Hello everyone

Please find attached the tutorial for a netted pouch of my own design.

This pouch is part of a button sling design made out of Dyneema fishing line like the ones IronGoober used in his recent long range videos.

I cobbled together this tutorial out of photos I already had of previous slings. Unfortunately, I hadn't taken pictures while making the entire sling, so this tutorial focuses only on making the pouch.

This tutorial is detailed enough that I hope anyone can make the same sling if they follow every instruction. However, I don't expect everyone to follow every instruction to the very last detail. I imagined this document as more of a list of my own observations and hacks and anyone can take any part of the tutorial they find useful and apply it to their own designs.

I hope to see many new netted slings made by you people inspired by my design.

I will be looking back at this thread and answering questions when I get the chance.


Kind regards
Rhonan Tennenbrook

---

Awesome Rhonan!  Thank you!

Quick question: how much longer should the seventh strand be? 

Hi @ScantPalaver

Good question.
It depends on the size of the pouch, really.
I haven't really measured, but I would have it double the length of the rest of the strands just to be safe. The pouch really eats up material.
In my slings I usually remove two of the strands out of the braid after the pouch to reduce it from a 7-strand to a 5-strand braid, to reduce the weight of the release cord. In that case you just remove the shortest strands, whichever those may be.

Beautiful tutorial Rhonan. :thumb:

Thanks for posting!

Rhonan, in your first post a few months ago, you mentioned "figuring out how to braid more tightly" so your subsequent slings were stiffer.  How did your braiding technique change?  Right now I'm trying to figure out how to keep my braid tighter, but all I got is "pull real hard before adding the strand."  But I'm seeing some strands slip under others, so either one is tighter, or the other is looser, or both.

Ooh! I just learned how. I'll save the description for him to describe, but here is the result of the way I braid (pulling all strands evenly) vs. the way he does it.

https://youtu.be/BM8_XqQeWRc

Man!  The timing!   ;D

Hi hi

Yeah... Ok... So...

Hook your sling onto something. I use a door handle.

So let's say you're braiding a 7 strand braid. Your instinct might be to pull all 7 strands hard and hold them tight all the time during braiding. You should try to ignore that instinct.
You have 4 strands on one side and 3 on the other, and you're about to pass the outermost strand over to the other side. Before passing the strand over, grab it and pull hard on that individual strand against the door handle (or what ever you have hooked your sling on). It is VERY important NOT to hold any tension on the other 6 strands. The tightness comes from the contrast between that one strand you're pulling and the rest of the braid you keep loose. When you do that you will see the rest of the braid "snake" or "twist" or "zigzag" left and right around that one strand you're pulling for like 1 cm up the braid. It will look chaotic, but that's exactly what you want.

If you do that, what happens is that you're braiding the sling at the point you're passing the strands over, but it is tightening about 1 cm further up the braid. You will see the strands wrench against one another so tight the thread will lose color and go paler.

I strongly recommend using a good pair of work gloves, the kind where the fingers and palms are dipped in rubber. Braiding with gloves like that is going to feel terrible, but you will be able to pull MUCH harder, and you will protect your hands. I guarantee that you will not be able to braid the entire sling sufficiently tight without seriously hurting your unprotected hands.

I also suggest taking a few offcuts of thread and testing the method out. I still have a half finished sling in my cabinet with half of the retention cord floppy. It took me half the retention cord to get the technique right. By then I had to start over.

Hope that helps. :)

I'm making a sling for a close friend here at home. It's 1,2mm thread, 7 strand retention cord and it'll be 75 cm long. I'll take a photo of the finished retention cord. I can hold the entire retention cord horizontal and it doesn't bend, it stays horizontal.

Thank you Rhonan!  I've started doing the "hulk pull" like you're describing, I guess I need to practice the technique more.  Pulling the strand directly against your anchor settles something I've been going back-and-forth on.  Plus, I need a better anchor.  And the gloves are a good tip, I know exactly what kind you're talking about.  While I was working on it last night, I could feel the line trying to cut into my fingers.

Dude, you don't have to pull your door handle off. The trick is in the contrast between the one strand you're pulling, and the rest of the braid you keep loose. :)
 

I'm using a velcro 3M Command hook for an anchor right now.  I've pulled it off a few times, so I need something sturdier.  Other than that, I think I'm close to figuring it out.  I don't think I'm looking far enough up the braid when I pull, and I'm seeing some inconsistencies where it looks like some strands end up under others, but I'm chalking that up to inexperience.

Also, I think this method may work best with small strands, with larger strands I was having a hard time getting good results (i.e. no twisting).

So far I've only tried making balearic slings, which I believe is the most simple and effective design for throwing tennis balls. But this design is seriously awesome! The extra friction that the net design creates probably helps all manner of projectiles stay in the pouch really well.

So I have taken a photo of the tightening method.
The pattern on this sling accidentally ended up being perfect for this photo.

The green strand is just being passed from left to right. You can see I'm pulling on that one strand and letting the others loose. See how the rest of the braid zigzags around that one strand. If you look at the last 1 cm of braid you can see how the end of the braid is loose at the bottom, but the part where the tightening happens is about 1 cm above that.

If you pull every strand like this, about evenly, the braid will just automatically tighten evenly and end up the same tightness at the end. If you look at the already tightened braid there are no strands above or below any other strands. It's all pretty much even.

I don't check whether every pass looks exactly like this. I had to hold this for a while for the photo. I just pull against my anchor, pass it over, and make sure to not apply any tension to the rest of the strands, without checking, and just keep going.

The finished braid ends up very tight and twist resistant.

---

Same braid. Sling retention cord.

60 cm from my fingers to the end of the finger loop.

---

Thank you for continuing to share Rhonan!  I think I need more practice.  I must be inconsistent in my pulling, since I end up with a lumpy braid.

Where do you get your line?  That pattern is awesome! 

It's Hercules brand fishing line.
It's camo pattern. They have it in this color camo and blue/black/white. I bought it off of AliExpress.