Slinging.org Forum - Horse hair sling

WalkingBird

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Horse hair sling
Mar 9^th, 2004 at 8:50pm

Has anyone ever made, or thought about making a braided sling from horse hair? Seems like it would be excellent for cool. Here is a link to Crazy Crow, seems like the price of horse hair is fairly cheap. And it comes in lots of colors including dyed.
Anyone want to share some ideas on how it might best be done? Experiences? Thoughts?

http://www.crazycrow.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=555-10...

WalkingBird

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justbarak

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Re: Horse hair sling
Reply #1 - Mar 9^th, 2004 at 9:47pm

mmm.... horse hair. I use to have a horse and I loved all the fancy bridles and tack and stuff that you could buy that had been intricately woven, knotted, and braided out of horse hair. Knowing the intense strength of hair, it's flexibility and durability, I would imagine that it would make an excellent sling; much like a nylon sling in it's feel and look. Honestly, though, I'm not sure how you would go about it. However, deep in my bookmark archive of things I wish to learn I have a link for horse hair art http://www.horsehairart.com/Index.html ; I'm sure there are some resources available there.

Barak - who keeps spelling "horse hair" as "hores hair" and has to constantly delete it

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Johnny Funditor Offline Posts: 620 Goodlettsville,TN Gender:	Re: Horse hair sling Reply #2 - Mar 10^th, 2004 at 12:05am I've read where the Balearics used horse hair as well as plant fibers to make slings. I have seen very sturdy, attractive lead straps and halters made from horse hair. I looked at the site and noticed the length was around 15". You would have to do some weaving as you braid to get the length!!
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Chris Slinging.org Administrator Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 1284 USA Gender:	Re: Horse hair sling Reply #3 - Mar 10^th, 2004 at 12:41am I think this can be done in a similar way to weaving grass. Look in the gallery section and scroll down to Paul, near the bottom, and take a look at his grass sling. Pretty neat. Chris
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Hondero

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Re: Horse hair sling
Reply #4 - Mar 10^th, 2004 at 6:42pm

As Johnny say, the slings of the old Balearics were made of vegetal fiber reinforced with hair horse and sinew. But also the hair horse has been used in recent times. A friend has told to me that there was one of these at home when he was a child, made entirely of horse hair. It´s a pity that this sort of ethnological things disappear with time. I think today nobody makes this sort of resistant slings... except maybe someone of the expert weavers of this forum Grin

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Dan_Bollinger

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Re: Horse hair sling
Reply #5 - Mar 12^th, 2004 at 8:59am

This sounds like fun! First, I'll learn to do 8 and 12 strand braids. I notice that the horsehair is also available in longer lengths, but not long enough. After all, a horse's tail is only so long.

When you are making up a strand, or 'pull' as they call it, you will have to add horsehairs to get long lengths. I think this is called "marrying". You 'marry' in a horsehair when one runs out. Of course, you don't want to marry all the horsehairs in one spot, it would weaken the strand.

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big_sling_gland Ex Member	Re: Horse hair sling Reply #6 - Jan 4^th, 2008 at 5:12pm mono filament hair cheap could be done...
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bigkahuna past-moderator Offline Posts: 3894 Delaware, USA Gender:	Re: Horse hair sling Reply #7 - Jan 5^th, 2008 at 12:53am I have a couple of hat bands and a key chain made from braided horse hair. I will have to take a closer look at these. Sounds entirely possible though.
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Mr.Joel

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Re: Horse hair sling
Reply #8 - Jan 5^th, 2008 at 2:21am

Making cordage splicing your fibers in this way first then braiding the cords would achieve your desired length more easily than splicing the hair into the braids as you go I would think, but I don't know about sling braiding, so I can't really say.
Wonder if human hair would be better or worse. Now where's that darn scalping knife?

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knock yourself out, tosser

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wanderer

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Re: Horse hair sling
Reply #9 - Jan 5^th, 2008 at 4:30am

Mr.Joel wrote on Jan 5^th, 2008 at 2:21am:

Making cordage splicing your fibers in this way first then braiding the cords would achieve your desired length more easily than splicing the hair into the braids as you go I would think, but I don't know about sling braiding, so I can't really say.
Wonder if human hair would be better or worse. Now where's that darn scalping knife?

There was a thread here in the last year showing a sling made from human hair (his own I think) :
http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1163672144/0

Surely horse hair would also work very well. I'm reminded of the climbing ropes that were used on the Scottish island of St Kilda which were made of horse hair and apparently lasted for generations. Also the traditional way to make fishing line.

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Curious Aardvark Forum Moderation Offline Taller than the average Dwarf Posts: 13965 Midlands England Gender:	Re: Horse hair sling Reply #10 - Jan 5^th, 2008 at 9:10am the tibetan slings are made from horsehair.
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slingbadger Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Don't Badger a Badger Posts: 3220 Akron NY Gender:	Re: Horse hair sling Reply #11 - Jan 5^th, 2008 at 9:56am Horse and human hair has beensed since antiquity. The old torsion catapults used ropes of human hair. The only real problem with hair is that it reacts to the humidity. It tends to kink and twist, literally having a bad hair day.
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