Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots

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Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots

Submitted by An Outdoor Idiots Team Member.

Improvised Cordage for the Lazy

At Outdoor Idiots.com, we occasionally like to go into the woods and pretend to be Ray Mears. Oh, come on, we all do it.

Recently we decided to have a go at improvising some natural cordage. Unfortunately, a lot of natural cordage materials require a bit of work before they become useable. Methods seem to involve rubbing things, beating things, twisting things, boiling things and just generally doing hard work. Outdoor Idiots.com will not tolerate hard work.

So we thought we'd have a go at making some cordage from tree roots. Seems simple enough. Get some tree roots, peel off the bark, and hey presto, you have some cordage. Surely it can't be that easy!? Well, it was. And we liked the results.

Finding and Preparing the Roots

Mr. Mears suggests that the roots of coniferous trees generally provide the best cordage. Which was nice, because we were in a forest that was predominantly made up of Pine trees of some sort or another.

Normally the ticket would be to locate the thin roots of Pine trees that are just a few centimetres below ground. You can use a stick to locate them, and to dig them up. But even that was too much work for us. So we found a tree that was on a very eroded slope, with a lot of its small roots exposed, as in Fig. 1:

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (1)

Fig. 1: A Pine tree with exposed roots
Wasting no time, we had at it with a knife. We excavated a thin root, and chopped it off near the base of the tree, where the root was about 1cm thick. You can see the remains of the root in Fig. 2:

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (2)

Fig. 2: The remains of a harvested Pine tree root
Now to strip the bark off the root. Mr. Mears suggests you can make a tool called a "brake" to help do this. A brake is simply a stick which has been carved to have a tip a bit like a flathead screwdriver, and with a notch cut into the tip. Guess what? Yup, too much hassle for us. We found a nearby fallen tree. One of its branches was badly damaged and had a split in the end. So we pulled our Pine root through this, which stripped the bark off (Fig. 3):

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (3)

Fig. 3: Stripping the bark off the root with a split stick
This was actually a very nice way of stripping the bark off. One hand could squeeze the split branch as tight as we liked, while the other pulled the Pine root through the split. It was easy to apply just enough pressure to strip the bark from the root.

So, where do we go from here? Well, we wanted to see just what this stuff could do. The first thing we noticed was that it was quite sticky, on account of the sap. Mr. Mears tells us that these roots can function as cordage either when freshly cut, or after drying out. We couldn't be bothered drying it out. We just wanted to know what it could do. So we put it to some tests. Here's what happened:

Strength and Uses of Pine Root as Cord

A Square Lashing made from Pine Root Cordage

We wanted to make a square lashing, to lash two poles together at right angles. We couldn't think of a reason for doing this, but we felt sure that this was the kind of thing that Ray Mears would be doing if he were in our situation. Things started off well. We got a Clove Hitch tied very nicely around the first pole (Fig. 4):

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (4)

Fig. 4: A Clove Hitch made from Pine root cordage
The root had a tendency to split as it was knotted, but brilliantly, it always split lengthways. This only served to make it easier to knot, rather than make it noticeably weaker. We liked this a lot. Red-faced and hearty from joy, we then carried on to make a square lashing (Fig. 5):

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (5)

Fig. 5: A square lashing made from Pine root cordage
It was good. It was strong. We were happy.

A Bowline Knot made from Pine Root Cord

We were terribly cruel to the Bowline Knot in this article. So, just to show willing, we thought we'd have a go at tying one with our new friend, the Pine root cordage. We chose a particularly thin piece of root, and tied the Bowline very tightly, confidently expecting something to snap. It didn't, and we ended up with this (Fig. 6):

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (6)

Fig. 6: A loop made with a Bowline knot using Pine root cordage

Joining Pine Roots with a Double Fisherman's Knot

By this stage, we were feeling pretty invincible with our new Pine root cordage. "But what if we need a really long bit of cord?" we wondered. With this question burning like fire within us, we had a go at joining two lengths of Pine root together with a Double Fisherman's knot (Fig. 7):

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (7)

Fig. 7: Two lengths of Pine root cordage joined with a Double Fisherman's knot
We were very happy with the appearance, but we didn't trust it. So two of us, one at each end, attempted to pull the cords apart, treating the whole thing like some kind of crazy Christmas Cracker of the Woods. The knot and the cord held firm. We hurt our hands.

At this point, practically drunk with knots and the smell of Pine, we decided there were no limits to what we could do. "It has to be done," we thought. "Come on. Let's do it!"

A Penberthy Prusik made from Pine Root Cordage

As part of our service to the world, Outdoor Idiots.com will never shy away from an opportunity to mention the wonderful Penberthy Prusik knot. And so we decided to tie one with our Pine root cordage (Fig. 8). We tied it around another piece of Pine root.

Improvising Cordage from Tree Roots (8)

Fig. 8: A Penberthy Prusik tied with Pine root cordage
It worked, and it was good. You heard it here first. Now go tell your friends.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Trees

The NSPCT doesn't exist. But if it did, and we ran it, we'd probably say something like this at this point:

Don't cut more than one or two thin roots from any one tree.
Try to make the cuts neat, so that the remaining length of root does not have any splits in it. Splits at the ends of roots or branches can be good breeding grounds for things that harm trees, and can therefore make it easier for a tree to become infected.
If you have to unearth some soil to get at the roots, then carefully replace the soil afterwards.

If you are pining to get back to your roots (do you see what we did there?), you can discuss matters with like-minded people here.

If you can't be bothered to enter the forums, then shame on you! But you can still leave a comment below. Please try to avoid the profane ramblings of a madman. That's our job.

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