I wrote a post several years ago on how to ret lime bark to make cordage. I’ve had in mind the idea of trying the same thing with sweet chestnut for a while now and finally got around to it this year.
So here’s a short video on how to produce the fibres to make sweet chestnut bark cordage.
The retting process took longer than I expected, which I suspect is down to the high levels of tannin in the sweet chestnut.
Check out this post to see how to turn the fibres into cordage; we use nettles in the post but the process works just as well with sweet chestnut bark.
We discuss how to make sweet chestnut bark cordage on our IOL Bushcraft Course and 5 Day Bushcraft Course. You can see lots of photos of participants here as well as on our Facebook page.
