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.

[GWBowman]

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.

Do you know a source that sells small amounts of tobacco seeds, like you would buy flower or vegetable seeds in the outdoor section at Wal-mart?

[OnePyroTec]

Do you know a source that sells small amounts of tobacco seeds, like you would buy flower or vegetable seeds in the outdoor section at Wal-mart?

George, shoot me a PM, I have LOTS of seeds. $2.50 would cover postage, packaging, and several strains. Time is NOW to get them in the soil for spring.
That would go for anyone who wants seeds.

If you want to buy from a retailer, search up coffin nails tobacco seeds Lots of information on growing.
I'm not posting their URL since they have tobacco forums there.