Zombie Awareness

A simple but valuable craft in surviving for long periods of time in disaster situations is making rope. Rope-making comes in many different forms and is broadly enough defined that there arent many wrong ways of making rope. However, there are some more efficient and stronger methods that may come in handy when the world is overrun with zombies. The first step in making any kind of rope is acquiring twine. Twine can be made from countless different materials, even some unexpected sources, such as toilet paper or napkins. Twine can also be found pre-made at several arts & crafts and hardware store. Essentially, twine is made by taking a fibrous material, such as paper or nylon, and twisting it into a sort of string. The tighter the string the better.

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Making Rope

Bits of twine are then twisted about each other in the same direction they were themselves twisted to make laid-rope. Laid rope is a very simple, but weak form of rope used to make stronger forms. In the above diagram, twine is labelled with an A, and laid rope is labelled with a B. Depending on the number of strands of twine used in making laid rope, 2, 3, 4, or more, it is called either plain, hawser, shroud or cable-laid rope respectively. Generally, more strands mean a stronger rope, but they also mean it will be hard to work with and take longer to make. After several pieces of laid rope have been made, they can be braided together to form stronger types of rope. The different types are named after their respective braiding styles, and there are hundreds of styles to choose from. In a zombie disaster, rope could prove valuable for making traps, building shelters, and fabricating clothes. Given the proper technique and time, material as fragile as single-ply toilet paper could be twisted into rope strong enough to support a three hundred pound man.