Rope, yeah ROPE!

10:43Josh Clark:Yeah. And they're generally a little stronger and more pliable than a twisted rope. But I like a good old school rope. I do too.

10:52Chuck Bryant:A good natural fiber rope that you can't even get your thumb and fingers to touch because it's so thick. That's amazing.

11:01Josh Clark:Agreed. They've been using rope for probably hundreds of thousands of years. Part of the problem with specifically dating rope is that the early ropes were obviously organic in their nature and their fibers. And so that stuff's not going to stick around forever. We do have some, you know, kind of cool evidence like 34 ,000 years ago in the Republic of Georgia where they saw flax fibers embedded in clay. And so that was like, all right, it's embedded in clay, so it's sort of preserved. And these were twisted and knotted up. So clearly people were using rope back then. But there's other evidence of older stuff too, right?

11:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah, this is like implicit evidence. It's not direct like finding an actual piece of cordage. This is like they found a weaving tool 40 ,000 years old in Germany. It's made of ivory. And essentially it was designed to keep the strands separate when braiding or twisting the rope together, which is still a technique that's used today. And then also they found beads, stone and shell beads that start appearing in the prehistoric record 300 ,000 years back. And I mean, try to wear a bead around your neck without some sort of cordage. You can't do it.

12:13Josh Clark:No, those puka shells are just falling all over the floor.

12:15Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I mean, maybe you could hold one under your chin, between your chin and your neck, but who wants to walk around like that? Just use a cord.

12:23Josh Clark:That's right. The idea for all of this probably came from early on when they use roots and vines for stuff like this. And, you know, I've got my camp up in the North Georgia mountains. There are some trees that have a, like a, like a vine hanging down that like, it might as well be just nature's rope. Yeah, for sure.

12:45Chuck Bryant:What is that? I know exactly what you're talking about, but I've never stopped and wondered what it was.

12:49Josh Clark:I guess it's a vine. Sure. Like it can't be a root if it's coming down like from up top, right?

12:56Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I didn't know if you knew what kind of vine it was.

12:58Josh Clark:No, I don't know what kind of vine it is. But, you know, you can, sometimes you can like swing on that stuff if it's attached. But be careful.

13:06Chuck Bryant:I mean, I guess that's what Tarzan used in the old movies, right?

13:10Josh Clark:Yeah. He wasn't carrying around rope and slinging it over tree branches.

13:13Chuck Bryant:No. The other thing about rope is that it seems to have been developed pretty much universally. Like every group, including ones that were never in contact with one another, figured out how to make rope on their own. Yeah. And then they just used whatever local types of fiber was available. Like in North America, indigenous people used sinew, like tendons of, say, deer. I saw a red deer sinew rope making video. Or hair. Yeah, hair. Papyrus and reed in Egypt. Coconut fiber and bamboo in Southeast Asia. Like, essentially, you're like, okay, can you make fibers out of this? Yes. Well, then you can make a rope out of it, too.

13:59Josh Clark:Yeah. And, you know, like we mentioned, stuff like, you know, to string a bow, obviously, but also making netting to catch fish, shelter to weave together, you know, rope to help, like, lift up a heavy frame of a hut or something, hauling stuff, lashing things together. And this is one I didn't really think of, but early bridges were made of rope. And so if you want to get from here to there and you can't do it, one of the earliest things you could do is build a rope bridge.

14:29Chuck Bryant:I would just not have gone across. I'd be like, oh, well, or I'd have to go around. But there is a Herodotus wrote in his histories about Xerxes, the first army in the Second Persian War. I failed to look where this like when this took place, but this was ancient Greece, obviously. But they apparently bridged something like a kilometer wide strait using rope and their ships to basically stretch the rope and then put boards over these two or three rope strands that were going all the way across the strait to go invade Greece.

15:08Josh Clark:Yeah. Good use of rope. So rope is being used for a ton of things for, you know, many thousands of years. Then all of a sudden, around 3500 BC, sailing became a thing. And all of a sudden, it was on. Everyone was like, all right, rope is the key to all of this happening. Can't raise a sail without rope. Can't tie up, can't moor a ship or can't anchor a ship without rope. So it's key to what we're doing. And, you know, people sailed around for a little while, but then the 15th century rolls around and the age of discovery starts unfolding. And all of a sudden, if you were a nation that was really good at sailing, you could, and they did, you could go around the world and start claiming places as your own.

15:57Chuck Bryant:Yes. And so rope became a really hot commodity during the age of discovery or the age of colonialism, I guess. Yeah. There was another industry that came along after, say, like the navies of the world had started sailing. And that was the whaling industry.

16:17Josh Clark:Oh, yeah, for sure.

16:17Chuck Bryant:The whaling industry needed way more rope than a typical, like, you know, battleship or cutter needed. Because in addition to all the ropes that, like, your typical sailing vessel needs, they also needed lots and lots of rope, strong rope, to connect to the harpoon that they would harpoon a whale with and then drag the whale around with them for the rest of the time they were at sea. And there was a, I guess, in Moby Dick, still haven't read it yet. Mm-hmm. Melville talks about how the rope was coiled so precisely by like a professional rope layer in the bow of the boat, this rope that was connected to the harpoon.

16:58Chuck Bryant:Because if there was any kind of like kink or loop or something in it, it would just take your arm clean off. Like if you got your arm caught in this thing and a whale was rushing away with a harpoon in it, your arm was just gone. Yeah.

17:13Josh Clark:And you know what? I'm remembering now, too, this was another reason for rope because in Nantucket, they had the Wailing Museum there.

17:20Chuck Bryant:Oh, yeah.

17:21Josh Clark:And so I went to the Wailing Museum, which I thought was super interesting. And I've never been more close than reading Moby Dick. Like, I'm right there. I'm just, I'm working on a book right now. The next horror book coming out soon from Keith Rosson, the guy who I've been reading lately. It's called Crone, by the way. It's great. But Moby Dick is right there. And the thing that really pushed me over the edge is I just saw that Rob Delaney, you know, the actor and comedian Rob Delaney, he's got a podcast out now called Exploring the Greats that I haven't listened to yet. But he and a professor named Hester Bloom are doing Moby Dick one chapter at a time.

18:02Josh Clark:Awesome. And I love Rob Delaney. I was like, you know what, I think everything in life is telling me to finally read Moby Dick and maybe listen to this podcast as I go along would be a good way to do it. Okay, do it. So I'm right. As soon as I finish Keith Rossen's book, I'm going to think I'm going to dive into Moby Dick.

18:19Chuck Bryant:You can do it, man.

18:21Josh Clark:Should we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. All right, we're going to take a break and we're going to talk about how rope is made right after this.

18:33Josh Clark:Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week, I'm sitting down with author Matt Dineman and narrator Jeff Hayes to talk about dungeon crawler Carl. Matt had one line in a notebook from middle school, Alien Game Show. It took him until 2019 to finally write it, but what came out was an out-of-this-world audiobook phenomenon. on. We talked about that origin, talking cat with a charisma stat that breaks the game, and what it takes to voice an entire world. Fiction is bullshit. So you gotta trick me into caring about what you're talking about. And that's always what I have thought of as my job.

19:19Josh Clark:So as a narrator, I always want to keep you engaged by making you feel as if I care as a narrator. And when I do dialogue, I don't want to tell you what the characters are saying. I want you to hear firsthand. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:59Josh Clark:One court, one more time. Two games of the most physical, competitive, and nonstop three-on-three action. The game played the way you love. Watch Live Saturday on CBS at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific, and catch replays Monday on BET. Presented by iHeart.

20:14Chuck Bryant:A-yay-yay!

20:16Josh Clark:I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. You know what I love about cooking? The endless inspiration, sharing exceptional flavors, and, of course, the best ingredients. I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever. There's the everyday essential, garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir-fry to even grilled meats.

21:04Josh Clark:Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com.

21:33Chuck Bryant:So, Chuck, like we were saying, that ivory weaving tool 40 ,000 years ago in Germany, it's essentially like, it's still definitely a part of how rope making was made traditionally and then still today. But there is essentially, if you were making a rope, say, pre-20th century, You were following essentially four steps. You have to prepare the fibers. You spin those fibers into yarn. You twist the yarn into strands and then you twist the strands into rope. Because like I was saying before, a rope is actually just increasingly large ropes twisted or braided together.

