Bark Cordage

From WildernessWiki.org

Mac, currently in Brazil, shows us how to make cordage from bark in the video below.

Finished cordage, cordage materials, and tools

Thursday morning my daughter and I took off to the hills to the same place I recently did the Alpine Survival trip. She had off from school and wanted to head for the hills.

We shot a few minutes of video of the way I teach making cordage from Imbira bark. The same technique would easily work with other raw bark, but this is how I teach this skill. It works for me and might for you as well.

My plant types here are different than what you will have in North America but the principles are the same. So far I have made cordage from yucca, sisal, buriti palm, eucalyptus bark, and Imbira. Yucca is very easy to work with and produces a very strong cord. It is an easy fiber to learn on.
Making cordage out of bark is harder to learn on than other materials. I started to learn on shredded Buruti Palm leaves and Sisal (a form of Yucca). These are both very easy to work with. The Imbira is what the locals use for cordage and it is very available where I do my woodsbumming so I used that for the video. It also makes extremely strong cordage that you can use in the place of paracord.

Click the play icon to begin video: