Rope Care

Here, I'll introduce methods you can use to take care of hemp rope used for bondage.

Hemp rope is an expendable. But based on how well you maintain it and care for it as you use it, its shelf life can be greatly increased.

Preservation Methods

Please store the rope in a well ventilated, shady area. If you store it in a tightly closed bag or something similar, it could get moldy.

(The best way to store rope is to hang it from the wall like this.)

After-Use Care

After use, the rope will most likely be stained with sweat and other bodily fluids, so you need to wipe it off with a dry towel.

If you do not wipe it clean, it could get moldy.

Hemp rope should never come in contact with water. No matter how dirty it gets, you should never wash it.

When you want to dry damp rope, you should hang it up and make it as taut as possible.

Fuzz Burning

No matter how well you take care of your rope, in time, fuzz will begin to collect on the ends, which can be burned off.

You shouldn't burn the fuzz too often - only when it's truly a nuisance.

Burning the rope several times will thin it out, so some professionals never burn their rope.

In order to burn it properly, turn a gas stove to the medium setting and lower the rope into the flame.

Then, turn the rope over to burn the other side.

(The fuzz build-up should ignite the flame and make it turn orange.)

Be careful that you don't burn the rope during this process.

After burning off the fuzz, scrub the rope with a rag in order to wipe off the soot.

The rope I sell is covered in beeswax, so if you burn the fuzz, the rope turns black. (I like the way the black color looks, though.)

This may seem obvious, but after you burn the rope, it will get burnt and stink. If you leave it in a well-ventilated area for a bit, the stench should gradually fade away.

Replenishing Oil

I'm not talking about cooking oil here. Normally, either horse oil (which can be bought at Japanese drug stores) or beeswax cream (a mixture of beeswax and oil) is applied to the rope.

(A beeswax cream created from beeswax and jojoba oil is applied to all the rope I sell.)

Rope is usually applied directly to the skin, so oils used in things like makeup are best.

Baby oil is one type that I can't really recommend. Some people also use olive oil, but cooking oils oxide easily, so they don't really go well with rope.

How to apply the beeswax cream I sell: First, carve out a glob of cream with your fingernail.

Next, move the beeswax cream to onto your palm.

Next, spread it out over your palm.

Then, squeeze the rope through your palm and apply the cream to it.

This process should be repeated 3 or 4 times for 8 meters of rope.

With horse oil, or other oil that's much cheaper, you can soak work gloves in the oil and apply it to the rope that way. But if you use this method with beeswax cream or other expensive creams, it will end up wasting too much, so I recommend doing it with your bare hands.

Be careful not to apply too much oil. Sticky rope can not only dirty the bound one's clothes, but can also make the rope more brittle.

When the braids become uneven...

After you use rope for a while, the braids will always start to get uneven.

(Here, one of the strands has gotten stretched out.)

In order to make the braids even again, you need to pull the uneven one with your hand until it becomes even with the other braids again.

(Here, you can see that one of the strands is now longer than the other ones.)

Afterwards, you can tie the ends together and then cut off the excess rope.

How to Tie Rope Ends

Rope ends are tied together so that the strands don't come apart. There are several ways to do it.

The most common way (Pattern 1)

This knot is a bit large, which makes it easier for it to get caught on things when undoing the rope.

But it's very simple to tie, so this is how I tie knots on the rope I send out.

Next, I'll show you how to tie a smaller knot. (Pattern 2)

A knot that's just a tiny bit smaller makes the rope much easier to handle.

In order to tie a knot this way, undo about 7cm of the rope from the end, then tie the knot so that all three strands are parallel to one another.

Now, I'll show you how to tie the smallest knot. (Pattern 3)

This one is a bit difficult. First, undo about 15cm of rope.

Pass each strand through the strand next to it and create a circle.

Then do that one more time.

Pull the three strands tight and create a knot.

Pull the strands so that they're in a straight line with the rest of the rope.

Then, cut the excess strands off, and you're done.

The next method is for people who don't want to make any kind of knot. (Pattern 4)

Simply tie thread around the ends so that the rope doesn't come apart.

Now, to sum up the characteristics of each pattern.

Pattern 1 is a very easy knot to tie, but results in a big knot that makes the rope harder to use. You can tie and untie it over and over again.

Pattern 2 results in a small knot, which makes the rope easier to use. You can tie and untie it over and over again.

Pattern 3 results in a very small knot and looks nice. However, if you have to untie it and tie it again in order to fix an uneven strand or straighten the rope out, you'll always be forced to cut off excess strands and shorten your rope.

Pattern 4 is often seen on American rope. But it requires something other than rope (thread), and since there's no knot, it makes it hard to find the rope head during bondage.

With that in mind, I recommend Pattern 2.ます。