22:14Josh Clark:Yeah. And when we say yarn, that's a term that you might think of as twine. If you like bought it in a store, we're not talking about like crafting yarn.

22:22Chuck Bryant:No, but it counts.

22:24Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. But maybe think twine. And we'll go over these steps. We're not going to get like super, super in the weeds because we've learned that, you know, trying to describe a like a process, a factory process with just your mouth isn't the easiest thing to do. It's hard. So I would encourage everyone to go look up a rope walk on YouTube. And like we said, there are a bunch of different videos. Just pick one of them. And if that doesn't fancy, that isn't your fancy. Isn't your fancy?

22:53Chuck Bryant:Cat fancy.

22:56Josh Clark:I love your remarks just to shout out cat fancy. If that one's not your liking, then there will no doubt be another one. But we're talking about like up until the 1700s, they used something called a rope walk, which was a configuration of machines at opposite ends of a long space. Sometimes it was an open field. Sometimes it was a big, huge open, like, barn. But you had a flaming tar pit nearby, which we'll see why in a minute. Maybe you had a water wheel helping out, but it was generally human-powered. And it needed to be long because they were making long ropes. And in order to make a long rope, you just have to walk this thing down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet until it's twisted up.

23:41Chuck Bryant:Yep. I mean, that's essentially that. And you have to start with fiber. And again, whatever local fiber you had works. But you need fiber to spin yarn. And yarn is step two. Fibers you have to prepare. You do all sorts of things to them. Like you beat them, you soak them, you call them names. and then once they dry out, you run them through like giant combs. You pull them through combs to basically individuate them, right?

24:09Josh Clark:Yeah.

24:09Chuck Bryant:Then you start spinning those fibers into yarn. Now you're in the rope making biz.

24:14Josh Clark:For sure. So you've got a spinning wheel at this point. You've got a person with a bundle of fibers coiled around their waist. It's hooked to a spindle and then they just very slowly walk backward, feeding those fibers in until you get to the end of the rope walk. And then you have your yarn. But in order to make that yarn into the strand, you've got to soak that in tar, wring it through a roller, and then you've got like a usable yarn or twine that you roll around or wind around a big bobbin.

24:47Chuck Bryant:Yes. And now that you have yarn, which is essentially just think of it as a bunch of really, really thin ropes, right? Now that you have your yarn, you've got your first component of rope. Now you take the yarn and you twist it or you braid it into strands, right? So you take a bunch of different lines of yarn. You pull it through a tube, which smooths the fibers, compacts it, right? And then you also have it under tension. You want it to be tense. And again, a machine basically pulls it down the length of this rope walk, which are really long. I don't know if you said it or not. Some of them are like a thousand feet long, right?

25:26Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

25:27Josh Clark:Depends on how long you need your rope.

25:28Chuck Bryant:Sure.

25:29Josh Clark:Yeah.

25:29Chuck Bryant:And then there's a forming machine that essentially separates the yarn. And on the other side of the forming machine is whatever machine they use to twist or braid it. And then as you just keep walking backward, that more and more yarn gets turned into rope where it all comes together at the center and it's twisted or braided. You get to the other end. Now you have a strand. You do that a bunch of times, then you have the components you need to make a rope.

25:55Josh Clark:That's right. And you're going to twist those strands into rope. Three or four of those strands are going to stretch between a couple of twisting machines. And again, you've got to really look this thing up because all of this is possible, of course, because of two other key inventions, the wheel and the gear. Yeah. Because it looks sort of like a little horse cart moving very slowly backwards. So that's on wheels. And then you have these gears moving in different directions that's making a thing that all these strands are tied to goes in a circle. So it just starts twisting it. And you got to have this other thing, though.

26:35Josh Clark:Man, I forgot about the cone. This cone that's got these three notches, like, you know, one at the top and two on the sides. Like if you looked at it from the front, it would be a triangle. but it just runs through those, I guess, cutouts from the cone to kind of keep everything from getting like twisted in a bad way.

26:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So on the backside of that cone, which is called the laying top, it's keeping all those strands separated. On the front side of it, that's where the strands are being brought together and twisted into the rope, right? And again, you just walk backwards, you pull those strands through that processor that twists them into rope, And once you reach the end of the rope walk, you've got a huge, long length of rope that you cut. And you say, presto, that's tradition in rope making. You have to shout presto when the rope is finished.

27:26Josh Clark:Yeah, it's really neat, though. Like when you look at this big, like, rack of bobbins with, like, maybe dozens of, I guess, yarns feeding through this little donut-like tube to make a strand. And then that all being twisted together with another, you know, these are machines, but it's like the most basic machines you can have. It's a gear, you know, twisting a thing in a circle. So it's like, it's just, I love the really ingenious lo-fi stuff like this.

27:55Chuck Bryant:Yeah, for sure. That's what that, how it's made video features is an old rope walk. Apparently one of the oldest ones that's still around is in the Sweden city of Karlskrona. It's from the 18th century. It's like 1 ,000 feet long, 300 meters. And it's Sweden's longest building. Oh, wow. Which makes sense. I mean, there's probably not a lot of buildings that are 1 ,000 feet wide in Sweden. Probably just the, no, never mind.

28:24Josh Clark:Bad joke. I was going to say the Toblerone factory. That's Switzerland though, isn't it?

28:28Chuck Bryant:Oh, that was great, Chuck. I love that. There was a problem with this early rope up until about the end of the 18th century. and that was you were pulling these strands through and they were all the same length when they were twisted together. The problem is, is that meant that the stuff on the outside was under higher tension than the stuff on the inside because they were all the same length. Don't look too deeply into it. Just trust me. That's what happened, right?

28:59Josh Clark:Never thought about it.

29:00Chuck Bryant:So that meant that these ropes were more likely to fray and crack and in turn break and that you needed a really thick, heavy rope to make up for that. And then this captain for the East India Company came along. His name was Joseph Hutter, Captain Joseph Hutter. And at the end of the 18th century, he created the forming plate, which is still very much in use today. And it is so simple, and it makes so much sense that I would love to just explain it real quick. Are you okay with that? Please. The forming plate is a disc, a flat disc, and there's a bunch of concentric circles drilled into it made out of individual holes.

29:40Chuck Bryant:The fibers go through each of those holes and then they all come together at a center point where they're twisted or braided, right? Well, because the fibers going through the holes that make up the outer circles have to technically travel further to that center point because they're being bowed out. They have to go far out and then in. there that means that the fibers used in the outside of the rope are longer than the fibers on the inside of the rope which means that they're all under equal tension when the rope is finished and so basically joseph hutter made it quite possible for much narrower lighter ropes to do the job of heavier ropes because they resisted fraying and breaking because of the different lengths of fiber used in them.

30:29Josh Clark:Again, ingenious. Joseph Huttard seems like one of those guys. My brother is kind of one of these guys. And I have a good friend named John Wolf, who is one of these guys, just really smart people that when presented with a, almost like a mechanical problem like this, their brains can just see it in a way and say, well, why don't you just do this? And that, I think Joseph Huttard might've been in one of those guys where he's like, well, you should just do this.

30:54Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Cause it's that, It's that basic. But it solves the problem so elegantly. It's beautiful.

31:01Josh Clark:But you've got to have a certain kind of brain to think that way, and I don't.

31:05Chuck Bryant:Absolutely. I'd be like, I still don't understand why the outer edges are fraying when they're all the same length.

31:12Josh Clark:A quick example is I have a system at my camp where it draws water out of the creek, and there's a propane hot water heater so we can have hot water in a sink. Awesome. For washing dishes. and it wasn't, uh, it was too long of a, of a pull at one point and the motor, I guess, was getting weaker and it wasn't pulling far enough. And I was like, I don't know what to do, man. This thing won't pull. I wonder if they have a bigger one. And John Wolf was there and he's like, yeah, I ought to just get, uh, like when I worked for Coke years ago and we had really long lines, we would just put another pump in the middle.

31:43Josh Clark:So it would just get to that point. And then that pump would pump it to the other pump. He said, you should do that. And I was like, that is so simple. That's either something like Ruby tells me or that you tell me because I would never been able to figure that dumb thing out. That's awesome. Yeah, that kind of that kind of brain. I just really admire.

