Gutermann Polyester thread for making rope.

[MEDDO]

Awesome Ryland Thanks

[Bob Cleek]

Thanks a million for  the receipe! That saves tons of time experimenting.

[Chuck]

Thats why i posted it.  Let us know how it turns out.

[davec]

Chuck - thanks so much.  Would have been great to have this before making rope for Hannah - spent weeks figuring out recipes and how to color.  And I do remember morope - beautiful looking stuff, but if I ever forgot to superglue prior to cutting, major unravelling.  I have your rope rocket and am looking forward to getting my Sharpie to the rigging stage so I can try it.

 

Dave

[Chuck]

Let me know if you have any questions at all.  I believe that this a skill everyone should learn.  In the long run it is so much cheaper to make your own.  And when you get good at it, you could probably make all the rope you need for a given project in just one day.

 

On any average day...today for me....I will be making about 65 to 70 packages of rope.  Each between 20 and 22 feet long.  
 

just remember to lay it up tightly.  99% of folks dont and their results look more like String than scale miniature rope.

[Chuck]

I just wanted to show you guys some rope I was making just yesterday.  Its not packaged up yet.   This is NOT Gutermann MARA.  This is my poly/cotton blend stuff.  Its supposed to be about 60/40 poly to cotton.   But my guess is there is more poly.  So yes I do still have to cook it.  

 

Same procedure as I mentioned for the Mara stuff above.  I have started making it just in case I cant get my Linen thread anymore.  But I digress.   I just wanted to point out how tightly it is laid up....

 

Many more initial twists of the individual strands.....so after you twist all three strands together in the opposite direction, you can achieve a tighter rope.  Doing this with poly is much much easier than doing it with cotton or linen.  The natural stuff wants to kink up on you.  But because the poly is a bit more stretchy, it wont.  Its more forgiving.   It is also not as important to tie the strands to your ropewalk with the exact same same tension initially.  Because its a bit more stretchy....again it tends to equalize and make a really crisp and clean rope when laid up.  

 

This particular size rope is very small by the way.  It is size .018

 

Also note the color difference between the mara stuff I posted.  The mara stuff is a bit orange that the museum wanted so I chose this custom color for my new Syren ULTRA scale rope.   Let me know if anyone has any questions.  

 

and this is a larger rope which would be a huge challenge to make on one of those planetary machines.  ( ,080) Note the cut end which isnt unraveling......no glue at all.   Again this is a poly blend ULTRA rope.  It hangs and coils very naturally.

 

 

 

[Old Grunt Marine]

I just finished the 18th Century Armed Longboat from Model Shipways.  I had a great deal of difficulty with their nylon rope. It doesn't go where I want it to.  It doesn't hang naturally, so when trying to tie a knot it's the devil to get the end of the thread to go where you want.  It won't lie down in a natural coil.  I have given up on the stuff.

[Chuck]

Yes that nylon stuff is brutal.  
 

chuck

[Jack12477]

Yes, that's why I replaced all of Model Shipways kit rope with Artesania Latina rope at first until I discovered your rope. Now I replace everybody's kit rope with Syren rope.  Good stuff, Chuck. 

 

Forgot to mention, same applies to kit supplied blocks, they get replaced with Syren blocks also,

[Chuck]

Thank you.....

 

I try my best to make some great quality rope!!!  Its easy to make once you get the feel for it.   I encourage everyone to try it as well.  

[milw]

Hi Chuck, this is my first couple of attempts using some Corel rope. It isn’t unravelling, but it doesn’t feel like cotton either- the thicker one is stiff too. I’m pretty happy for the first go with the Rope Rocket, and I agree it’s extremely fast and everyone should try!

 

[MEDDO]

I like the look of that rope.  

[Chuck]

Very very nice....try and experiment with all different kinds of threads.   You will find one that is excellent and it will be your "go-to" thread for modelling.  Keep track of the recipe you use.   Make a log of all that for future rope making sessions.

 

 

[VTHokiEE]

Ordered a Syren Rope Rocket, some garage pulleys and some Mara thread to give this rope making a go. When you bake the thread does it give off a scent at all (do I need to buy a small toaster oven)?

[Chuck]

I use a small toaster oven.   Mostly because every time I want to cook some rope, somebody is using the oven.  No smell unless you burn/melt it.   What a running oozing mess.   So dont over do it.

 

Chuck

[Nirvana]

At what temp are you baking the rope? And for how long?

Placed my rope rocket order last Tuesday. 

[VTHokiEE]

5 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

At what temp are you baking the rope? And for how long?

At the top of this page (originally on the previous page) is a recipe. It calls for 5 minutes at 350F.

[Nirvana]

1 hour ago, VTHokiEE said:

At the top of this page (originally on the previous page) is a recipe. It calls for 5 minutes at 350F.

Thank you.

[VTHokiEE]

I wanted to place a note here as a complete novice to rope making. I purchased Syren’s Rope Rocket and some Mara thread and have been trying to get some nice rope. I think I’ve finally found the trick for me and that is to put a lot more initial twists in than you realize. Compared to my first batch I think I may be putting 10x the initial twists in and it has helped significantly with unraveling. There is definitely an art to it, but I think I’m heading in the right direction.

