Rope, yeah ROPE!

The Undersung Invention of Rope

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1:44Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

1:54Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. And we're going to rope you into interest in ropes in this episode of Stuff You Should Know on ropes. Yeah, I had this idea, and this is one of those where it was a very distinct situation that made me think of it, which was on our trip to Nantucket when Emily and I went there for the first time not too long ago. We did a sailing trip on kind of an old-school boat, sailing boat, and they let me, I volunteered to help out.

2:29So I was hoisting sails and raising jibs and things. I don't know if that's proper terminology. And I had that rope in my hand, and I kind of looked at it, and it was the old-school, you know, rope rope. Not synthetic. It was clearly made from natural fibers, and it was braided and very thick and heavy. And I was like, man, rope. It's like, what an undersung invention. Had you taken mushrooms? No, not at all. Well, maybe microdose.

3:00But it was definitely one of those moments where I was like, what an undersung invention. Like if you polled 100 people, you would get lots of wheels or maybe gears or fire or sliced bread or the toaster or whatever. But, like, I doubt if you would get more than, like, a 10 percent, unless you work in, like, a sailing industry or another industry that heavily relies on rope, I doubt if you would get a ton of people that said, yeah, rope, that's up there as one of the greatest inventions of all time. But it has touched so much of humanity and the forward progress of humanity.

3:35Yeah. I mean, you make a great point. I hadn't thought about it either. I probably would not have said rope. But, Julie helps us with this, I think, and, I mean, like, if you want to till some, like, really hard ground to try to grow crops in it, try to do that with an ox and a plow, but no rope, sucker. Yeah. If you want to shoot a wild boar from 30 feet away, what are you going to shoot it with? You're going to shoot it with a bow that has a kind of rope.

4:08And, you know, we should point out that what we're talking about is cordage. So any kind of bundled fiber that's braided together, that's all sort of a kind of rope. We wouldn't have had musical instruments. We wouldn't have had undersea cabling to make the Internet possible. And then once sailing came around, that, you know, you think about, yeah, big deal. It helped sailing. But sailing is what helped discover the world. Yeah. You got to think of it beyond the America's Cup. Yeah, for sure. So, like you said, let's talk about rope.

4:42Let's get into it, shall we?

Cordage Basics and Jargon

4:43Let's do it. I learned a lot in this. And like you said, rope is a type of cordage. Not all cordage is rope. Rope is essentially made of different types of smaller ropes bundled together. Like you said, braided, you can also twist them. You can make it out of everything from synthetic fibers like jute or sisal. Sisal comes from the agave plant. Did you know that? I did. Oh, I didn't. And you can make it out of wire. A little bit. You can make it out of wire.

5:14There's all sorts of stuff you can make it out of. But the point is, is that all of them follow essentially the same method of making a rope that if you strip away all of like the bells and whistles that you have today, it's they're putting this stuff together in the same way that people put it together from the very outset of rope making. Yeah. And, you know, I think that's the other thing that appealed to me was I was looking at this rope and saw the like an individual strand was frayed perhaps. And I saw how just like human hair like that was.

5:46And I just love the idea that somebody was like, you know, this thing weak, but put all this together and it's strong. Yeah, it's very clever. I never thought about it either. But the way that a rope is made strong and stable and all of that is because they're twisted in opposing like the fibers are twisted in opposing directions held to tension. And that I think the impression I have is that you're actually storing somehow some energy

6:16or force in the rope when you start braiding it and twisting it under tension. Yeah, it creates something that has high torsional stability so it can hold its shape even though rope is moving around and being tied into knots and it's constantly twisting around and getting pulled on. And, you know, it depends on what kind of rope you have. But, you know, if you see these those giant ropes that they still use to tie in like a cruise ship or something. Yeah. I mean, it's still the same stuff.

6:46It's fascinating to me. That's right. Let's let's talk specific jargon, baby. Let's love it. I love some jargon. All of this stuff is cordage. Like we said, a cord is a rope that's three sixteenths of an inch or less. That's right. Use metric TS. Yes. It's still a cord. You have to use inches for that. That's right. A rope is a rope if it is above three sixteenths of an inch. And then a cable is when you have several ropes that are twisted together.

7:17And these can be made from all kinds of things. Like we said, obviously, the organic fibers, you mentioned some. We also have hemp. You may have said hemp and cotton. And we'll get into synthetics. When that came along, it was a real game changer because that provided a little stretch. So nylon and polyester and polypropylene, stuff like that. Yeah. And then wire. Wire is usually steel. And, you know, we might call something like that a cable. But it's still the same concept. It's a kind of rope.

