core, and the 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.920 core can be twisted and have like a braided shell 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.839 around it. And when you're braiding stuff, you can use 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:58.079 way more strands than you can usually with a twisted rope. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.360 Yeah, and they're generally a little longer and more appliable 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.320 than a twisted rope. But I like a good old 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:04.960 school rope. 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.080 I do too, A good natural fiber rope that you 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.840 can't even get your thumb and fingers to touch because 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:14.960 it's so thick. That's amazing. 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:20.160 Agreed. They've been using rope for probably hundreds of thousands 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.160 of years. Part of the problem with specifically dating rope 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.360 is that the early ropes were obviously organic in their 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.120 nature and their fibers, and so that stuff's not going 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.480 to stick around forever. We do have some, you know, 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.280 kind of cool evidence, like thirty four thousand years ago 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.520 in the Republic of Georgia where they saw flax fibers 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.120 embedded in clay, and so that was like, all right, 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.240 it's embedded in clay where it's sort of preserved, and 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.240 these were twisted and knotted up. So clearly people were 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.880 using rope back then. But there's other evidence of older 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:51.400 stuff too. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.680 Right, Yeah, this is like implicit evidence. It's not direct, 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.760 like finding an actual piece of cordage. This is like 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.000 when they found a weaving tool years old in Germany. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.440 It's made of ivory. Essentially, it was designed to keep 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.400 the strand separate when braiding or twisting the rope together, 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.520 which is still a technique that's used today. 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:12.000 Yeah. 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.640 And then also they found beads, stone and shell beads 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.520 that start appearing in the prehistoric record three hundred thousand 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.640 years back. And I mean, try to wear a bead 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.760 around your neck without some sort of cordage. You can't 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:27.120 do it. 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.720 No, those puka shells are just falling all over the floor. 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.880 Yeah, I mean maybe you could hold one under your chin, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.160 between your chin and your neck, but who wants to 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:36.120 walk around like that? 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.679 Just use a cord, that's right. The idea for all 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:44.160 of this probably came from early on when they use 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.520 roots and vines for stuff like this. And you know, 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.800 I've got my camp up in the North Georgia Mountains. 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.880 There are some trees that have a like a like 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.520 a vine hanging down that like it might as well 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.880 be just nature's rope, you know. 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.520 For sure? What is I know exactly what you're talking about, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:03.560 but I've never stopped and wondered what it was. 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.240 I guess it's a vine sure, Like it can't be 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.280 a root if it's coming down like from up top right. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.160 Yeah, I didn't know if you knew what kind of 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:12.800 vine it was. 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:14.560 No, I don't know what kind of vine it is, 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.320 But you know, you can sometimes you can like swing 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.720 on that stuff if it's sure if it's attached, but 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:20.360 be careful. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.400 I mean, I guess that's what Tarzan used in the 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:24.640 old movies, right. 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.120 Yeah, he wasn't carrying around rope and slaying it over 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:27.840 tree branches. 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:31.720 No. The other thing about rope is that it seems 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:36.760 to have been developed pretty much universally, Like like every group, 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.800 including ones that were never in contact with one another, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.000 figured out how to make rope on their own. Yeah, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.680 and then they just used whatever local types of fiber 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:53.520 was available. Like in North America, indigenous people used sinew 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:57.800 like tendons of say deer, I saw red deer sinew 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:03.440 rope making video. Yeah, yeah, hair, papyrus and reed in Egypt, 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:09.439 coconut fiber and bamboo in Southeast Asia. Like essentially you're like, okay, 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.600 can you make fibers out of this? Yes, well then 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.080 you can make a rope out of it too. 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.679 Yeah. And you know, like we mentioned stuff like you know, 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.960 to string a bow obviously, but also making netting to 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:24.320 catch fish, shelter to weave together, you know, rope to 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.600 help like lift up a heavy frame of a hut 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.080 or something, hauling stuff, lashing things together. And this is 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.200 what I didn't really think of. But early bridges were 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.280 made of rope, And so if you want to get 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.800 from here to there and you can't do it, one 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:43.400 of the earliest things you could do is build a 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:44.080 rope bridge. 