Well then, it's time to write a new entry as I have made additional experiences.

I haven't had time to make much different things with the fibers (The sling with the retted flax is still in construction since 4 months...) but I have thoroughly used the sling I made out of the not retted flax, which I described in the first post. First of all, I don't think that the pain to process the not retted flax is worth the result. I had the hope that the fibers are more durable than the not retted ones and to a certain extent also water proof due to a higher natural oil content. Regarding the durability I'm quite satisfied. Until now I didn't have to replace the end of the release cord. But I believe that similar results can be also obtained with the retted fibers I have.

Regarding the water proofness the experiment was a complete failure. And I was stupid enough to test it with the whole sling and not with a tiny sample braid. I took the sling out to a rainy slinging session and the fibers were soaked up more or less instantly with water. The fibers
swelled and after drying, as expected, the braid became quite loose. Too lose for my likings, but the sling can still be used.

In addition this way I detected a construction error: At one point I added too many fibers to one single strand. This beginning now slipped through the braid because the braid became loose due to the soaking. Now I pushed this end back into the braid and will most probably stiffen the area by melting some wax into it, maybe even an additional wrapping or some seewing.

However I discovered another thing: The whole fibers changed their colour during the soaking. The fibers at the release end are now nearly white and also the rest of the sling brightened quite a bit from a blond colour to a very fair blond / sallow ("weissblond" or "fahl" I would say in german). The more it got soaked the fairer it got. Well, at least I know now how to make white strings beside bleaching it in the sun.

Flax projects in the pipeline:
- Finish the sling made out of retted flax.
- Make a sling out of the short fiber waste. I already have about 1 meter of rough rope turned out of it.
- Get experience with spinning.

squirrelslinger wrote on Apr 30^th, 2014 at 6:37am:


I soaked the sling made out of the not retted flax . But yes, I guess by soaking it I flushed some of the colourant out.

Basically, you're doing experimental archeology. We really need more people doing this.

The next piece: This time it's a braided sling from retted flax, as usually with flax from my own production. I have used around 4 of these bundles you see in the background. The extraction of the retted fibers was a lot easier than for the not retted ones.
Usually I cut all the fuzzy fiber remains away. This time I left it longer than I use to. It gives it a bit a prehistoric look.
The braid itself is very smooth and less stiff than a sling braided from raffia fibers but stiffer than when braided with normal strings. The sling has a darker colour than the not retted fibers.


The next tasks in my flax project will either be learning to spin the flax to make strings and threads, using up the short fiber waste or trying to bleach the fibers to get pure white fibers.

Until now I used it for about 2 hours with tennis balls and a few stones. The whip cracking at the release took away much less fibers than with raffia (bast fibres) or when you unravel normal hemp or flax package string. It's the same as with the not-retted flax fibers. About the abrasion resistance in the pouch I can not yet give you information as I did not test it enough with stones, which have a much higher abrasion than water filled tennis balls. I will keep you up to date when the sling will show first signs of wear and tear.