1.- Materials:
CORD i use 5mm nylon, but it can be anything else suitable, wether natural or synthetic. 5 mm makes a decent pouch
thinner cord will make a slim pouch thus a bit more difficult to load.
PAPER CLAMP or something to hold cord in place at the beginning, i.e. a clothespin.
THREAD AND NEEDLE Use a strong thread (i.e.gütermann M1003 100% polyester)
KNIFE or cutter or scissors whatever you're comfort with
LIGHTER to melt the nylon/plastic fibers when trimming the cords of the release cord.
^some of the materials used
^detail of the nylon cord i use
2.-STARTING
We need 3 pieces of cord, depending on the materiial used, thickness, stiffness and lenght of the sling we want pieces will be shorter or longer, as an orientation, with the cord i'm using you'lll need about 3x6.5 m for a sling of 112cm or 3x2.6m for a sling of 46 cms.(the one in the pics)
Place the 3 pieces of cord paralel each other with ends aligned towards yourself.
Find the middle of the lenght of cords, and place the paper clamp.
3.-Starting to braid the finger/s ring
Once you've braid the desired lenght (nylon braid gets tight with use, so be gentle) unclamp the paperclamp and make a loop joining the free cords
4.- Now start to braid the retention cord (3 strand braid of 2 cords each strand) to the desired lenght.
5.- Now we are going to braid the split pouch , we separate 3 cords each side ...
...and we braid 2 separate braids
Once we have done the split pouch to the desired lenght we join again the 6 free cords...
6.-...and start to braid the release cord .
While we are braiding we need to trim one of the cords (one of the central strand of 2cords) to make release cord thinner llike a whip (latigo)
and we melt the cut zone with the lighter so fibers don't get loose.
We continue braiding for some lenght (3 strand braid 2 of the strands are a couple of cords and one strand is single)and trim again one of the central strand of 2 cords
we continue braiding (2 of the strands are single and 1 a couple)and we trim the last couple strand.
We continue braiding the 3 left cords to the desired lenght of the sling.
note the trim points in the central strand along the release cord of the sling.
and a closer view of the trim points
7.- Now here comes the sewing part... 1st we sew the end of the release cord and we leave some free cord for the fluffy tail
and now we sew the trimmed points to his strand fellow... so it wont unbraid when slinging.
here is the stiches done
8.- and now the fluffy tail... we disgregate the fibers at the end of the sling release cord...
then we trim some of the fibers to give it a flame form, and here is the sling done.
^ This is a short sling (46 cms) intended for increase accuracy at short/middle ranges , this is about the lenght i've seen some shepards using here in Sierranevada mountains.