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.439 I would just not have gone across well, or I'd 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.080 have to go around. But there was a Herodotus wrote 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:56.800 in its histories about Xerxes, the first army in the 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.160 Second Persian War. I failed to look where this like 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.720 when this took place. But this was ancient Greece, obviously, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:09.720 But they apparently bridged something like a kilometer wide straight 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.840 using rope and their ships to basically stretch the rope 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.679 and then put boards over these two or three rope 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.440 strands that were going all the way across the strait 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:21.680 to go invade grease. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.560 Yeah, could you supprobl So rope is being used for 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.640 a ton of things for you know, many thousands of years. 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.440 Then all of a sudden, around thirty five hundred BC, 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.600 sailing became a thing. Yeah, and all of a sudden 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.440 it was on. Everyone was like, all right, rope is 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.520 the key to all of this happening. Can't raise a 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.000 sail without rope, can't tie up a can't more a 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.280 ship or can't anchor a ship without rope, So it's 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.360 key to what we're doing. And you know, people sailed 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.280 around for a little while, but then the fifteenth century 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.760 rolls around and the Age of Discovery starts unfolding, and 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.440 all of a sudden, if you were a nation that 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.199 was really good at sailing, you could and they did, 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:10.120 you could go around the world and start claiming places 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:10.760 as your own. 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.880 Yes, and so rope became a really hot commodity during 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:21.720 the Age of Discovery or the Age of colonialism. I guess, yeah, 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.640 there was another industry that came along after, say, like 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:30.040 the navies of the world had started sailing, and that 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.720 was the whaling industry. For sure. The whaling industry needed 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.120 way more rope than a typical like you know, battleship 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.280 or cutter needed, because in addition to all the ropes 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.200 that like your typical sailing vessel needs, they also needed 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.160 lots and lots of rope, strong rope to connect to 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.000 the harpoon that they would harpoon a whale with and 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.080 then drag the whale around with them for the rest 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.240 of the time they were at sea. And there was 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.640 a I guess in Moby Dick. Still haven't read it yet. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.560 Melville talks about how the rope was coiled so precisely 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.920 by like a professional rope layer in the bow of 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.600 the boat. This rope that was connected to the harpoon 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.480 because if there was any kind of like kink or 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.800 loop or something in it, it would just take your 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.200 arm clean off. Like if you got your arm caught 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.080 in this thing and a whale was rushing away with 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:27.280 a harpoon in it, it would your arm was just gone. 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.200 Yeah, and you know what I'm remembering now too. This 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.600 was another reason for rope because in Nantucket they had 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.280 the whaling museum there. Oh ye, So I went to 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.600 the whaling museum, which I thought was super interesting. And 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.520 I've never been more close than reading Moby Dick. Like 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.000 I'm right there. I'm just I'm working on a book 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.800 right now. The next horror book coming out soon from 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:52.640 Keith Rossen, the guy who had been reading lately, is 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.040 called chron By the way. It's great, but Moby Dick 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.280 is right there. And the thing that really pushed me 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.320 over the edge is I just saw that Rob Delaney, Uh, 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.320 you know the actor and comedian Rob Delaney. He's got 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:08.200 a podcast out now called Exploring the Greats that I 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.800 haven't listened to yet. But he and a professor named 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.920 Hester Bloom are doing Moby Dick one chapter at a time, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.640 and I love Rob Delaney. I was like, you know what, 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.040 I think everything in life is telling me to finally 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.920 read Moby Dick and maybe listen to this podcast as 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:26.440 I go along and be a good way to do it. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:27.720 Okay, do it. 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.600 So I'm right, as soon as I finished Keith Rossen's book, 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.680 I'm gonna I think I'm going to dive into Moby Dick. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:34.720 Fine, you can do it. Man. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:36.840 Should we take a break, Yeah. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:37.400 Let's take a break. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:38.840 All right, We're gonna take a break and we're going 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:58.760 to talk about how rope is made right after this, So. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.680 Chuck, like we were saying that ivory weaving tool forty 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:09.080 thousand years ago in Germany, it's essentially like it's still 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:13.119 definitely a part of how rope making was made traditionally 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.240 and then still today. But there is essentially if you 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:20.919 were making a rope, say pre twentieth century, yeah, you 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.720 were following essentially four steps. You have to prepare the fibers. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.480 You spin those fibers in a yarn. You twist the 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.560 yarn and the strands, and then you twist the strands 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.439 and a rope, because, like I was saying before, a 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:38.480 rope is actually just increasingly large ropes twisted or braided together. 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.199 Yeah, and when we say yarn, that's a term that 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.640 you might think of as twine if you like bought 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.240 it in a store. We're not talking about like crafting yarn. No, 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.720 but it just maybe ounts yeah, for sure, but maybe 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.840 think twine and we'll go over these steps. We're not 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:55.840 going to get like super super in the weeds because 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.760 we've learned that, you know, trying to describe a like 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.639 a process, a factory process with just your mouth, is 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.399 that the easiest thing to do. So I would encourage 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:09.879 everyone to go look up a rope walk on YouTube, 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.040 and like we said, there are a bunch of different videos. 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.400 Just pick one of them. And if that doesn't fancy, 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:21.480 that isn't your fancy, isn't your fancy, cat fancy, I 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.639 love your markets just to shout out cat fancy. If 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:27.680 that one's not your liking, then there will no doubt 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.480 be another one. But we're talking about like up until 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:32.920 the seventeen hundreds, they used something called a rope walk, 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:39.080 which was a configuration of machines at opposite ends of 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.080 a long space. Sometimes it was an open field. Sometimes 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.680 it was a big, huge open like barn, but you 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.960 had a flaming tarpet nearby, which we'll see why in 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.080 a minute. Maybe you had a water wheel helping out. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.159 But it was generally human powered, and it needed to 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.439 be long because they were making long ropes. And in 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.080 order to make a long rope, you just have to 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.480 walk this thing down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.159 feet until it's twisted up. 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.560 Yep. I mean that's essentially that. And you have to 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.040 start with fiber. And again whatever local fiber you had works, 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.720 But do you need fiber to spin yarn? And yarn 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.000 is step two. Fibers you have to prepare. You do 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:23.800 all sorts of things to them, like you beat them, 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.440 you soak them, you call them names, and then once 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.360 they dry out, you run them through like giant combs. 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.520 You pull them through combs to basically individuate them. Right, Yeah, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.960 then you start spinning those fibers into yarn. Now you're 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.679 in the rope making this for sure. 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.000 So you've got a spinning wheel At this point, you've 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.680 got a person with a bundle of fibers coiled around 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.000 their waist. It's hooked to a spindle, and then they 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.680 just very slowly walk backward, feeding those fibers in until 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:56.680 you get to the end of the rope walk. And 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.960 then you have your yarn. But in order to make 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.560 that yarn into the strand, you got to soak that in, 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.640 tar ring it through a roller. And then you've got 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.080 like a usable yarn or twine that you roll around 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:12.320 or wind around a big bobbin. 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.760 Yes, and now that you have yarn, which is essentially 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:17.840 just think of it as a bunch of really really 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.400 thin ropes. Right. Now that you have your yarn, you've 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.320 got your first component of rope. Now you take the 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.440 yarn and you twist it or you braid it into strands. Right, 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.200 so you take a bunch of different lines of yarn, 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.560 you pull it through a tube which smooths the fibers, 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.200 compacts it, right, and then you also have it under tension. 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.320 You want it to be tense. And again you a 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.800 machine basically pulls it down the length of this rope walk, 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.080 which are really long. I don't know if you said 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:49.520 it or not. Some of them are like a thousand 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:50.399 feet long. 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.800 Right, Yeah, it depends on how long you need your rope. Sure, yeah. 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.680 And then there's a forming machine that essentially separates the yarn, 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:01.960 and on the other side of the forming machine is 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.719 whatever machine they used to twist or braid it. And 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.919 then as you just keep walking backward that more and 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.920 more yarn gets turned into rope where it all comes 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.199 together at the center and it's twisted or braided. You 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.400 get to the other end. Now you have a strand. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.600 You do that a bunch of times. Then you have 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:19.800 the components you need to make a rope. 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.879 That's right, and you're going to twist those strands into rope. 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.000 Three or four of those strands are going to stretch 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.760 between a couple of twisting machines and they have Again 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:31.440 you got to really look this thing up because all 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.520 of this is possible, of course, because of two other 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.240