7:48A steel cable is or a steel rope is basically a cable. Yeah. Wire rope is rope. A cable is a bunch of ropes. You can make it out of sisal if you wanted to. A cable. Sure. And then a bunch of cables twisted together is called a super-duper rope. Right. That's right. Good jargon. So let's keep going. Let's talk jargon as far as construction goes. You said you can braid ropes. You can also twist them. I never thought about this. And I watched two videos. One is it was a How It's Made video.

8:19God bless How It's Made. That was a good one. Because if you ever run into a written or verbal explanation or something where you're like, what, go find the How It's Made version and you'll see it with your own eyes. They've always done a great job. There's a lot. In fact, there's a lot of good rope making videos online. I watched like three or four others. They're mesmerizing. They kind of are. There's another one we found called How Do They Braid Rope? And it's from the National Film Board of Canada, the Boards of Canada. And it doesn't even have narration.

8:50The only soundtrack is the factory sounds. Like that really is mesmerizing. And so you see the two different ways rope is made. And the first How It's Made one uses twist, which is a conventional rope. And as I was saying, when I started talking, I never realized that most ropes I've ever seen in my life are twisted. I always just assumed they were braided. And that was just wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah. And when you look at them up close, though, you can definitely see the difference between a braid and a twist. I love a twisted rope. This is when you have twisted strands that are counter-twisting around each other.

9:24Usually it's three strands, and that's called a Hauser-laid twist. But you can also have a four-strander, which is shroud-laid. And that's if you've ever had a rope, and then you've seen at the end of the rope a little guy right in the center of it running through the core. That's the fourth strand. It's like a little core at the center of it all. And that is the shroud-laid. Yes, and we should say another piece of jargon. You don't make rope or produce rope or anything like that. You lay rope.

9:55That's right, just like you lay a cable. Oh, yeah, I never thought about that. I thought that meant, like, actually putting it down. But, yeah, no, totally. So what about the braid? The braid is something to see. Watching a braided rope being created is amazing, because there's all these little spools during this amazing, like, ballroom dance with one another. It's really cool. But braiding is where you take a bunch of strands and you braid them together into an interlocking structure.

10:28Usually it has a core, and the core can be twisted and have, like, a braided shell around it. And when you're braiding stuff, you can use way more strands than you can usually with a twisted rope. Yeah, and they're generally a little stronger and more pliable than a twisted rope. But I like a good old-school rope. I do, too. A good natural fiber rope that you can't even get your thumb and fingers to touch because it's so thick? That's amazing.

10:59Agreed.

Prehistoric Evidence of Ropes

11:00They've been using rope for probably hundreds of thousands of years. Part of the problem with specifically dating rope is that the early ropes were obviously organic in their nature, in their fibers. And so that stuff's not going to stick around forever. However, we do have some, you know, kind of cool evidence like 34,000 years ago in the Republic of Georgia where they saw flax fibers embedded in clay. And so that was like, all right, it's embedded in clay, so it's sort of preserved. And these were twisted and knotted up.

11:30So clearly people were using rope back then. But there's other evidence of older stuff, too, right? Yeah, this is, like, implicit evidence. It's not direct, like, finding an actual piece of cordage. This is, like, they found a weaving tool 40,000 years old in Germany. It's made of ivory. And essentially it was designed to keep the strands separate when braiding or twisting the rope together, which is still a technique that's used today. And then also they found beads, stone and shell beads, that start appearing in the prehistoric record 300,000 years back.

12:05And, I mean, try to wear a bead around your neck without some sort of cordage. You can't do it. No, those puka shells are just falling all over the floor. Yeah, I mean, maybe you could hold one under your chin, between your chin and your neck, but who wants to walk around like that? Just use a cord. That's right. The idea for all of this probably came from early on when they used roots and vines for stuff like this. And, you know, I've got my camp up in the North Georgia mountains. There are some trees that have a, like a vine hanging down that, like, it might as well be just nature's rope, you know?

12:42Yeah, for sure. What is that? I know exactly what you're talking about, but I've never stopped and wondered what it was. I guess it's a vine. Sure. Like, it can't be a root if it's coming down, like, from up top, right? Yeah. I didn't know if you knew what kind of vine it was. No, I don't know what kind of vine it is. But, you know, you can, sometimes you can, like, swing on that stuff if it's attached. But be careful. I mean, I guess that's what Tarzan used in the old movies, right? Yeah. He wasn't carrying around rope and slinging it over tree branches. No.

13:13The other thing about rope is that it seems to have been developed pretty much universally. Like, every group, including ones that were never in contact with one another, figured out how to make rope on their own. Yeah. And then they just used whatever local types of fiber was available. Like, in North America, indigenous people used sinew, like, tendons of, say, deer. I saw a red deer sinew rope-making video. Yeah. Or hair.

13:44Yeah, hair. Papyrus and reed in Egypt. Coconut fiber and bamboo in Southeast Asia. Like, essentially, you're like, okay, can you make fibers out of this? Yes. Well, then you can make a rope out of it, too. Yeah. And, you know, like we mentioned, stuff like, you know, to string a bow, obviously, but also making netting to catch fish, shelter to weave together, you know, rope to help, like, lift up a heavy frame of a hut or something. Hauling stuff, lashing things together.

14:15And this is one I didn't really think of, but early bridges were made of rope. Yeah, rope. And so if you want to get from here to there and you can't do it, one of the earliest things you could do is build a rope bridge. I would just not have gone across. Right. I'd be like, oh, well. Or I'd have to go around. But there was a Herodotus wrote in his histories about Xerxes I's army in the Second Persian War. I failed to look where this, like when this took place, but this was ancient Greece, obviously.

14:47But they apparently bridged something like a kilometer wide strait using rope and their ships to basically stretch the rope and then put boards over these two or three rope strands that were going all the way across the strait to go invade Greece. Yeah, good use of rope. So rope is being used for a ton of things for, you know, many thousands of years.

Sailing and the Whaling Industry

15:13Then all of a sudden, around 3500 BC, sailing became a thing. Yeah. And all of a sudden it was on. Everyone was like, all right, rope is the key to all of this happening. Can't raise a sail without rope. Can't tie up, can't moor a ship or can't anchor a ship without rope. So it's key to what we're doing. And, you know, people sailed around for a little while, but then the 15th century rolls around and the age of discovery starts unfolding. And all of a sudden, if you were a nation that was really good at sailing, you could, and they did, you could go around the world and start claiming places as your own.

15:55Yes. And so rope became a really hot commodity during the age of discovery or the age of colonialism, I guess. Yeah. There was another industry that came along after, say, like the navies of the world had started sailing. And that was the whaling industry. Oh, yeah, for sure. The whaling industry needed way more rope than a typical, like, you know, battleship or cutter needed. Because in addition to all the ropes that, like, your typical sailing vessel needs, they also needed lots and lots of rope, strong rope to connect to the harpoon that they would harpoon a whale with and then drag the whale around with them for the rest of the time they were at sea.

16:38And there was a, I guess, in Moby Dick, still haven't read it yet. Melville talks about how the rope was coiled so precisely by, like, a professional rope layer in the bow of the boat. And that this rope that was connected to the harpoon, because if there was any kind of, like, kink or loop or something in it, it would just take your arm clean off. Like, if you got your arm caught in this thing and a whale was rushing away with a harpoon in it, it would, your arm was just gone.

17:10Yeah, and you know what? I'm remembering now, too, this was another reason for rope, because in Nantucket, they had the Whaling Museum there. Oh, yeah. And so I went to the Whaling Museum, which I thought was super interesting. And I've never been more close than reading Moby Dick. Like, I'm right there. I'm just, I'm working on a book right now, the next horror book coming out soon from Keith Rosson, the guy who I've been reading lately. It's called Crone, by the way. It's great. But Moby Dick is right there. And the thing that really pushed me over the edge is I just saw that Rob Delaney, you know, the actor and comedian Rob Delaney?

17:46He's got a podcast out now called Exploring the Greats that I haven't listened to yet. But he and a professor named Hester Bloom are doing Moby Dick one chapter at a time. And I love Rob Delaney. I was like, you know what? I think everything in life is telling me to finally read Moby Dick and maybe listen to this podcast as I go along. It's going to be a good way to do it. Okay. Do it. So I'm right. As soon as I finish Keith Rosson's book, I'm going to think I'm going to dive into Moby Dick.

18:17You can do it, man. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. All right. We're going to take a break and we're going to talk about how rope is made right after this. We can eradicate food deserts with this technology. Hey, everybody. It's Chuck from Stuff You Should Know. And that was Jaleah Hemings. She and her husband created Nourish and Bloom Market, a fully autonomous grocery store. You can scan a QR code to enter, pick up what you need and just walk out. Or as Jaleah puts it. Tap, grab and go 24-7.

