Greetings all, new to this forum and slinging in general.  Think I'm going to try my hand at weaving a natural fiber sling from jute or flax.  My question is.. is there anything in particular that needs to be done to provide extra care to the sling once it is complete? by that I mean rubbing with wax or flaming loose hairs.  Thanks, i look forward to browsing this site and making my first sling.  

Hello, Trepsik;
   Welcome.  Some of our members like to use bees wax.  I've never tried it myself but from everything I've read that would probably be the best way to protect a natural fiber sling.  Either jute or flax is a good choice.  Jute is very inexpensive, looks good, is very easy to work with, is durable, and reasonably strong.  Most of the slings I've made have been of jute.  I've never used flax but I've seen flax slings that other members have made and they're beautiful.  Paleoarts likes to use flax a lot.  If I could find some around here I'd try it.   I've also used hemp and like it for many of the same reasons that I like jute.  Sisal will make you a good sling but it can be very scratchy and rough on your hands and difficult to work with.  Cotton is a very good choice too.  It's light, strong, looks great, and is easy to work with.  Some members like silk and wool but I've yet to try them.

thanks for the info.  I'm going with hemp since it was the first thing I found at the store.  Think I'm going to try my hand at making the king tut style sling from the tutorial on this site.  I like the idea of a woven basket instead of two cords.

Welcome to the site Trepsik. Look forward to seeing the finished product. Hemp makes a good sling. Repeated soakings in hot water and then wringing out and letting dry will make the cords very supple. Never needed beeswax for hemp as it tends to be much smoother than jute but it can't hurt either. Good luck.

I have made a lot of slings out of jute and have never done anything to them. I just braid them and weave then throw stones with them. I can get a solid years use out of one jute sling without any special care. The best tip I can give you about using jute is to braid or weave as tight as possible. A tight braid or weave adds a lot of strengh and helps with resisting abraision.

Welcome Trepsik!  I've not much to add, I have used all of the above mentioned natural fibers and have only had trouble with sisal.  I have never used beeswax, and I don't think it  is necessary, but some do use it and I suppose it would help in the long (long long) run.  Burning off loose fibers is a matter of opinion, they do not hurt anything but it you don't like them, burn them off.
Soaking a completed sling will help to brake it in, it makes it very supple and nice, but I would not soak natural fibers before you braid them because they tend to unwind.
Good luck with your sling.

Hemp is naturally rot resistant, so wax and oils aren't needed. It's also on the softer side, so you won't need to burn off loose fibers either. The only problem I see is that I've ripped the cords every time I've tried to weave a Tut pouch out of leather, so you may want to try braiding a netted sling or something else braided if you don't have any weaving experience, because weaving is hard to do well IMHO.

everything above, and add whipping ot the base of the pouch on the release cord. when the stone leaves the pouch it tends to scrape the first bit of the release cord. whipping protects the cord from being worn through. depending on your style, you may also have to whip the end of the release cord as well, as this part generally hits the ground in overhand styles, and receives the most stress.

I use a beeswax-linseed oil mixture that's like a cream,and coat my braided hemp sling with them.They resist wear better and also makes my sling cords a bit more stiff,which i like.

My only sling-care and -maintainance: hang up and let it dry out if it`s wet, rinse in clean water first if it`s muddy too :)

most of the members here are seeming to recommend using jute, but i personally enjoy using sisal (appears an off white or cream colour cord composed of fibres) there are a number of charecteristics that i appreciate about this material for sling use; its durability, ease of manipulation, and apparent lack of memory. though as it is such a coarse material you will need to have built up some callouses on your hands before attempting to weave it, also having some sort of cover on the finger loop is also a good idea, as on my first, it formed, then wore through a blister on my hand....which hurt.

Compared to almost everything else I've used sisal has the most elastic memory.

I agree that sisal seems to have the most memory of most of the natural fibers I have tried using.  But to get around this problem, I just sewed leather onto the pouch....hasn't worn out after 2 years of heavy use. I extended it to cover the first few inches of the release cord, and it works great.  It is obviously a bit more work to put leather on the pouch, in addition to having to weave or braid it, but it makes its lifetime essentially endless, even with really, really rough stones (which is what I use almost exclusively...not by choice I might add).

by elastic memory do you mean the amount of twisting in the end product? thats what i meant, i usually untwist the strand, and begin braiding, and it turns out much less torqued than jute or cotton string, i need to learn some more slingning terminology...

dog footrot wrote on Aug 1^st, 2011 at 1:14am:

by elastic memory do you mean the amount of twisting in the end product? thats what i meant, i usually untwist the strand, and begin braiding, and it turns out much less torqued than jute or cotton string, i need to learn some more slingning terminology...

Elastic memory is the term for a material's ability to "remember" what shape it was in, or to remember the amount of twist in it, and then go back to that after you bend or untwist it. Springs are a good example of this. If you stretch a spring it will shrink back to it's original length because it has a lot of elastic memory, but if you try to stretch out a coiled piece of yarn the yarn won't snap back into a coil because it has very little elastic memory.

Fuzz, glorious fuzz !

A loosely woven sling with a long pouch, made out of cheap (1 Euro) twine, I think jute. It's really hard and fuzzy. Should I pass it over a flame ? Leave it overnight in water ? Rub it with oil ? With wax ?

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Another view

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Theoros, I recommend burning, and possibly even waxing it. Burn it by hanging the sling on one end vertically, then briefly holding a flame underneath it. The flame will catch and naturally burn upwards throughout the sling. Then at the pouch burn off the large fuzzies. Sometimes in America the jute we get will have pieces of stalk in it. If he stalk sticks out cut it off (without cutting the cord itself). If its still a little fuzzy. Wash it in water, and let dry IN A STRAIGHT POSITION. if it dries bent then when it dries off it will stay bent like a crease in paper. If its still a little fuzzy then wax it, the cords look q little too thin to burn again

I generally pass mine horizontally over a flame. Either a candle or the burner of my gas stove. I will do this to get all the fuzz off then soak several times in very hot , but not boiling, water. Soak long enough to let the water cool then take it out and wring the sling out by pinching the cords tightly between thumb and forefinger and squeezing along it's length. I do this a couple times. In fiber like hemp there is something in it that makes it naturally stiff, maybe pectin, though not sure... Squeegeeing the water out like this will make the this stuff come out with the water. The water will look brownish. Then back to soak again in hot water and repeat the squeegeeing process a few more times. Then dry like kid said. After all that if I wanted to I might rub in a light coat of beeswax in then rub it quickly in between the folds of a thick piece of leather until the heat from friction melts the wax and lets it soak in.

Kind of more info than you probably needed but maybe someone will find that helpful for later.

Great stuff, thanks !

Looks like sisal to me. My standard treatment is to soak my slings in water for a minute and hang them on my shower curtain rod by the pouch with a weight tied to the the retention and release cord to keep them from twisting as the sling dries. It really softens the sisal. Part of the stiffness comes from glue added to the fibers as they're spun, and the soaking removes some of that. The rest will drip out as it dries, so put a cloth scrap or a towel under the sling.

Two questions:

1. burning off the fuzz. Is this just a singeing process, or does the sling actually catch fire ? I ask because I'm in greece right now, and mucking about with fire outdoors can lead to forest fires.

2. soaking: can I soak the sling without burning ? I ask this because I'd like to use the sling, it's fuzzy and stiff, and I don't think I'll have the opportunity to go outside and burn off the fuzz.

It's just a singeing process. Actually if you have a thick piece of stubble it will catch fire for a sec but quickly go out as soon as it burns. It's generally safer to singe on cords that are thicker or tightly braided since the more surface area exposed the more chance that too much will burn too quickly though I don't think that is likely to happen or even be a problem.

As far as soaking without burning goes I'm guessing it will work. I don't use sisal but if others here say it makes a big difference with soaking then it should work.

Well I tried (outside) it was in fact raining so i thought that reduced fire risks. With a lighter-- slow going. Still, much better.

Thearos wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2011 at 4:40am:

2. soaking: can I soak the sling without burning ? I ask this because I'd like to use the sling, it's fuzzy and stiff, and I don't think I'll have the opportunity to go outside and burn off the fuzz.

I have one sling that I singed before soaking and one that I didn't singe at all and there isn't any difference in suppleness between them. You can soak your sling without singing it, though it looks like you've already singed it.

Here is the sling, after singeing off the fuzz:

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And here's another one, with the rest of the spool of ??sisal, with a split pouch.

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