Michael D. Davis

My dad goes to power shows, and one of his absolute favorite parts is the ropemakers. My father could watch a rope being made for hours. And once, when I was but a boy, my father got it in his head that he too could make a rope. This is that story.

I don’t remember my father making the ropemaking machine. I just remember it always being there. The rope maker at its base is an old tire and rim.

From the center of that is a pole that comes up about four feet. At the top of the pole sits a chunk of plywood with three homemade hooks in it. On the back of the piece of plywood connected to the three hooks is another chunk of wood. As long as I can remember this machine existing it has always been in the back, old garage, facing out the side door. There is a purpose to this location.

So, this is how it works. First, you need three people, my dad always elected me and my sister to help ignoring our pleas and cries. Kid 1 stands 15 feet outside of the garage under the old oak tree holding a special ropemaking fork. Kid 2 stands on the ropemaking machine tire and waits.

The old man then takes a piece of twine, ties it to hook number one, and strings it out to Kid 1, through the door that’s propped open with a screwdriver. The old man hooks twine around the ropemaking fork and then strings it back to hook number two. The old man does this for all three hooks. How many rounds of this you do depends on how thick you want your rope. One go gives you a thin rope, a dozen goes, and you’ll have a rope as thick as a tube of meat. The biggest we ever made was about two inches thick.

Now, Kid 1 must hold his ropemaking fork perfectly straight, and perfectly taught, because if the twine is not straight and taught everything will go wrong. The old man will put a second ropemaking fork but only an inch from Kid 1’s fork, and then it will start. Kid 2 will awkwardly grab ahold of the strange wooden block attached to the hooks and start rotating the hooks.

Kid 2 must do this slowly but rather quickly, must never stop, but always pause on command, must be on the lookout for knots, but pay attention that they are rotating the hooks smoothly.

This will cause the twine to turn and the rope will slowly start to weave between the two ropemaking forks. As Kid 2 turns the hooks and Kid 1 holds on to dear life to the main ropemaking fork, the old man will ever slowly advance the second ropemaking fork as the rope is woven.

As he does this, the old man will be on the lookout for little knots. This is when one or two bits of twine twist together instead of weaving into a rope and leave an unsightly error in an otherwise perfectly braided rope. The blame for this usually lands on either Kid 1 for not holding the rope taught enough or Kid 2 for rotating the hooks too fast or too slow.

Eventually, after what feels like days spent in a torturous pit, the second ropemaking fork will come almost in contact with the hooks. The rotating will stop at this phase, a knife will be brought out, and the end of the rope will be cut from the hooks and tied off. And I have been a part of it once or twice where before the knot could be made, the whole rope unraveled.

That, my friends, is how we make a rope. Tears may be shed, muscles may be strained, feelings may get hurt, and words like scumsucking rope maker may get thrown around, but at the end of it, ya got a rope.

And that’s pretty cool… I guess.