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21:35Find yours. So, Chuck, like we were saying, that ivory weaving tool 40,000 years ago in Germany,

Traditional Rope Walks

21:59that it's essentially like, it's still definitely a part of how rope making was made traditionally and then still today. But there is essentially, if you were making a rope, say, pre-20th century, you were following essentially four steps. You have to prepare the fibers. You spin those fibers into yarn. You twist the yarn into strands, and then you twist the strands into rope. Because, like I was saying before, a rope is actually just increasingly large ropes twisted or braided together.

22:33Yeah. And when we say yarn, that's a term that you might think of as twine. Mm-hmm. If you, like, bought it in a store, we're not talking about, like, crafting yarn. No. But it counts. Yeah, for sure. But maybe think twine. Mm-hmm. And we'll go over these steps. So we're not going to get, like, super, super in the weeds because we've learned that, you know, trying to describe a, like, a process, a factory process with just your mouth isn't the easiest thing to do. It's hard. So I would encourage everyone to go look up a rope walk on YouTube.

23:04And like we said, there are a bunch of different videos. Just pick one of them, and if that doesn't fancy, that isn't your fancy. Isn't your fancy? Cat fancy.

23:15I love your remarks just to shout out cat fancy. If that one's not to your liking, then there will no doubt be another one. But we're talking about, like, up until the 1700s, they used something called a rope walk, which was a configuration of machines at opposite ends of a long space. Sometimes it was an open field. Sometimes it was a big, huge open, like, barn. Mm-hmm. But you had a flaming tar pit nearby, which we'll see why in a minute. Maybe you had a water wheel helping out, but it was generally human-powered.

23:48Um, and it needed to be long because they were making long ropes, and in order to make a long rope, you just have to walk this thing down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet until it's twisted up. Yep. I mean, that's essentially that. Um, and you have to start with fiber. And again, whatever local fiber you had works. But you need fiber to spin yarn, and yarn is step two. Fibers you have to prepare. Um, you do all sorts of things to them, like you beat them, you soak them, you call them names, um, and then you, once they dry out, you run them through, like, giant combs.

24:24You pull them through combs to basically individuate them, right? Yeah. Then you start spinning those fibers into yarn. Now you're in the rope making this. For sure. So you've got a spinning wheel at this point. Uh, you've got a person with a bundle of fibers coiled around their waist. It's hooked to a spindle, and then they just very slowly walk backward, feeding those fibers in until you get to the end of the rope walk. And then you have your yarn, uh, but in order to make that yarn into the strand, you've got to soak that in tar, uh, wring it through a roller, and then you've got, like, a usable yarn or twine that you roll around a, or wind around a big, uh, bobbin.

25:06Yes. And now that you have yarn, which is essentially, just think of it as a bunch of really, really thin ropes, right? Now that you have your yarn, you've got your first component of rope. Now you take the yarn and you twist it or you braid it into strands, right? So you take a bunch of different lines of yarn, you pull it through a tube, which smooths the fibers, compacts it, right? And then you also have it under tension. You want it to be tense. And, uh, again, you, a machine basically pulls it down the length of this, uh, rope walk, which are really long.

25:41I don't know if you said it or not. Some of them are, like, a thousand feet long, right? Yeah. Depends on how long you need your rope. Sure. Yeah. Uh, and then there's a, there's a, um, forming machine that essentially separates the yarn, and on the other side of the forming machine is whatever machine they use to twist or braid it. And then as you just keep walking backward, that more and more, um, yarn gets turned into rope where it all comes together at the center and it's twisted or braided. You get to the other end. Now you have a strand. You do that a bunch of times, then you have the components you need to make a rope.

26:14That's right. And you're going to twist those strands into rope. Uh, three or four of those strands are going to stretch between a couple of twisting machines. Mm-hmm. And they have, again, you got to really look this thing up because all of this is possible, of course, because of two other key inventions, the wheel and the gear. Yeah. Uh, because it's, you know, it looks like a, sort of like a little horse, uh, cart, uh, moving very slowly backwards. So that's on wheels. Mm-hmm. And then you have these gears moving in different, uh, directions that's, um, making a, a thing that all these strands are tied to, uh, goes in a circle.

