Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The children were lined up at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, asking where the ropemaker was.
Ropemaker, teacher and demonstrator Skip Wise was laying rope in Michigan and wouldn't be set up in the Echoes of the Past tent on the fairgrounds until Monday, according to his friend Jerry Clase.
So the kids lined up at 8 a.m. Monday morning for their free 15 feet of rope. They actually had to make it themselves, cranking the rope-maker clockwise while Wise or Clase or a young "apprentice" guided the rope wrench down three strands of polypropylene bailer twine.
"It takes 108 feet of twine to make a 15-foot long rope," Wise said Wednesday. Wise starts each season out in East Texas, heads east, and circles back to New Mexico. Along the way he teaches, demonstrates and lays rope at events large and small.
"It's laid together, see?" he said of the twisted strands coiled around each other.
A natural fiber versus synthetic fiber demonstration was given. Tied to a bar at the edge of a tent was a sisal rope, knotted to it was an old iron. The rope began to untwist, the fibers got straight, and the rope split in two. The iron fell to the ground.
"Here's why it broke," said Clase, presenting a 24-inch long strand of cactus fiber. "Natural fibers are short. Polys can be 1,500 feet long."
A length of rope made of 1,250-pound mule tape was brought out. Each tape, about 3/8ths of an inch wide, will hold 1,250 pounds. Laid into a rope of six strands, it's strength was compounded.
A 11-year-old girl who had cranked her own "dog leash" earlier returned with her 7-year-old brother who declared he had the need for a good rope, too.
The boy's attention wavered and his sister took over the business end of the rope-maker.
"You letting your wife do all the work?" Clase asked to tease the pair. They didn't get it.
"Are you two married?" he had to ask. No, they were brother and sister. "Oh you letting your sister do all the work?" The boy nodded, he would.
"Kids want everything push-button today," Wise said. "that's the fun of this. It's teaching them how to make something they can use, something they could do at home. Sharing the information is what it's all about."
The ropemakers customers come in all ages. Many have never realized how a rope is made.
Once the cranking is through the working end is taped and cut off the rope-maker. A touch from the flaming end of a propane torch seals the strands together. A honda knot is fashioned at the end.
Wise grew up in Kosciusko County. He and Clase, the county animal control officer, were in the same 4-H club and remain good friends. Wise went west 40 years ago.
Rope-making began as a hobby. When his wife died he began to take his hobby on the road.
"This is the oldest industry in the United States," Wise said. "Its been called an art, a craft, a skill and other things. No one can seem to agree on what to call it, but it supported the ship industry on the east coast.
"They could make a rope as 1,500 feet - five football fields - long as big around as your arm. They were used on the ships."
Professional cowboys like their ropes custom made. Right-handers want a right-handed rope because they throw to the left, visa versa for left-handers.
"I can show you a rope trick and make you a trick rope," Wise said. "You're only limited by your imagination."
He teaches knots, too.
Rope making is generally a three person operation. One person to twist the rope, one to walk the wrench to the end and one to hold the end. The end holder also has to come forward a bit as the twist is formed. Wise has devised a weighted apparatus set on a sawhorse that slowly advances.
He had no new answer to what happens to a man given enough rope, although he thought about it.
"He'll hang himself," he finally said.
