Wednesday, December 8, 2010

DIY Survival Gear - Emergency Cordage

Emergency Cordage

One of the handiest items in a survival situation is cordage. Most everyone keeps a certain amount handy for just that reason. What happens if you find yourself without that stash of paracord? It’s quite simple to make your own cordage with whatever you have available. In fact, you can literally use the shirt off your back.

RW, Jr. and I were discussing what we would do if we found ourselves without that versatile hank of paracord. Not wanting to hunt for some vine to make cordage, we found the quickest solution was to literally use the shirt off your back (RW, Jr.’s back in this case). Many people in our neck of the woods wear undershirts and RW, Jr. gracefully lent his to the purpose of making emergency cordage. In just a short time, that t-shirt became a useful piece of cordage.

The undershirt or t-shirt made a fairly long piece of emergency cordage. We actually wound up with over fifty feet of cordage that would have been useful for a number of things. There was even a sufficient length that could be braided to make a pretty stout piece of rope if needed. There are a number of different things you can use to make emergency cordage when needed. Sometimes you just need to think "underneath" the box.

Got XL undershirt?

Staying above the water line!

Riverwalker

8 comments:

chinasyndrome said...

RW,not that's thinking out side the box as they say.Now ya got us thinking!

China
III

Anonymous said...

I never thought of a shirt for that purpose. Thanks for that - I have a buncha old T-shirts that could be recycled for this purpose. Maybe a future post on the means 'n methods how you did this?

riverwalker said...

To: chinasyndrome

We were thinking what would most people have available and the first thing that came to mind was an undershirt or t-shirt. RW, Jr.'s had a small hole in it already and we just started ripping it apart by hand in about a 1 inch width to see how far it would go. Even without using a knife it ripped apart fairly easily and a rip could be started quite easily on most anything with a jagged edge...rock, wire, etc.

Thanks China III.

RW

riverwalker said...

To: anonymous 7:06

Now that you brought it up, I've got a ton of t-shirts in drawers that are ready to be recycled into something that could be useful besides turning them into just another rag. Probably make some rope, cordage, slings etc.

The main point was to help people realize that even with empty pockets there are still things that can be done to create what you might need if you use your imagination and a little creativity.

Thanks anon.

RW

Ken said...

...wow,good one...tried it just now, with an ol't-shirt rag...yer a freekin'genious RW(and Jr)..two heads better than one,and all that...

riverwalker said...

To; Ken

I don't know about the genius part...but I've always had a knack for coming up with something that works when I wind up in a bind.

Like the old saying goes: "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Thanks Ken.

RW

BadVooDooDaddy said...

In the Army we called this"Filed Expediency" this is a great example of that idea. Use what you have around you to make things work. Great post

riverwalker said...

To: Bad VooDoo Daddy

Necessity is the mother of invention and when it comes to survival you have to learn to be innovative in order to adapt and overcome the obstacle.

Thanks.

RW

BTW: The little hatchet is a Tomahawk brand...plan is to make a home-made version.

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