26:48So it just starts twisting it. And, uh, you got to have this other thing though. Man, I forgot about the cone. Yeah. Uh, this cone that's got these three notches, uh, like, you know, one at the top and two on the sides. Like if you looked at it from the front, it would be a triangle. Mm-hmm. But it just runs through those, um, I guess, cutouts from the cone to kind of keep, keep everything from getting, like, twisted in a bad way. Yeah. So on the, on the backside of that cone, which is called the laying top, it's keeping all those strands separated. On the front side of it, that's where the strands are being brought together and twisted into the rope, right?

27:26Yeah. And again, you just walk backwards, you pull, you pull those strands through that processor that turned, that twists them into rope. And once you reach the end of the rope walk, you've got a huge, long length of rope that you cut and you say, presto, that's a tradition in rope making. You have to shout presto when the rope is finished. Yeah. It's really neat though. Like when you look at, uh, this big, like rack of bobbins with like maybe, uh, dozens of, I guess, yarns feeding through this little donut-like tube to make a strand.

27:59And then that all being twisted together with another, you know, these are machines, but it's like the most basic machines you can have. It's a gear, you know, twisting a thing in a circle. So it's like, it's just, I love the really ingenious lo-fi stuff like this. Yeah, for sure. That's what that, um, how it's made, um, video features is a old rope walk. Apparently one of the oldest ones that's still around is in the Sweden city of, uh, Karlskrona. It's from the 18th century. It's like a thousand feet long, 300 meters. And it's Sweden's longest building.

28:33Oh, wow. Which makes sense. I mean, there's probably not a lot of buildings that are a thousand feet wide in Sweden. Hmm. Probably just the, no, nevermind. Bad joke. I was going to say the Toblerone factory. That's Switzerland though, isn't it? Oh, that was great, Chuck. I love that. Uh, there was a problem with this early rope up until about the end of the 18th century. And that was, you were pulling these strands through and they were all the same length when they were twisted together.

29:03The problem is, is that meant that the stuff on the outside was under higher tension than the stuff on the inside. Cause they were all the same length. Yeah. Don't look too, too deeply into it. Just trust me. That's what happened, right? Never thought about it. So that meant that the, these ropes were more likely to fray and crack and in turn break, and that you needed a really thick, heavy rope to make up for that. And then this, uh, captain for the East India company came along. His name was Joseph Hutter, Captain Joseph Hutter. And, uh, at the end of the 18th century, he created the forming plate, which is still very much in use today.

The Forming Plate Innovation

29:41Mm-hmm. And it is so simple and it makes so much sense that I would love to just explain it real quick. Are you okay with that? Please. The forming plate is a disc, a flat disc, and there's a bunch of concentric circles drilled into it from, made out of individual holes. Mm-hmm. The fibers go through each of those holes, and then they all come together at a center point where they're twisted or braided, right? Well, because the, the fibers going through the holes that make up the outer circles have to technically travel further to that center point because they're being bowed out.

30:17They have to go far out and then in. There, that means that the fibers used in the, the outside of the rope are longer than the fibers on the inside of the rope, which means that they're all under equal tension when the rope is finished. And so, basically, Joseph Huttart made it quite possible for much narrower, lighter ropes to do the job of heavier ropes because they resisted fraying and breaking because of the different lengths of fiber used in them.

30:48Again, ingenious. Joseph Huttart seems like one of those guys. My brother is kind of one of these guys. Mm-hmm. And I have a good friend named John Wolfe who is one of these guys, just really smart people that when presented with a, almost like a mechanical problem like this. Yeah. Their brains can just see it in a way and say, well, why don't you just do this? And that, I think Joseph Huttart might have been one of those guys where he's like, well, you should just do this. Yeah, I think you're exactly right because it's that, it's that basic. Yeah. But it solves the problem so elegantly. It's, it's beautiful. Yeah.

31:20But you've got to have a certain kind of brain to think that way, and I don't. Absolutely. I'd be like, I still don't understand why the outer edges are fraying when they're all the same length. A quick example is I have a system at my camp where it draws water out of the creek, and there's a propane hot water heater so we can have, like, hot water in a sink. Awesome. For washing dishes. And it wasn't, it was too long of a pull at one point, and the motor, I guess, was getting weaker, and it wasn't pulling far enough. And I was like, I don't know what to do, man. This thing won't pull. I wonder if they have a bigger one.

