Back when I was a kid. I was in boy scouts and my dad was
actually, the scout leader and went through a phase
where he was trying to teach us all the different knots you could tie with rope.
But he wanted to take it one step further,
and actually make the rope itself.
So he used this little guide book to put together a little makeshift rope making machine.
And we spent hours winding sisal like this
and turning it into long strands of rope.
Now Eventually, we made so much rope
we built a horse corral and caught two wild horses.
But that's a different story for another day.
The problem with our rope making machine is it generally took about 4-5 different people
to operate it.
So the purpose of this project today;
Is to see if we can make a simple machine.
That will allow you to make a rope all by yourself.
Now I made a quick trip down to my local Home Depot
and in the hardware aisle, I found almost all of the materials were gonna need for
this project today.
I picked up three 1/4 inch by 5 inch Eye Bolts that come with a hex nut already on them.
I got a couple different sizes of large Fender Washers.
I got some Cut Washers, some Hex Nuts, and I also picked up some
Plastic Castor Wheels as well.
These are the kind of wheels you would put on the bottom of a cabinet or a workbench
you would have out in the garage.
But we're just using them for the wheel.
We're gonna cut the rest of it off.
I stopped at the lumber aisle
and I got a 1 x 6 x 6 piece of common board, as well as this 2 x 2.
But these things are a bit too big to work with as is,
so lets get busy and cut them to size.
So guys our wood is cut, and here's what we ended up with.
I took this common board and cut it to lengths of 7 1/2 inches
I took the first piece and doubled it over the second one
and cut them together so that they're exactly the same width.
Then I took a piece of our 2x2 and cut it 8 1/2 inches long.
the board you can see it overlaps about
three inches on either side, and the
last piece of two by two is the exact
same width as the common board itself. So if
we put all the pieces together it should
look something like this.
So update guys, our wood is cut and it's looking good, so
the next step now is to line up our
hardware and drill some holes. So the idea
here is to take your largest fender
washers and position them on the board
forming a triangle. You want to do it in
such a way so when you add your 2x2
to the top, as well as the bottom
it's going to leave similar spacing at
the top in the bottom. I also use the
width of my bolts as a spacer to create
gaps between the washers and ensure that
they're symmetrically placed. I think this
is the best way to eyeball this thing
together without getting super technical
on the measurement. And that's looking
pretty good so let's mark the centers.
Not bad. I think we got a set. Once the
centers are marked, it's time to drill some holes.
Now since we have a 1/4 inch bolt,
it makes sense to use a 1/4 inch
drill bit to drill some holes in this
wood. We want it to be just as tight and
snug as it can be. If we're going to drill
these holes, we can put the two boards
together and drill the holes at the
exact same time, that way they'll line up
perfectly. And to make sure I get them
absolutely perfect I'm just going to use
a couple clamps to hold them in place.
Alright let's drill some holes.
Alright sweet, so our three holes are
drilled, we can go ahead and undo these
clamps, and theoretically these things
should be lined up perfectly,
symmetrically. And just for reference I'm
going to mark a little arrow on here;
in case they ever get disconnected and
turned around. Putting an X on them like
that, they should all line up perfectly.
Alright, we have finished up pretty
much everything that we need to do with
the wood for now. So let's move on to the
next important step: making the metal
spinning hooks the spinning hooks are
going to be made out of these eyebolts.
If we put them in a bench vise and tug
on them slightly we can get the eye part
to open up, and form a hook that we could
put a string into later on. We also need
to develop a way that when we put one
into the chuck of our drill bit and pull
the trigger, it spins all three hooks
simultaneously. And here's what I've got
in mind: what if we took three plastic
wheels and use them as pulleys and
connect them all together with a band,
so that when we spun one of them, all three
of them would spin together. Let me grab
a hacksaw and show you what I've got in
mind. Grab it right there on that axle...
Freedom!
Ok so cool guys here's we got:
I used my hacksaw to cut through these
little pins in the caster wheels and
released all three of these little
plastic wheels. If you take one of your
largest fender washers and push it
against the wheel, you're going to find
it overhangs about a quarter of an inch.
That's actually really important and
you'll see why in just a second.
Alright, this is where it starts getting exciting
guys, because all of our pieces are cut,
all of our pieces ready, all we have to
do now is put them together.
Start by removing all of the hex nuts off of your
bolts so you just have the naked bolt by
itself. You're going to take the end of
the bolt and push it through one of the
holes, all the way through, and then take
one of your small cut washers, and bump
that up from the inside. With the cut
washer in place, we want to take our hex
nut and screw that on, and thread that
all the way down and until it's as far as
it can go. Then take a wrench and crank
it a little bit more. Beautiful, and just
like that we've got a bolt that's locked
in place but can spin freely as well.
