Storing Paracord - the Tamale

Bruce Grant in his "leather Braiding" book presents an interesting method of storing cord that he calls a "Tamale".
I used a 4" wide board here and 10 1/2' of 325 paracord.
Attach Standing End to fixed point.
There are 6 steps in the process.
1. Wrap cord around board.


2. Bring side Up and Over to new position.


3. Bring edge A clockwise 180 degrees.


4. Wrap cord around board.


5. Turn side A counter-clockwise 180 drgrees.


6. Bring side A Up and Over to original position.

Repeat steps 1 - 6















Continue until a few inches remain. Wrap working end around the loops and tuck tag end through the wrap making a half hitch.







The bundle can be stored as is or hung by a carabiner placed through right hand loops. To deploy pull on standing end.

Bruce Grant actually shows the "tamale"made by wrapping around left hand. This is fine for thinner material but because width of palm is limited it is not suitable for thicker material.
Wrap


Twist palm up


Wrap


Twist palm down


Repeat

Looks a bit time consuming. I just cross cordage on my hands between my pinky and thumb (so the cordage stacks) and the do a few looks around the stack and pull the remaining loop through the thumb/pinky hole. Keeps everything untangled and is quick.

It just looks time consuming when you break down all the steps. Making the "Tamale" around the palm is a very fast method, as fast as the pinky/thunb method you mention.
When you use a wide board you can store a lot of cord. Cheers, Tony

Am I right that basically you just go around the fixed end alternating the sides?

Tony, you have inspired me to make a quick video on how I do my methode. Although I took climbing prussiks and slings as the subjects instead of paracord: https://youtu.be/ZtrZxFm-hgY

Not shown, but if you know how to do it. It's really quick to do. That 's why it's my prefered methode, while hanging on the side of a mountain.

That is correct. However you must use the flipping and turning (board) or twisting (hand) method shown, Otherwise the cord coming from the twisted end will develop a very bad kink. Tony

There seems to be more than one way to achieve the same (or similar) result. Here's an infographic about tarp knots that includes a different (maybe??) version of the tamale by simply wrapping the cord around the pinky and thumb in a figure eight pattern

tarp knots infographic

For larger cordage, there's this

For really lengthy cordage, there's this (probably not what you think):

https://youtu.be/WfvioMwTVUo

For quite a while I'm looking for the mechanical solution, which could help me to rewind the paracord into the spool shape like this:



That is the best way to store it, IMO. I know the spool like that is winded clamped at an angle, but I guess there is an up down motion guide arm of sorts in effect as well. Can't find any schematics or clear image how it's done.

Otherwise I prefer over the elbow, then fold in half, around the middle and through thhe loop method. Makes a very tight bundle, but still prone to entanglement when unwinding...

Even better, for either climbing rope or long lengths of cordage, is to stuff the rope in a rope bag or similar. I have been doing this for years and have never had a failure to feed smoothly, either in climbing or setting up a rappel. While in the bag, your rope is well protected from potential contaminants

I understand Yosemite SAR has a 3000' rope which is stuffed in a duffel bag (with many successful deployments).

I think the bag will not work for paracord, as it's not stiff enough, compared to any climbing rope.

A bag would work for paracord if you begin the stuffing by attaching one end inside the bag somehow, stuff the bag, and then attach the other end outside the bag. There would be zero knots. Also, there would less twisting than the figure 8 method on the hand.

I have stuffed both climbing rope, static rope, paracord, and mason twine successfully. Don't know about sewing thread....I think stiffness is immaterial.

Stuffing a bag works well. Although for climbing rope I generally just laid it out on the tarp attached to my rope bag. carefully fold the tarp with the rope and roll it in too the bag for transport.

Big disadvantage of stuff rope or laying it out with a rope bag; it takes a bag and is rather space inefficient.

I haven't tried it but stormdrane has a video tutorial of winding a spool like that, its in his blog post here

Thanks. Yes, I understand the manual zigzag weaving, even tried that once but due to the uneven tension it came out not ideal. But I have two about 300' hunks, which I want to rewind that way. Also I have a thin (~1/8") cord which I had deployed during an emergency once from a similar neat spool, I doubt I have enough temper to wind those manually The idea is to replicate the machine used for that at the factory.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding.

If you are thinking making some kind of device to wind the reels, I think you might want to take a look at some of the vintage sewing machines such as a Singer 99.

Some of these have the "back and for" arm mechanism you mention and are about as simple as you can get. I don't know if it would do exactly what you want but it might give you a starting point.

Forty years ago my father the Scoutmaster taught me to cut paracord into 15-20' lengths, and melt the ends.

A 100' length of cord makes six 16.6' cords. The size is perfect for using with tents, storm tie-downs, backpacks, lashings, ... and lengths can be combined if needed.

Storage was simply wrapping each length around the four fingers until the "tail" left is a bit more than 1 foot, and then bundling it in the middle with a few loops that are locked down by two locking loops (like a clove hitch).