31:59Chuck Bryant:Did you do it? Oh, yeah. And it worked? Works like a charm. You should see the flow. That's awesome. That's funny. John Wolfe always works how he used to work for Coke into every conversation. Oh, man, you know, well, so is it break time yet or are we still going.

32:15Josh Clark:No, let's take a break.

32:16Chuck Bryant:Okay. We're taking a break, everybody. Just watch us. Stuff you should know.

32:26Hey,

32:27Josh Clark:everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Will Wheaton, who played Gordy Lachance in Stand By Me 40 years ago, and now narrates Stephen King's The Body, the novella that inspired it all. We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life, channeling his memories of River Phoenix and the recording booth, and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have. I know Gordy Lachance. I am Gordy Lachance. Like, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was Gordy Lachance when I didn't know it.

33:05Josh Clark:Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Ice Cube's Big 3 season has come down to this. The Big 3 championship is coming to Charlotte. Who will be crowned the Big 3 season 9 champion? Plus the Big 3 All-Star Game. The biggest names in the game. All on one court, one more time. Two games of the most physical, competitive, and nonstop three-on-three action. The game played the way you love. Watch live Saturday on CBS at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific. And catch replays Monday on BET.

33:38Chuck Bryant:Presented by iHeart. A-yay-yay!

33:42Josh Clark:I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. You know what I love about cooking? The endless inspiration, sharing exceptional flavors, and of course, the best ingredients. I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever. There's the everyday essential, garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir-fry to even grilled meats.

34:30Josh Clark:Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com.

34:59Josh Clark:All right, so we've covered up through the 1700s, told everyone how rope is made. When it comes to the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution starts happening, All of a sudden we have steam-powered machines. And so rope is evolving at the same time and like how it's used and applications and stuff like that. So you need like better rope, bigger rope, longer rope, stronger rope. And all of a sudden with steam power, you could do that. And, you know, it's basically the same way. You're just using like kind of like everything with the Industrial Revolution. All of a sudden you could just do it on a much bigger scale using machinery.

35:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it's interesting. It's like the Industrial Revolution changed the demands that were put on rope and that at the same time, it changed the ways that rope could be made to satisfy those demands. Pretty cool. Good point. And it all comes down to steam power. One of the cool things about making rope with steam power, with an automated factory, even like this is early 19th century, you need rope. Because they would use rope that ran through the whole factory around like a central steam engine. And we've talked about this before, and I don't remember what it was in. Maybe diesel generator? I don't remember.

36:12Chuck Bryant:But that main engine spun. It moved the rope, and the rope ran around and moved these individual machines. It's one long, continuous thing of rope. It's like the idiom says you need rope to make rope.

36:26Josh Clark:Yeah. It's a good idiom.

36:28Chuck Bryant:I think so, too. I don't know what it means, but it sounds like it.

36:32Josh Clark:Well, they also had innovations in textiles at the time, so they were kind of co-opting some of that stuff to make better ropes. Like one example, I guess, is they were able to shrink a lot of stuff to much smaller things. So the spinning jenny that used to be this mammoth machine, all of a sudden you could fit in a room. And because it's in a room and you didn't have this 2 ,000-foot rope walk, you could fully enclose that. And you could make rope year-round, and it could be heated. And you could hire women to work in there because they already had experience working in textiles. So now they could help make rope.

37:10Chuck Bryant:So, yeah, the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution essentially, well, revolutionized how rope is made, even though it's still using the same technique. It's just now the work is being done more and more by machines, right? Well, it's Industrial Revolution at its core. but it didn't really kind of change the types of rope that were being produced as much. One thing that did come out of the 19th century was wire rope. That was a brand new thing that the Germans gave us in the 1830s because they needed it for their mining industry. Now, all of a sudden, you could build bigger and bigger ships and make them out of metal because you didn't need to use fiber rope any longer.

37:53Chuck Bryant:You could use metal rope, which people called cable. But again, it's still just wire rope. That's right.