31:53And John Wolfe was there, and he's like, yeah, I ought to just get, like, when I worked for Coke years ago and we had really long lines, we would just put another pump in the middle. So it would just get to that point, and then that pump would pump it to the other pump. He said, you should do that. And I was like, that is so simple. That's either something, like, Ruby tells me or that you tell me, because I would never have been able to figure that dumb thing out. That's awesome. Yeah, that kind of brain I just really admire. Did you do it? Oh, yeah. And it worked? It worked like a charm. You should see the flow.

32:24That's awesome. That's funny. John Wolfe always works how he used to work for Coke into every conversation. Oh, man. You know Wolfe. So is it break time yet, or are we still going? No, let's take a break. Okay. We're taking a break, everybody. Just watch us. Hey, everybody. We have a mnemonic device that's going to blow your mind. If your skin squeaks, your barrier is weak. CeraVe Facial Cleansers don't strip the skin.

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36:10All right, so we've covered up through the 1700s.

Industrial Revolution Steam Power

36:16I told everyone how rope is made. When it comes to the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution starts happening, all of a sudden we have steam-powered machines. And so rope is evolving at the same time and like how it's used and applications and stuff like that. So you need like better rope, bigger rope, longer rope, stronger rope. And all of a sudden with steam power, you could do that. And, you know, it's basically the same way. You're just using like kind of like everything with the Industrial Revolution.

36:47All of a sudden you could just do it on a much bigger scale using machinery. Yeah, it's interesting. It's like the Industrial Revolution changed the demands that were put on rope. And then at the same time, it changed the ways that rope could be made to satisfy those demands. Pretty cool. Good point. And it all comes down to steam power. One of the cool things about making rope with steam power, with an automated factory, even like this is early 19th century, you need rope. Because they would use rope that ran through the whole factory around like a central steam engine.

37:20We've talked about this before and I don't remember what it was in. Maybe diesel generator? I don't remember. But that main engine spun, it moved the rope, and the rope ran around and moved these individual machines. It's one long continuous thing of rope. It's like the idiom says you need rope to make rope. Yeah. It's a good idiom. I think so, too. I don't know what it means, but it sounds like it. Well, they also had innovations in textiles at the time.

37:51So they were kind of co-opting some of that stuff to make better ropes. Like one example, I guess, is they were able to shrink a lot of stuff to much smaller things. So the spinning jenny that used to be this mammoth machine, all of a sudden you could fit in a room. And because it's in a room and you didn't have this like 2,000-foot rope walk, you could like fully enclose that. And you could make rope year-round and it could be heated. And you could hire women to work in there because they already had experience working in textiles.

38:21So now they could help make rope. So, yeah, the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution essentially, well, revolutionized how rope is made, even though it's still using the same technique. It's just now the work is being done more and more by machines, right? Well, that's Industrial Revolution at its core. But it didn't really kind of change the types of rope that were being produced as much. One thing that did come out of the 19th century was wire rope.

38:51That was a brand new thing that the Germans gave us in the 1830s because they needed it for their mining industry. And now all of a sudden you could build bigger and bigger ships and make them out of metal because you didn't need to use fiber rope any longer. You could use metal rope, which people called cable. But again, it's still just wire rope. That's right. And things stayed humming along pretty great until the 1900s came along.

Synthetics and Modern Factories

39:18And all of a sudden in the 20th century, we had synthetics upon us. So nylon was the next like real big game changer when it was introduced by the DuPont Chemical Company in 1939 as toothbrush bristles. When people are like, hey, if you make these super long and they're not just for toothbrushes, you can we can make this into rope. And I think it'll be stronger. I think it'll be stretchier. Yep. And within a couple of years, you know, World War II definitely helped when they had blocked like using raw materials for rope making.

39:53So that's when nylon really had a chance to shine. Yeah. And then shortly after that, polypropylene and polyester followed, too. And so synthetics were basically everybody was like better living through chemistry in the second half of the 20th century. And that certainly applied to rope making, too. And it's still around today. I mean, like synthetics are you can find both natural fiber rope and synthetic rope as well. But just because of the kind of operations that you see in modern rope making facilities and factories, it just it'd be almost weird to see somebody make a fiber rope in one of the modern factories.

40:32Like synthetic nylon and other kinds of material ropes just make sense. Yeah, for sure. And the process is really similar because you're still physically doing the same thing. But in this case, you're starting out instead of, you know, like long fibers that you're running through a steel comb. You're starting out with pellets that came from processed crude oil, like little little rice sized pellets of like, you know, nylon, let's say. And then you got to melt those down in an extruder and push it through like smaller and smaller nozzles until you get down to the diameter of a hair, let's say.