And we're going to do that three more times
There we go our bolts are in there and
secured, we can go ahead and take another
cut washer now and drop it on top of
each one of those bolts, and then it's
time to add our little plastic wheels.
There's only one problem though, these
little holes in the middle are a little
bit too small to fit over the bolts.
So we're going to need to drill them out
with a 1/4 inch bit first.
Beauteous. Alright so the holes on our
wheels are cut, what we have to do is
just build up the base a little bit so
that there's a ridge line on either side
of these wheels, because when we put our
band on, we don't want it to slip off.
And to do that I'm using some of these
fender washers as retaining walls. Now, the
problem is these fender washers have a
very large hole in the middle, so we need
to build them up with a smaller fender
washer first. Now these fender washers
are the only ones I could find the Home Depot,
it would be more ideal if you
could find one with a 1/4 inch hole
in the center. However, using what we've
got, we can use this wider fender washer
with the 1/4 inch hole, place it on
top of the cut washer, and then take the
larger fender washer and place it on
top. Beautiful. And once our wheel's on,
we're going to do the same thing in
reverse large fender washer first,
slightly smaller fender washer next,
followed by our cut washer and a nut.
Now as we start to tighten the nut, it's
important to make sure all our fender
washers are exactly in place. And once it
looks like everything's lined up in
place, go ahead and take a couple of
wrenches and crank that sucker tight,
because we want that wheel to be pinched
so tight that it will not come undone.
Beautiful.
Alright one down two to go.
Oh yeah, there we go guys. We got our three
spinners set, and all functioning fine.
Alright update guys the hard part is
over. I've got all three of our spinners
in place with our hook securely firmed
on the other side and I went ahead and
tested all of them and make sure they
all spin freely and all of them do. So
here's the challenge: how do we make it
so that when we spin one, the other two
spin at the same time? There's a little
solution I've come up with. It's even
easier than you think. And this is it: an
old used bicycle tire tube. Now if you
don't have one of these lying around,
they're really easy to find: just go down
to any bike store. They throw these away
all the time. Used tire tubes: they have no
use for. So they'll probably give you as
many as you want. Take your tire tube, it
doesn't really matter where and just go
ahead and cut it right in half. That's
going to give you two nice, clean cuts just
like this. Then take the end of the tube
and line it up between the two washers
and cut off a piece that's roughly about
the same distance as that gap, maybe a
little bigger. Take that piece of inner
tube and flip it so that it's inside out, so
that the inside is now pointed outside, and
the thick rubbery stuff is on the inside.
Now we're going to stretch this a few
times to make a little bit bigger, and
then we're going to loop it over all of
our pulleys at once. This creates a
makeshift rubber belt that has quite a
bit of tension, but you can see how it's
pulling everything into the center.
That's where our second board comes into
play. Because the holes were cut exactly
the same, we should be able to push the
bolts in place, and that'll line
everything up symmetrically. And now when
we turn one bolt, you can see the belt
drives the other two pulleys, and they
all spin together. Sweet! So this right
here is the essence of our rope making
machine and all that's left to do is take
our 2x2s and screw one block into
the top, and the longer block into the
bottom, so it has a couple of overhanging
pieces that allow us to clamp this unit to
the table. Oh this thing is looking good!
Yeah! So guys, check this out. This is
what we have created. A simple rope
making machine made with very cheap
materials from local hardware store.
What's really cool about it is it has
these little flanges on the side so you
can take a clamp and clamp it straight
to your table. And believe me, that's
going to come in really handy as we
start making rope in future videos. When
it comes time to operate our machine, all
we have to do is take something like a
cordless power drill, latch onto one of
the bolts from the back and pull the
trigger.
How cool is that guys? A simple little
rope-making machine we just built here
at home, but the problem is, it's still
going to take three to five people to
help make the rope. In the next video, I'm
going to show you how to rig up the rest
of the system to automate the process, so
with the press of the trigger, one person
can make a strand of rope, all by
themselves. So there you have it guys.
With just a little bit of effort and
some low cost materials from the
hardware store, we just rigged ourselves
up a pretty cool little rope making
machine. And I can't wait to show you in
a future video exactly what it will do.
Thanks for joining me for this project,
I'll be looking for you the next one.
Beautiful! Oh you got to be
kidding me! When all your work goes down the drain.