Its fast and simple.

Daisy Chain Circle

Pull tag end from loop 1 and deploy as much cord as required.


Cut cord at point A (bight of loop) releasing the needed cord and tighten by pulling on new end.

Joining eats some length and some strength. Also it takes time to knot many pieces together, which you may not afford in a survival situation. I'm always trying to keep my long cords whole.

Here is my currently adopted method (but with more bundling wraps):

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JZszRXMsow[/video]

We're talking about paracord here, right?

I'm not using the paracord for climbing, sailing, or tying down boats on my truck. Its mostly for shelter, lashings, bundling (tents, bags, ...), flying the Flag, and once I had to tie food up due to raccoon activity (no bears around here - except for the kind that loose to Detroit Lions). Based upon my experience the tarp/tent/pole will fail before the knots let go.

I've been tying basic knots for 40+ years - ever since zip up boots went out with disco, so I'm sure I'll be able to figure out how to tie a knot or two.

We talking about storing cordage in general already. And I don't like the idea of storing it in pieces for general use. My tarps, hammock, tents, bevvy, bear bucket, and what's not - all have a dedicated cordage in their pouches. But I always have a spool or two of cordage for emergencies. Once I have used about 150' of cord to pass to a friend of mine on a float over the water, when he struggled with the current in the inflatable paddle boat. It was just 1/8" nylon string on a zigzag spool (very fast and reliable deployment and floating), but it was sufficient for him to slowly get out of the trouble (the river had a waterfall, the guy could surely escape, but the boat would be hard to recover past it). On multiple occasions I've been using a long piece of Amsteel Blue to rig a line with a prusik to go over a low but slippery cliff (huge polished rock) to/from the river for my little swimmers. A friend of mine once tried to go down a quite moderately steep descent from the side of the trail to reach the 6 y/o daughter of his elderly friends; she's fell, rolled down about 100 feet but managed to grab a little branch of a bush and stop. He has died. A long enough piece of paracord, used just to maintain the balance on his descent, would have saved him for sure. Or they could throw an end with the loop to the girl, so she could fix herself more reliably before help arrived (park rangers arrived in about an hour). All of the above demands fast and reliable deployment of a long piece of rope (paracord will do fine). By the way, american troops now rigging these things on the outside of their packs: http://www.idealblasting.com/drop-linerapidlinedeploymentsystem.aspx A zigzag spool would be even better on these (but harder to rewind).

Alex, that's a cool concept, but it's overpriced for anybody who has a little bit of DIY ability.

No offense, but most methods shown here seem very tedious and pretty much impractical for field use. Unless you're really into knots and fancy braiding techniques (which is a fine hobby per se I'm sure) there are much easier ways to coil paracord.

My favorite is the one depicted in the attachment. It took me an awful lot of time to find a proper picture online but I hope it's clear enough (taken from a German mountaineering manual). It's a very simple technique and most importantly, the paracord can be deployed almost instantly. Unless you're dealing with very long lengths of paracord (say over 100 ft) it's easily the best overall method I've ever seen.

Yep, I've noticed that too. But I have ordered an oval carabiner already ($9) and plan to use my 3D printer to make a splitting in half spool.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm using at the moment (the video I have provided above is for the climbing rope and over the shoulders, but the principle is the same - also had a hard time finding it ).

That device needs to be redesigned from the ground up. The user should be able to attach the carabiner (or a similar contraption) AFTER rewinding the paracord. They designed the spool around the confines of the carabiner, but that's not the way to go. If you're not cutting the paracord, then you're taking the paracord completely off the spool every time, right?

Initially, I was skeptical about the bag idea. So, I tried it out. I fit 100 feet of 550 paracord into the bag in the attachment, and there was enough room in the bag to fit at least 50 more feet. In other words, the bag had plenty of room left. The paracord came out of the bag with no tangles or twisting.

See attachments.

In tne past few weeks I have tried many ways of storing paracord from the "Tamale" the first post in this thread.
This works best when tied around palm of hand with thinner cord. Holds a lot. With heavier cord tying around a board is do-able but a bit awkward.

javascript: void(0)The Daisy Chain Circle - #277255 . This holds a lot of paracord in a comopact bundle but takes a LONG time to set up.
Also called the "Paracord Doughnut" see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUwb1iYTElc for how to - much neater than my circle.

In my (very) humble opinion the "Figure-Eight" set-up is the best method. It is easy make and easy to deploy the cord as desired.
I made a loom by drilling peg size holes in a piece of scrap lumber and placing a tie off (eye screw) a few inches away from the first hole. Board extends another few inches to right with another hole.


One peg goes in the first hole. By changing the position of the other peg I can adjust the size of the Figure -Eight.


You can keep the loops on the loom when tying off the Working End. To deploy just pull on the end that was tied onto the eye screw.