41:11And then you have this long filament and, you know, you have to put it in a cooling bath. And so it holds a shape and stuff like that. You stretch it out some on some rollers. Uh, apparently the stretching causes the polymer chains to align, which is really going to strengthen it. But after that, aside from having to treat it a little differently, it's it's kind of the same process as an old rope walk and then a factory as far as twisting the stuff together. Exactly. Except that these are done by machines that can spin at like a thousand RPMs as they're twisting these things.

41:43It can make rope super fast. They do that with yarn and then onto strands and then onto rope. And yeah, it's essentially the same stuff again, back to that 40,000 year old ivory weaving tool. Um, and but once you have the rope made, then it kind of jumps back into modern, the modern era because you have to do things with nylon rope that you don't have to do with fiber rope, which is like you have to heat set it with steam. Um, that helps keep those polymers locked in that same direction.

42:15Um, they test them. Um, I'm sure they do this with modern fiber ropes too, but they, um, they stretch them, they jump on them, they beat them up, they do all sorts of stuff and they have sensors that detect what's going on within the rope. And then once the rope passes some sort of certification, it's maximum operating capacities are stamped on the label and it's coiled up in, in sold. Yeah, exactly.

Specialized Ropes and Clues

42:40Um, let's talk about a few specific kinds of rope, uh, because it gets, um, depending on what you need to do, you might need a rope that's like, um, stretchier or, um, I don't know, stiffer, let's say. So if you, if you want to talk about shock cord, that is bungee cord. Yeah. And that is, uh, you know, if I've never bungee jumped, but, um, I did learn at one point that a bungee cord was just a lot of rubber bands twisted into a rope.

43:10And I don't know if that made me feel better or worse about the whole process. Well, yeah. So this is, it's silicone to begin with silicone rubber and it's vulcanized. And usually they're made of 16 different strands and then that's just the core. There's a synthetic fiber shell that goes around the cord. And, um, yeah, I think shock cords are pretty, pretty reliable for the most part. Yeah. They apparently stretch to about 130% of their original length and then bend and snatch back to, um, their original length again without being, um, mauled.

43:48Without breaking? Sure. Or without losing their, uh, elasticity. Oh, yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. That's what I mean. Uh, well, eventually they do over time though, I guess, because just using regular bungee cords around the house, like old, old ones aren't as stretchy as they used to be. Good point. And you probably want to, you go bungee jump at a place that's reputable enough that they're not overusing their bungee cords. Agreed. Great point. Uh, you've also got spot cord, uh, and that is not, not super strong or anything, uh, but it has a high resistance to snags. And, um, the cool thing about spot cord, it's a, it's a cotton rope that's braided and it's been produced by the Samson Cordage Company for about 150 years.

44:28Yeah. And if you go to like a, a big box hardware store or something and you just get like a little, uh, 50 foot, um, small thin rope, um, it's probably a spot cord. Yeah. They feel real nice because they're cotton. Yeah. If you've ever used a clothesline that's not wire. Yeah. There you go. It's probably a spot cord. Yeah. If you've ever tied up your neighbor to a chair, probably using spot cord if you're not into the duct tape thing. And came into the room saying, well, well, well, look how the tables have turned.

45:00That's right. I hope that comes across as a joke. I know, I'm sure, uh, that's real world violence. Um, or although you could just be tying them to a chair to make them watch, uh, the Simpsons or something. Let's say that's what I was talking about. Okay. Okay. And then another special rope, and these are very special ropes, by the way, um, it's the lariat. And lariat is the correct term for what a lot of people call lassos, but I looked it up, Chuck. Lasso is a verb and it's what you do with a lariat, which is a noun.

45:30Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. You, you lasso a horse or something. Yes, exactly. And you and I both have our own lariats. Do you remember Kathy with a K and Phoenix gave them to us at the Phoenix show? Kathy, I thought it was Denver, but was it Phoenix? Phoenix. Okay. Yeah. I still have mine. It's, uh, hanging up at the camp. Yeah. I can't tell you how many steer I've wrestled with mine already. Uh, these are traditionally made with, uh, horse hair or rawhide. Uh, today they're usually braided with, uh, nylon or polyester maybe. Uh, but the key to this thing is, is that it's stiff. Uh, like I said, sometimes you might need a stiff rope. So, um, it, you know, if you've never used a, or tried to lasso something, you might be surprised to know that it's a, it's a, you know, it's, it's stiff. It's very stiff.

