This is not really a plastic bag sling, because I made it out of a waste strip of tyvek from work, but tyvek is plastic and so it fits here 




It is about 65 cm (2') long from the retention loop to the middle of the pocket, and nearly a meter (3') till the fluffy ends of the release cord. I have only used it empty in the house yet, but I hope to get a little crack out of it when using it for real.

To make it I twisted the plastic strip and braided that, the pouch is woven, as you can see. If it does not work like this I will tape it over.

Willeke

I used 8 strings for the braid, added one string for the pouch. But I added it in such a way that a short piece was there for the warp and the long length for the weft.

So I had 9 strings for the weft. At the end of the pouch I did place both those strings in the center of the braid, as a core, and cut them after a short lenght.

To weave in this pattern you need an odd number of strings, any odd number will do, but I find seven a bit on the skinny side fora pouch, and you never know how much longer the string for the weft needs to be.

It worked well, also because the string is really stiff. And I know the plastic will behave more like leather then like paper so I hope it will stay sturdy enough.

Willeke

agh. ive been trying to duplicate the woven plastic one i just gave to a friend. for some reason i can't get my hands on a walmart bag. all the other plastic bags stretch way too much an break when i twist them. any helpful hinds. i just started to make chording recently. could someone put up the link to the thread with chording. i know you twist it real tight and then double it over and twist the oposite direction. but one side keeps unravling! help I'm thinkin about just trying the sliding handles in the trash bags, the yellow or red draw string kind. that stuff is much stronger and feells nice on the skin. I conclude that plastic bags are great things to make a qwik sling but i need more consistency in width and thickness. so i'm going to try something better suited. could you guys think of anything else thats plastic that i could obtain for free that is a bit stronger that a plastic bag? i can't seem to find any tyvec.

yeah, i've been doing it a similar way, i just lay the plastic on some wood and take some sort of straight edge and take a box cutter and cut it.

By the way, even with even pieces of plastic, i get to were the chord is just getting taught and it snaps. i think i'm going to give up on grocery bags and go for Industrial heavy duty bags. their similar to what i think your talking about fi3l2. but they're thicker and amazingly strong. i'll try it out this weekend and tell you guys the results

Harryman,
Maybe you twist the plastic to much. It needs little or no twist to make a sling, but if you overtwist you weaken it.

But the heavy duty plastic bags sound good too.
If the edge is sharp or uneven, it might be better to twist it. But this too, do not twist more than needed.

Willeke

I used a little machine at work which is nothing but a stick rotating, powed by a sewingmachine engine and controled by the pedal the sewing machine used to use.

You can as easily use a spinning stick or drop spindle, because you are not going to spin large amounts.

A spinning stick is nothing but a stick which is long enough to collect the wound yarn with a bit left over to use to spin. For a test a pencil can do, in real use you can prefer a longer one, like half a meter (1 1/2') or shorter.
The stick should have a straight end, pointed will do too, but no hook.

Tie (or tape) the start of the string to the stick and start rolling the stick so the 'string to be' rolls around it, pull it of the free end of the stick and see that you made some twists in it. Repeat till there is enough twist in the lenght you are working on and roll it on the stick, farther away from the end. Lead the last bit of string from the wound bit to the end of the stick and repeat with the next bit of 'string to be'.







This is a crude photo guide to using the spinstick. The tape in the photos is 2 cm wide and a little unwilling. But I guess that you can get the idea.

For a dropspindle, look for beginning with hand spinning on the web.

Willeke

good idea. I just crammed the ends of a plastic bag into the chuck of an 18 V drill.

Good tip, after working with full saws or welding equipment, it's easy to forget the danger of even a drill. Anyway, I'm too lazy to come up with a special rig, so my finger's always on the trigger.