[t5956ws]

Hello, I could not find Gutermann Mara 120 in 2899. What is the nearest code to that?  I can just change all to that color. I should just pick one but colors displayed on a computer are almost never accurate to the actual color. 

[Chuck]

I have no idea...you will need to just pick one.    But when you are on the mara 120 screen try and just type in the color code....that sometimes works.

[Steef66]

Thanks for sharing this. I was searching to avoid ravelling of rope. Tried with a gas lighter, but that was a pain in the ***, need to be very carefull. This method is much better to cook the rope after turning. I use Serafil from Amann It is 0,12 mm thick (120/2) 100% polyester.

This was a helpful topic.

this is the rope without cooking

 

 

I'm Dutch so the 350 degrees are in Fahrenheit I guess? (we use Celcius in our country, 350 degrees Celcius is hot like a flame )

Edited April 16, 2021 by Steef66

[Chuck]

Great news!!! Just dont go too hot or bake it too long.  It will melt your rope into a sloppy liquid goop.  
 

it works great and its actually how polyester thread is made and fixed.  But on a huge industrial scale of course. 

[Kevin]

Good evening everyone

 

you lot must be sick of asking stoooooopid questions

 

i ordered the Dormanoff ropewalk and it has been despatched

 

i have read loads of articles and, basically got quite confused, not because of how to make it, but material to use, i have eventually found a source in the UK for Guntermann but although they do the sizes 120, 100, 70 and 30 as per @Chuck article the colours are not

 i read somewhere that you can get good results by colouring white rope after its made, reason for asking is that i have just ordered some white with that intention, but dont know where i saw the article or dreamt i it

 

[wefalck]

Depends on the Gütermann thread you ordered. Synthetics mostly cannot be dyed.

[JohnA]

Hi Chuck, I have been following your posts on this subject and decided to take the leap. I bought a rope walk, of very dubious quality but high price, assembled it and jumped in. I made a couple of pieces of cord of poor quality. I have had trouble obtaining the thread frequently mentioned herein, but yesterday went to a local shop and found some Gutermann poly thread. No identity beyond that, but it is fairly fine. I took particular note of what you said about it being tightly laid up. The result is in the photo. I am encouraged to continue, but I really need a source of thread in Australia.

An issue I would like to clear up is the official nomenclature of Gutermann threads. Am I correct in thinking that something like Mara 120, 80, etc. refers to the composition and the tex figure relations to the weight/size of the thread, and the higher this number the heavier the thread? I have read numerous notes on this and come away more confused than when I started.

[Gregory]

I'm sure Chuck can add more, but I don't know if he can tell about sources in Australia..

 

With Mara, the higher the number the finer the thread.

 

Tex appears to be the opposite.

 

There is a chart with Chuck's rope recipes here somewhere..  I will try to find it if someone doesn't beat me to it..

 

Wawak is where I get my thread in the US..  Here is a page with the Gutermann polyesters they carry.

 

It is really hard to know what the color will be in person by looking at their color chips.

 

I use their 2827 which is a hemp color and 446 which is a real dark brown,  but maybe not as close to black as some might prefer..

 

I use several different Mara numbers depending on the desire rope size..

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Gregory

[bartley]

Here are some numbers for Gutermann  thread. The TEX values are supplied by the manufacturer.  Diameter is difficult to measure on such fine compressible thread so I have estimated the diameter from the TEX value using a formula which you can derive from the density of the fiber and the TEX number: This will be( sqrt(TEX/1.38 gm/cm^3/314159.27)X20 The density of the fiber is a big issue since only the manufacturer really knows this accurately.  As you can see , I used 1.38 gm/cm^3.

 

                                   TEX             Diameter

Mara 220	13	0.109
Mara 150	20	0.135
Mara 120	25	0.15
Mara 100	30	0.166
Mara 70	40	0.192	Measures about .25
Mara 50	60	0.235
Mara 35	80	0.272
Mara 30	100	0.303
Mara 15	200	0.429
Gutterman C Ne50	20	0.128	This measures about 0.2 and may be 2 ply
Vevus 16/0	14	0.113
John

Edited December 18, 2021 by bartley
spelling

[wefalck]

Not sure, whether I had posted this already, but some years ago I made myself a similar table on MS Excel. The formula to calculate the approximate diameter D in Millimetres from the tex-number I used is:

 

D = =SQRT(tex/(Y*1000*100*PI))*10*Z

 

where

Y = density (g/cm^3) of the Material (for Polyester around 1.5 g/cm^3)
Z = number of threads (ply) in the yarn

 

The other numbers are derived from the definition for tex, wich is the weight of a defined unit of length of the yarn. The rest of the formula is the inverse formula to calculate the area of the cross-section from the diameter of a circle.

 

Thus a two-ply Mara 220 of 13 tex does have indeed a diameter of SQRT(13 / (1.5*1000*100*3.1415))*10*2 mm = 0.105 mm

[Gahm]

Thank you, this formula is most helpful!

 

Thomas