I would like to see a braided balearic sling from nettles one day, but it would take a lot more time and effort

I like the 2 ply, so easy to make. For a proper length sling just get 10 meters of twine ( I used less, my sling is short)
fold it in halve, twine it into a rope, then cut the rope in halve and just splice it together to form a split pouch. Whip and maybe sew the splices at the pouch with a thin piece of nettle twine. Now you have a working split pouch. Stitch some leather on it and it's almost a faux Balearic split pouch. They won't be as refined as a Balearic but my guess is 5-10 times less time to make and they work almost as good. Plus if it breakes you can quickly de-ply it and make a new sling with new fibers in less than a day. This way you can have a nice natural sling that is easy to fix.

That’s a neat looking sling my man. Well done. Anyone who’s processed fiber knows that probably took awhile. I would love to process a natural fiber sling completely primitively and then find a wild hive of bees to get the beeswax out of it for proper cord protection. And, if I could have one more wish, I would want to do it without getting stung to all hell.

Making a nettle rope is quite long. By cons, with 6 or 7 nettles, I make 1 meter of rope. Ideal for holding a leather pouch.

TOMBELAINE wrote on Jul 13^th, 2020 at 8:25am:


Run them through a flame or strip them with your hand. Still unless you have gloves you’re likely to get stung a bit.

My worst experience with nettles was some large variety up in the mountains. I got one sting from these things and it ached horribly for hours. Not a huge deal but definitely something I wouldn’t want to repeat.

Looking forward to the video!

One month later, the fibers are dried.
The videos are not good but it's difficult with my small camera.
You can brush the fibers but that is not necessary.
I twist one time, and another more for safety.

Fandabi Dozi on YouTube (great channel by the way mostly focusing on the Scottish Highlander of the 17th century; their kit, skills and weapons) just uploaded this video on a primitive fishing kit where he makes cord from nettles. Nothing new from the other posts but still good to see some more applications for nettle cordage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0wbeWqyOP8

Make a rope and you can make a sling!
In fact most of us ''making slings'' are rather ''assembling slings'' from premade rope/cord
The hardest part of true sling making in my opinion is gathering the fibre.
The assembling them into a sling part is the easy and fun part