Rope Bed Construction

Description

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Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

good morning folks I'm Dave Canterbury with self-reliance Outfitters in the Pathfinder school I've had a lot of questions about this rope bed that I had down in the wall tent now at the base camp here at the school for a while I pulled it out of there and put a cot in there which was more traditional to the time period that I'm kind of working on at this point was just a canvas and wood cot but the Rope bed is something that was utilized throughout America from the 16th to at least the mid to late 18th century and they did change a little bit and went to a canvas style mattress that was actually grommeted had hand-sewn grommets around the canvas and it was lashed then to another piece of canvas with grommets in the bed boards themselves to make a springy type mattress configuration that was a little bit easier to mess with and easier to repair replace and service then the ropes were but rope beds were very common even still into the 20th century in areas of the Appalachians in rural areas of the Appalachians and I want to show you how these things work a couple tools that you need to put them together and I also want to show you a way that you can do it by yourself if you have to because generally speaking the original rope beds took at least two people and sometimes three or four to even put them together so let's talk about that real quick

stay with me okay so let's talk about rope beds in general for a minute the woven rope bed like this was something that was used well into the 18th century and then they came up with the sacking bottom which was basically a piece of canvas that had eyelets or grommet holes sewn into it and then another piece of canvas that was connected to the sideboard in the headboards that the ropes were laced through to tighten everything up and that gave you your stocking bottom and then obviously the coil spring mattress but before that and really even into probably the mid 20th century this type bed was used even still in rural areas of the Appalachian Mountains so it's a very functional type bed works very well it's very very comfortable

understanding how to make one and how to get these ropes taught can make you a very comfortable bed in an emergency scenario because all of this could be made from harvested material off the landscape if you had enough rope to do it so let's talk about how this thing is constructed I have nailed this together and glued it so the frame is solid now it's just a matter of trying to get the ropes themselves tight and we use a tool for that that basically is a windlass it's a key that slides into the rope and turns it taut at that point another person would have to hold that taut rope while you went to the other side of the bed turn the key to tighten the Rope going the opposite direction that person would come over there and hold the rope and you would switch back and forth leapfrogging first on the sides and then on the ends of the bed now there's a way that I've come up with to alleviate that extra person so that one person can do that and that's with a wedge and a mallet in these holes and I'll show you that just a minute but the whole pretense of the Rope bed is that you have a series of holes and these are drilled about every four inches and then you have rope that is wound into and out of those holes all the way along the bed frame and then over under over under over under woven going the opposite direction from the head to the foot of the bed once you get it strung then you begin to tighten those ropes and that's where this winding key or this windlass or this straining wrench as it was called comes into play and this one is just a very simple piece of wood that's got a notch cut in it that's been chiseled out it was sawn and chiseled with a piece of rebar jammed through it for a key and the other tool that I'm going to use today is going to be a simple wedge and mallet let's stay with me

and we'll get started okay so with this row bed what we've done is we've taken again we've drilled holes and these are 3/4 inch holes every four inches alone the frame all the way around the outside basically

and we started in one area and we've tied the rope off right here and a half hitch and then we wove it in and out back and forth and then over-under over-under on the ropes that go from the headboard to the footboard once you get that done then you need to tighten everything up and you generally need someone to chase those ropes and I'll show you what that means all right so once you've woven your ropes into the bed you're going to need to tighten them up with the straining wrench and what you would do is you would just slide the straining wrench in on the outside and you would turn it like a windlass to tighten the rope that you're currently working on so if I'm trying to tighten this rope up somebody's going to have to come over here now and hold this in place while I pull this wrench out and go to the other end and put the wrench in to pull this taut then they'd have to go to that in and hold it and back to this end and back to that in so what I've come up with is a very simple wedge that's just a round peg and wedge that can be pounded into the hole once it's tightened so now I can take this straining key and turn that rope tight just like that put my wedge in and tap it in and what that will do is it will keep the rope from slipping you can see I have looseness here so now this rope can't slide back it's held taut as if somebody were holding it and when I get to the other end so now I come over to this other side and do the same thing the opposite direction and now I'm pulling that rope tight and if I want to keep it from slipping I just put a wedge in there and if I watched it and pop out from the other side I'm now safe to go pull it out and I've got to go to that side anyway so it doesn't matter so now I come to this side I pulled my wedge back out and now I'm here I've got my rope tightened up I pull this taut put my wedge in drive it in take my key out go to the other side now you can see that the amount of slack I have is accumulating to alleviate that you can chase it a little bit now I can pull this one out and come over to this side

and tighten this one down and put my wedge in and go back to the other side now what that's effectively done is it has made these ropes here very very taut compared to the consecutive ropes that have slack in them now and that's just from stretch over the last couple three weeks since this beds been made so at this point all you're going to do is just keep going with this same process back and forth back and forth back and forth leapfrogging pulling the wedge putting it in pulling the wedge putting it in on both sides and then you get to the end then you're going to do the same thing on the headboard and footboard when you get that done you'll have a nice tight bed that you'll be able to lay down in and it will be very comfortable now what they did with this is they would use what was called a tick mattress oftentimes which was nothing more than pillow ticking or linen material that was sewn into an envelope the same size as the bed and it would be stuffed with hay or goose down or flax or something like that that was a byproduct of something else that gave them loft and insulation and that would be the mattress on this bed but you could also just lay wool blankets on top of this thing and it sleeps fantastic so this is just another tool that you can put your toolbox it's a very simple build it's a very simple process you just need a couple tools and they can all be made off the landscape if they had to be with very simple tools like a chisel a saw and things of that nature but you could probably get away with cutting this out with a knife and a saw as well so the tools are not difficult to make to create this bed but the longevity of something like this is very good especially in an environment where you're in a fixed or more permanent camp this is not something you're going to carry with you obviously it's something that you're going to have in a more permanent location but understanding those type skills is just as important as understanding the shorter-term skills all right folks one Dave Canterbury with self-reliance Outfitters in the Pathfinder school

I appreciate joining me today for this quick video on how to construct and tighten the Rope bed it's a pretty simple process the key element is tightening the ropes and understanding how to do that and I showed you a way today that I believe to be a new way of being able to tighten up a rope bed by yourself with the wedges and mallet it seems to work out really really well I encourage you to try it and to understand the skill for the long term and that's the key is understanding both longer-term skills and shorter term skills to become completely self-reliant I appreciate your views I appreciate your support I thank you for everything you do for school our family and for business following our sponsors instructors affiliates and friends I'll be back to another video as soon as I can

thanks guys