46:15Super stiff. And it barely fits in your suitcase from Phoenix back home to Atlanta. I know we managed it though. Yeah. The way they work though, is a Honda knot, which slides up and down the, the, the rigid rope or stiff rope very easily. So when you get it around a steer's horns, you pull it and the loop closes, but it doesn't close mid air on your way. Right. On its way to the steer's horns, like it would if you made it out of a spot cord. That's right. There's also, we can't not talk about climbing ropes, Chuck.

46:45Yeah. That's, that's what keeps you alive. If you're, uh, uh, into repelling and rock climbing, um, they used to be made out of plant fibers before nylon, uh, just like, uh, any other rope that we're talking about, of course. Uh, but you know, if, if you've seen an action movie from the old days and that rope is, is being, uh, you know, wearing against that rock at the top of a cliff. Yeah. And it starts going, doing, doing, doing. And you're worried about your action hero. Then you need to go to a nylon rope because, uh, one of the important things about a nylon rope is it's not going to fray as much like in the movie. And it's also, if you fall, it's going to be a little stretchier.

47:26Right. Um, so in the old days, if you fell like off of Everest in the, in the old days with a fiber rope, um, like the entire force of falling is just stops in an instant because there's zero stretch and that's no good. No, that produces rope trauma. Ah, very nice. It can cut you just clean in half. That's what I've heard. So, uh, with climbing ropes in particular, there's a special type of rope construction that's used called the Kern mantle construction. And it refers to the Kern, the core, like a kernel, and that's made of a nylon rope.

47:59And then there's a mantle, the shell, that is made of braided nylon, um, that protects the internal nylon rope. So the internal Kern rope is load-bearing. The outer shell rope protects that internal load-bearing one. But because they're both so strong, if one failed, the other would be able to keep you dangling. And they're stretchy enough that rope trauma is brought to almost nil the possibility of it when you fall off of a cliff wearing a Kern mantle rope.

48:32That's right. And they came around in 19 and 53. Yep. The aughts. And I guess that's kind of it on rope, right? That's it. One thing that struck me, I could not find a, um, an answer for it is that in the United States alone, in 2025, $3.5 billion worth of rope was sold. Pretty impressive. Yeah. But they're projecting it to increase to $6 billion in less than 10 years, by 2033. I could not find why.

49:03What do we need more rope for? I don't know. Maybe Gen Z is going to finally discover rope in 2033. I don't know. I don't know. I'm trying to think of how, like, a data center uses rope or something that's, like, something really, like, growing fast right now. But I don't know. Oh, yeah. I guess maybe if you include fiber optic cable. Oh, maybe. Or fiber optic rope, I should say, in that, that might account for it. Good call. Well, that's it for rope, everybody, which means it's time for listener mail.

Listener Mail and Memories

49:32This goes back to the voice of God, Dan LaFontaine, the famous movie trailer guy in a world. Don? We did a, what did I say, Dan? Mm-hmm. No, that was his brother. He should have heard his voice. Hey, guys.

49:49Don LaFontaine. I think we did a shorty on him. Wasn't it a shorty? Yeah. Voice of God. So, hey, guys, been meaning to write for a while, and when I heard the short stuff, I was like, bam, now I have to write. Because my father was a sound editor in New York City and worked on movie trailers, the sound mixes for them and recording the voiceovers. He met many actors over the years, and also Don LaFontaine, who became a good friend of our family. When my younger brother Travis was born in 1971, Don became his godfather, even. My mother loved Don and always said he was such a neat guy and fun, and they spent some time partying with him back in the day.

50:26I have some old pictures of Don and my parents, those little square ones with the rounded-off corners where everything looks like shades of brown and orange and yellow. You know the ones, guys. If I can lay my hands on one, I'll attach it, which did not happen, by the way. No. But I'd be tickled to death if you selected my email to be read on the air. Like, you have no idea, LOL. You can even edit down, and I won't mind. Smiley face. Yours, both of you's, truly. That is from Tegwin Allen Stockdale, or the nickname Teg.

50:58What a name. That is a great name. Agreed. Well, thanks a lot, Tegwin Allen Stockdale. I don't think I would ever say your name other than to use all three. Agreed. Oh, great. If you want to be like Teglin Allen Stockdale and email us with a great story about something we talked about, we love that kind of thing, you can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcasts at iHeartRadio.com.

51:26Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. iHeartRadio.com.

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