Making your own Shibari/bondage rope by Ronin

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Of the many types and styles of kinky play nothing beats good old bondage for me. Toys are great; swings are cool; electro is pretty nifty; but I personally shall take bondage over these delights every time. Shibari, as you might expect, is my bondage of choice. Although a good old frog tie is every bit as delightful so whatever your bondage pleasure enjoy it to its fullest!

Many types of ropes are excellent for bondage such as cotton rope or nylon rope. I started with cotton rope, but quickly became a life long fan of hemp rope. Hemp rope has that look, that smell, that feel which nothing can match in my experience. If you have not tried hemp rope for your bondage I encourage you to do so. In order to fully experience the beauty of hemp rope you should first properly
treat the rope. I am writing this article to share what works for me with proper rope preparation.

Of the many grand experiences I have with Shibari/bondage one event has always ranked very high on my list of favorites; preparing my own bondage ropes. This is often referred to as "breaking" the rope. For bondage affectionados like myself it is quite literally a spiritual experience. I take a great deal of pleasure preparing my own ropes. Consequently I tend to have a lot of them, but the extra fetches me quite a bit of extra cash off Ebay or at the local kink fairs. So if you are feeling bold, feeling adventurous, or just feeling like scoring some extra than cash read on.

I broke this down into several easy basic steps. Remember that hemp rope, especially prepped hemp rope, is never safe for suspension work. Please use synthetic rope that has been properly rated if you do any suspension.

I kept each step as simple and as straight forward as possible to make it easy to get your feet wet if you have not broke rope before. You will find additional things you can add to or change in each step if you decide to become more experienced. I kept many things out to simplify the process, however everything is included to help you make some damn fine rope. Enjoy!

1- Rope selection: Each step in the process is critical, but this step is the foundation. If you start with bad rope than nothing will change it into good rope no matter how hard you try. DO NOT USE ROPE FROM YOUR LOCAL HARDWARE STORE!!! Almost all this rope is mass produced. As such it is made of poor quality hemp that still smells of the machine oils used when weaving the rope. All the cleaning in the world will not help it. Do yourself a favor and get good quality natural hemp rope. In almost all cases this means you will have to order it (online typically). Be careful where you buy! Many of the online stores will utterly exploit you with their prices. Lately I have purchased my rope from Rawganique ( http://www.rawganique.com ) and have been very happy with their quality and prices. They sell a great many other hemp products for those of you into all things hemp. My preference is 6mm rope (roughly 1/4 inch), but many people are very happy with 8mm rope. I would not recommend smaller than 6mm. Larger than 8mm becomes difficult to tie.

Note: IF YOU HAVE ALLERGIES OR ASTHMA BE CAREFUL WHEN THE HEMP ROPE ARRIVES!!! This is raw unprocessed hemp rope. It has a very strong odor of grass and tons of allergens that will set off your allergies or asthma in a big way! Take precautions you are suseptable to this type of thing. I personally do my initial rope prep outside.

2-  Sizing your rope: After taking my rope outside and stretching it out to its full length I then proceed to cut my rope. The lengths of rope that I personally use are 15 foot (appx 4.5 meters), 25 foot (appx 7.5 meters), and 50 foot (appx 15.25 meters). With time and practice you will find the lengths that work best for you. In the beginning you may want to add an extra 6 inches to your sizes to give yourself a little fudge factor in later steps. After cutting each section of rope tie a knot into the end to keep the rope from fraying during the breaking process. A more secure method will be discuessed later.  Also, I daisy chain the rope to prevent tangling while I work my rope.

3- Cleaning your rope: When you receive your rope it will be very pungent, dirty and loaded with particles. Remember this is raw rope! So first thing I do is clean the rope. Start by soaking the rope. This allows the natural action of water to get rid of much of the allergans and heavy grass smell. I recommend doing this outside because the rope is very wiffy and will probably stink up your house. Soak it for 4 hours in a large tub, occasionally stirring the rope to permeate the water through the fibers. When this is done then toss the rope in the washing machine! Yep, I said it, put it in the washing machine on the hot cycle. This is a great and easy way to do a thorough cleaning. Do soak the rope first however or you will be cleaning your washing machine. DO NOT USE DETERGENTS OR FABRIC SOFTENER!!! This will damage the rope and could make it unusable. Plus it will change the beautiful aroma of the rope!

