For me, there are two reasons. One is to make slings more akin to how they would have been made historically. Braiding loose fibers from plants would have been faster than to manufacture twine first.  Two, it is fun! There is something satisfying about making slings from lengths of fiber that are closer to what you'd get directly from the plant.

I take it one step further and collect plant fibers from plants (like yucca, agave, flax, etc.) and then braid those into a sling. It is just about as laborious as deconstructing a rope, but it is very satisfying once you are finished with the sling.

Using different sling materials and the designs can have effects on many different characteristics that can be beneficial or increase your overall performance with a given sling. Unfortunately to learn what you like in a sling it often takes a lot of experimenting.

You can make a sling with a single cord.
Bit most people prefer a different type of sling due to many different reasons.

• Fibre in my view looks better, it produces a cleaner braid.
• It's generally better for tapering and splicing material to control thickness of the braid. With twines, especially thick twines, you have less flexibility, especially for thinner braids.
• Some materials like sisal I would only really work with in fibre as it is very springy and has undesirable properties in twine form which can have a negative effect on the sling. In fibre form it's like a totally different material.
• Some materials are just plain hard to find in twine, whilst generally you have plenty of options for rope for a wider variety of materials. As far as I know there is no polysteel twine, and in the UK getting hemp twine can be difficult too.

Twine does work just fine though and is significantly easier and faster to braid with. Also, for round braids and woven pouches it's a better choice IMO. I would highly recommend starting with twine if you are braiding a sling.

xud9a - call me zud 👍 wrote on Jun 28^th, 2024 at 3:53am:


Preaching to the choir, I have a good stash of the stuff I got on ebay! Alas though, twine is harder to find. Doesn't help that most online listings use the word "hemp" for search hits even when they are jute 99.9% of the time 

ScantPalaver wrote on Aug 25^th, 2024 at 1:13am:

 

Ahnkochee wrote on Sep 6^th, 2024 at 2:29am:


I haven't.  I see them at Michael's but they're always so brittle I never even considered trying them.

xud9a - call me zud 👍 wrote on Sep 6^th, 2024 at 4:46am:


I am a fan of pine tar, so may try that.