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String Lashing Techniques

The industrial revolution gave us copious amounts of inexpensive mechanical fasteners. Before the era of machine screws, lashing was among the primary means of creating a strong mechanical connection. Native peoples have used this technique extensively. Many lashing techniques are still used today.

Survival Skills
- If you're camping or if you find yourself in a survival situation without the benefits of mechanical fasteners, you may quickly return to lashing technology. In fact, it may be the only way to make a fast, secure connection. Norm Kidder, naturalist and contributor to the Primitive Ways website, describes a list of lashing materials that occur regularly in nature. They include vines, bark strips from a variety of trees, reeds and grasses, and yucca and flax fibers. (See Reference 5.) Most places are likely to have something you can lash with. Materials paired with a pocket knife give you a fastening system in just about any environment.
Hitches
- A litany of knots and specific crochets are used to lash one object to another. Some are intended to be permanent; some are intended to be temporary. Both objectives employ the friction of wrapping a string of some material over itself so it is self-binding. Techniques such as clove hitches and cleat hitches can usually be undone with relative ease. Lashing combined with knots as simple as a half-hitch make the connection more permanent.
Ferules
- Ferules are the chrome guides on fishing rods. They are excellent modern examples of the efficiency of lashing. The ferrule is set in place along the rod. String is then wound evenly around so each wrap is snug to the next without crossing over. The lashing isn't tied off with a knot. An extra loop of string is laid along the rod just before the last eight or 10 wraps are made. The last loops are made over the looped string. Then, when the string is cut, the excess is fed through the loop and the loop is pulled under the final eight or 10 lashes, tucking the end of the string under itself. It's then coated with polyurethane or similar finish. The lashing provides the mechanical strength and the clear coat protects the lashing from abrasion and unraveling.
Skin-on-Frame Boats
- Modern skin-on-frame boats are a tribute to native peoples of Greenland, Alaska and other arctic regions who pioneered these engineering marvels. Originally, tendon material from marine mammals was used to lash seal skins to wood frames. Now, artificial sinew made of nylon is used. Many skin-on-frame builders use a technique called "frapping" where adjacent lashed connections are lashed to one another and pulled tight, which tightens each lashing in the chain and creates a structural continuity between them. Whether modern lashing techniques are done as an homage to past civilizations or as a cost or weight saving measure, it continues to be an effective fastening system.

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