4- Softening the rope: Next comes what is probably the only easy step in breaking rope. Boil it! Again I highly recommend doing this outside as the rope will really stink up your house otherwise. Many riggers will tell you to boil your rope for 6-8 hours. I recommend a full 12 hour boil. This of course means watching the boiling carefully for safety reasons as well as adding water when necessary. If you decide to go less than 12 hours at least boil for 6 hours! I would call that a minimum. When you are done thoroughly rinse the rope and toss it into the dryer. Now you will hear often that you can not put a hemp rope in the dryer. This is partially true. If the rope has been oiled in any way than you can NOT put it in the dryer. However if it has not yet been oiled there is no problem putting it in the dryer.

5- Breaking the rope: Here is where the strong are separated from the weak. This is where the actual breaking of the rope occurs. Either you will break the rope or break yourself in the process. Find a solid object shaped a wedge. Not a sharp wedge like a wood maul, but something that you can "V" the rope across. A split piece of wood works great for this. Personally I use the metal hasp. It really does not matter provided it does not actually cut the rope. Place the rope across the wedge so it forms a "V" with each end of the rope held tightly in your hands. Pull the rope towards you so there is as much pressure as you can get where the rope does its "V" across the wedge then begin first one side of the rope then the other side so that the rope slides across the wedge with as much pressure as possible. Dividing your rope up into small sections you must work your way across the whole length of your rope. The rope will fuzz up with lots of little strands jutting out everywhere. That is exactly what it should do! Keep at it! For how long? That depends on how pliable you want your rope. Its been said that if your back is not ready to break and your arms not ready to fall off than you did not go long enough. I completely agree with that statement. Another way of putting is that you can not over do this, however you can definitely under do it.

6- Cleaning up the rope: Now that your rope is all fuzzy and looks terrible its time to take the next step. Cleaning off all that fuzz. Its really a simple process. I recommend using an open flame and singeing off all the fuzz. Be careful to get only the fuzz and not to damage the rope! The rope will look terrible with all that black soot on it. Simply rewash in the washing machine as you did in step 3. Whatever is left after the wash will go away quickly.

7- Coloring your rope: This step is totally optional. Many people prefer the natural color of the hemp and skip this step. Personally I like a little variety. If you want to color your rope simply get cloth dye from the store in the color you like. I use good old Rit dye because it gives a nice color, is super cheap, and can be found anywhere. I typically dye the rope in the same container in which I boiled it. When you are done thoroughly rinse the rope and toss it into the dryer.

8- Whipping the ends: Remember earlier when I said to tie the ends so they do not uncoil? Here is where we make a permanent fix to that. Its called whipping the ends. It involves getting some thin twine or thick thread to weave around the ends of the rope so the strands do not uncoil. This is not something I can easily explain in an article like this, but if you google "rope whipping" you will find many different ways to whip the rope ends. My preference is to use what is called the sailmakers whipping. It holds extremely well and is very pleasant to look at. As for the color of your whipping I recommend using either the same color as your rope or a complimentary color. Consulting a color wheel will easily give you the complimentary color. Now if you decide to simply tape the ends of your rope rather than do a proper whipping then you deserve to be whipped! Do not desecrate the time and energy you put into your rope by taping the ends. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest you if you do!

9- Oiling your rope: Oiling the rope helps to preserve and protect the rope. When selecting an oil do NOT use an oil that will go rancid such as a vegetable based oil. Also it should be colorless, oderless and have no addatives or preservatives. Remember, if the oil needs a preservative that means it will go rancid, and the preservative only delays the process. What most people,  myself included, use is Jojoba oil. It is a clean oil and will not go rancid over time. Mink oil is probably the best but the mink oil in the store is about 10% mink oil and 90% addatives. Pure mink oil is ridiculously expensive. Bayu oil also works very well but I have heard some people complain that it went rancid on their rope. Personally I have used it and never had a problem with it, however be advised that many claim to have had problems with it. I simply prefer to Jojoba oil because of price and accessibility. Believe it or not simple vaseline also works well. Simply take a cut of soft cloth and add a small amount of oil then wipe down the rope. Do not worry about getting it evenly distributed because the wicking action of the fibers will take care of that for you.

There you have it! Beautiful, silken, sweet bondage rope! As you look around you will find as many different ways to prep rope as there are people who do the prepping. This is just one way, my way, and it works well for me. I hope it does for you as well!