Today we have a guest post from my friend Dexter, who recently conducted a whole bunch of experiments in how to remove a terrible smell from rope. This was a learning opportunity for me as well, so I’m probably going to find the learning just as useful as you will!
Processing the Barn Smelling Rope From Hell
Recently I went in on an order of flax hemp a friend was importing from overseas. It was many times cheaper than what you normally pay for Jute or Hemp, so I got x6 8m lengths for $55-ish. The issue? It smelled pungently of a barn.
Now…I’d like to say “you get what you pay for”, but this perpetuates the narratives that 1) you can only have good things if you pay lots of money, and 2) if it costs more, it’s inherently better. I don’t like this last one because it lets people stop thinking critically about their gear and just default to “it must be better than yours because I’ve spent lots of money on it”. It also has some pretty bad implications for getting outfits from opshops, and we can’t have that; I’ve seen female friends at weddings that have opshoped their bridesmaids dress, which I would have sworn up and down was custom made for them.
The other issue with this flax hemp was that it was also pretty rough, as most rope is when fresh off the spool. Anyway, spoiler alert, the rope is now fine and good to use, but how did I get there? Oh boy, strap in, because this is one long, tooth and nail, battle to get rid of the barn from my rope.
Day 1: This rope stunk, my friends. you could smell it from across the room. Apart from that, it had a nice diameter, a tight twist to the strands, didn’t seem to want to high-strand, moved well in the hand (before treatmeandnt), and had a satisfying heft to it when you held it. All in all, really good for being only about $1.15/m. It was just this damn smell that was a complete deal breaker, but I had faith there was a solution!
Day 2-3: I was traveling when I picked this up from my friends house and initially I was sure that the smell was just that ‘imported from overseas’ smell you sometimes get when something arrives in the mail. No, it still smelled of barn, and now my bag smelled of barn too…
Day 4: Finally home, super excited to see the rope soft and supple after processing, I fire up a pot of boiling water and submerge one length for exactly 4 minutes to make it more supple. Now, I’m no rope expert, and I’ve only dealt with a handful of different orders of jute and hemp rope from different suppliers. I also know that there will be some people out there that just about fall over after they read about me putting rope into boiling water. All I can say is that this is a process that works for me, and accelerates the process (down to 4 minutes) of rope moving from ‘off the spool’ to ‘used for 3 months and now it’s nice’.
I also knew that the boiling water would get into all the fibres and take out whatever bad smelling compounds were causing the smell.
It still stunk.
Day 5: Clothes can smell pretty bad at times, and we treat those, so they no longer smell bad…I don’t like the idea of what I’m about to do because I’ve had all and sundry tell me it’s a universally bad idea, but into the washing machine it goes. Washing powder and all. One wash and one extra rinse cycle late…it still stinks. It’s late at night so I guess I’ll tension it to dry, and try again later.
Day 6: Surely a bit of dry processing will improve the smell…somehow? I pass the rope through a carabiner and twist it around itself, sawing it back and forth to remove loose fibres, and make the fluffies stick out. This stunk worse from all the small bits of rope now floating around the air. Burnt the fluffies off using a small camping stove so it at least felt nice, because surely some oil would fix the smell…
I noticed that the loose and fluffy fibres were burning off differently to how other ropes have (read, they were burning off slower). So I went through the fire more times than I have in the past. Second problem, now I’ve singed the main strands a little, but I have synthetic ropes that are a natural fibre look, feel, and friction imitating for any suspension classes I take in the future, so I’m not concerned about any loss of strength.
New observation from all this was that it no longer smells primarily of a barn, instead it now smells like a camp fire…which could have a nice charm to it, but not what you really want if you can avoid it.
On to oiling. A bit of cotton rag and Jojoba oil later…still smells unpleasant.
Time to pull out the big guns.
Day 8: rubbing in baking soda; still smells. Soaking it for an hour in baking soda water, and once more through the washing machine; still stunk.
Day 9: soaked in white vinegar for an hour; stinks.
Day 10: loose hope and seethe; no surprises here – stinks.
Day 11: soak in water with bleach; stinks of bleach. Rinse, still smells of bleach. Again through the washing machine, STILL smells of barn
Day 12: start to think that, much like how some fibres are always inherently scratchy and unpleasant, maybe it’s just the fibres of flax-hemp that stink to the heavens. Loose more hope; still smells of barn.
Day 13: …realize I could make like Mark Watney, and science the shit out of this….welcome aboard the thought express:
Why do things smell?
“We smell objects because they produce, or release, aromatic compounds.”
What are the properties of aromatic compounds?
“They are often quite volatile. Petrol, acetone, isopropyl alcohol…all these things smell strongly, and they evaporate much more readily at room temperatures than something like water, or lemon juice…”
“What if I can forcibly ‘off-gas’ the aromatic compounds in this rope…?”
With nothing to lose except about $11 of one length’s worth of rope (that I currently can’t use anyway), I grab the pyrex roasting dish and fire up the oven to 140°C, and throw the sucker in there for an hour. Pull the pyrex out with some work gloves, give the rope a good wave to cool it down so I can handle it properly, and it smells of baking, like apple crumble…
Not a single trace of any barn smell. I’m thinking that surely I’ve just got some kind of sensory fatigue, from living in a bedroom with rope that smells like a farm for the past 2 weeks, so I put it down and go to dinner with friends from work.
Come home, and sure enough, the new rope smells like a barn; the baked rope smells like apple crumble, and a warm cloth sack…it doesn’t smell bad in any way.
I went to sleep feeling rather chuffed that night.
Day 14: After such a lucky day yesterday, it is now all go. I ordered some essential oils (for their smell) and they’ve already arrived, so, Jojoba Oil on a rag with a few drops of essential oil.
I now have one length, of supple, non-scratchy, oiled, and lively-in-the-hand rope that smells wonderfully of lemon grass.
Victory is taken by the persistent! 😀
This was a fun revelation, I tested the baking process again on a length that had nothing done to it, it was raw and fresh off the spool with only the ends whipped, and stunk like a barn.
Pyrex dish, 140°C, bake, one hour; apple crumble & warm cloth sack.
One oily rag later, supple, and smooth lemongrass smelling rope; Complete success.
Conclusion: If you have rope that is good in all metrics apart from smell…consider baking it like a pie xD.
I really enjoyed this experience because it’s yet another demonstration that throwing money at a problem isn’t always the best solution, it isn’t always needed, either. Sometimes you can get good quality things that are affordable, rather than just ‘cheap’.
I love this last point as it’s yet another way that barriers to entry can be lowered; rope can be very expensive, many beginners will forgo getting their own full set of rope because of the cost of purchasing even x4 lengths, never mind x6. If you can get a full set of rope for an affordable price, and all that you need to supply is an extra half days’ worth of work on the weekend, I’m all in favour of that! 😀
Extra: I have heard (and seen) good things come from treating rope with a Jojoba oil/beeswax mix somewhere between 1:1 and 4:1. So I thought id give this a go. Some left over Jojoba oil, a bit of a beeswax block I have lying around, and a bit of lemongrass scented oil later and I had my beeswax/oil ‘butter’ block (I poured them into disposable plastic shot glasses). After applying it liberally to the rope (it felt gross as hell), and baking it at 120°C for 30 minutes, the feeling of the rope totally changed. It smelled wonderful, and it moved really nicely when flicking it around.
Thanks for taking the time to read my saga of the barn smelling, flax-hemp rope.
Dexter
