My Sailor's Rope Experiment...

[Tobias Lutz]

I originally posted this on another site back in the second week of November...I wanted to re-post it here since I have yet to finish the whole experiment. If you missed it the first time around, now you can catch up :)

Thanks to @Bruck continuing to put ideas in my head, I've been experimenting again...

I searched around the interwebs and found some great information on making a rope like the sailors (that I'm so often accused of talking like) used to.

Step 1.
I filled a pan with my homemade Cavendish


Step 2.
I filled a second pan with a 50/50 mixture of Red Leaf Virginia and Turkish Izmir


Step 3. I re-hydrated both pans of leaf with rum


Step 4. While I was woefully short on sailcloth, I did have a couple painter's tarps in the basement. I cut a nice square out of the cleanest one.


continued in next post...

[Tobias Lutz]

Step 5. I started with a layer of half my VA/Turkish blend


Step 6. I placed all my homemade Cavendish in the middle


Step 7. I topped it off with the other half of the VA/Turkish mix


Step 8. I folded the cloth over the mixture and began tucking it in (think rolling a burrito)


continued in next post...

[Tobias Lutz]

Step 9. When I had it rolled up firmly I closed the ends with heavy zip-ties


Step 10. I worked the roll with my hands until it felt like all the tobacco was evenly distributed


Now came the tricky part...

Step 11. I tied my nylon cord around the one end and then in place of a ship's mast, I tied the other end to a support post in my basement and pulled it around a second so that I could leverage my body weight as I tightly rolled the rope. This was actually a little painful on my forearms after a while
When I had wrapped the length of it I cut the cord, secured the loose end with a knot and another zip-tie.


I then hung this baby up from a joist and will leave it there until Easter, just as if it were dangling in a ship's hold sailing around the horn of Africa.

I'll report back in the spring...

UPDATE: Here she hangs, three months later. Lent begins on Wednesday, so it has about 6 weeks left to go.

[Bruck]

Very good, tnx for reposting. Another thread you might consider reposting, if you still have the verbiage or can find a cache of the old one, is your reviews of the po' boy sampler. I did not, unforch, save my old threads on pressing flake and making a twist, but I can probably recreate them easily enough.

[Tobias Lutz]

Very good, tnx for reposting. Another thread you might consider reposting, if you still have the verbiage or can find a cache of the old one, is your reviews of the po' boy sampler. I did not, unforch, save my old threads on pressing flake and making a twist, but I can probably recreate them easily enough.

I've thought about the po' boy thread, but it was quite a number of pages (15+) and that is a pain in the butt to try and recover via caches.

[OnePyroTec]

Hmmm, you made me remember I wrapped up some leaves in twine back in Oct. 2013 and hung them. There wasn't a lot left in the crop after a wicked hail storm I I decided to do something different. Maybe in Spring we can compare notes.

[Tobias Lutz]

Hmmm, you made me remember I wrapped up some leaves in twine back in Oct. 2013 and hung them. There wasn't a lot left in the crop after a wicked hail storm I I decided to do something different. Maybe in Spring we can compare notes.

Screw notes, Wayne, we need to compare samples Did you top them with anything?

[OnePyroTec]

Nothing at all, it is all straight tobacco. I got the idea from the tambolaka stuff. Odds are it is going to be some harsh stuff. Time will tell I suppose.

Do you feel like growing some plants? I have a large stock pile of a few strains.

[Branzig]

Very cool.

Once it is finished, do you plan on taking a bite out of it and giving it a good chew like sailors used to as well?

[Bruck]

Very cool.

Once it is finished, do you plan on taking a bite out of it and giving it a good chew like sailors used to as well?

(I know you weren't asking me but...) I would expect it to make good chaw. I've tried Sam Gawith Brown #4 and it's pretty good between the cheek and gum. I made a cigar leaf twist a few months ago and I actually like chewing it better than smoking it.