37:59Josh Clark:And things stayed humming along pretty great until the 1900s came along. And all of a sudden in the 20th century, we had synthetics upon us. So nylon was the next like real big game changer when it was introduced by the DuPont Chemical Company in 1939 as toothbrush bristles. When people are like, hey, if you make these super long and they're not just for toothbrushes, you can we can make this into rope. And I think it'll be stronger. I think it'll be stretchier. And within a couple of years, you know, World War Two definitely helped when they had blocked like using raw materials for rope making.

38:38Josh Clark:So that's when nylon really had a chance to shine.

38:42Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And then shortly after that, polypropylene and polyester followed, too. And so synthetics were basically everybody was like better living through chemistry in the second half of the 20th century. And that certainly applied to rope making, too. And it's still around today. I mean, like synthetics are you can find both natural fiber rope and synthetic rope as well. But just because of the kind of operations that you see in modern rope making facilities and factories, it just it'd be almost weird to see somebody make a fiber rope in one of the modern factories like synthetic nylon and other kinds of material ropes just make sense.

39:24Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. And the process is really similar because you're still physically doing the same thing. But in this case, you're starting out instead of, you know, like long fibers that you're running through a steel comb. You're starting out with pellets that came from processed crude oil, like little rice-sized pellets of like, you know, nylon, let's say. And then you've got to melt those down in an extruder and push it through, like, smaller and smaller nozzles until you get down to the diameter of a hair, let's say. And then you have this long filament. And, you know, you have to put it in a cooling bath so it holds its shape and stuff like that.

40:04Josh Clark:You stretch it out some on some rollers. Apparently, the stretching causes the polymer chains to align, which is really going to strengthen it. But after that, aside from having to treat it a little differently, it's kind of the same process as an old rope walk and then a factory as far as twisting the stuff together.

40:22Chuck Bryant:Exactly. Except that these are done by machines that can spin at like a thousand RPMs as they're twisting these things. It can make rope super fast. They do that with yarn and then onto strands and then onto rope. And yeah, it's essentially the same stuff. Again, back to that 40 ,000-year-old ivory weaving tool. But once you have the rope made, then it kind of jumps back into the modern era because you have to do things with nylon rope that you don't have to do with fiber rope, which is like you have to heat set it with steam. That helps keep those polymers locked in that same direction. They test them.

41:02Chuck Bryant:I'm sure they do this with modern fiber ropes, too. But they stretch them. They jump on them, they beat them up, they do all sorts of stuff, and they have sensors that detect what's going on within the rope. And then once the rope passes some sort of certification, its maximum operating capacities are stamped on the label, and it's coiled up and sold.

41:24Josh Clark:Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about a few specific kinds of rope, because it gets, depending on what you need to do, you might need a rope that's like stretchier or, I don't know, stiffer, let's say. So if you want to talk about shock cord, that is bungee cord.

41:45Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

41:45Josh Clark:And that is, you know, I've never bungee jumped, but I did learn at one point that a bungee cord was just a lot of rubber bands twisted into a rope. And I don't know if that made me feel better or worse about the whole process.

41:59Chuck Bryant:Well, yeah, so this is, it's silicone to begin with, silicone rubber, and it's vulcanized. And usually they're made of 16 different strands. And then that's just the core. There's a synthetic fiber shell that goes around the cord.

42:15Josh Clark:Yeah.

42:15Chuck Bryant:And, yeah, I think shock cords are pretty, pretty reliable for the most part. Yeah. They apparently stretch to about 130 % of their original length and then bend and snatch back to their original length again without being mauled.

42:34Josh Clark:Without breaking?

42:36Chuck Bryant:Sure. Or without losing their elasticity.

42:39Josh Clark:Oh, yeah, yeah. I see what you mean.

42:40Chuck Bryant:That's what I mean.

42:41Josh Clark:Well, eventually they do over time, though, I guess, because just using regular bungee cords around the house, like old, old ones aren't as stretchy as they used to be.

42:48Chuck Bryant:Good point. And you probably want to go bungee jump at a place that's reputable enough that they're not overusing their bungee cords.

42:56Josh Clark:Agreed.

42:57Chuck Bryant:Great point.

42:57Josh Clark:You've also got spot cord, and that is not super strong or anything, but it has a high resistance to snags. And the cool thing about spot cord, it's a cotton rope that's braided, and it's been produced by the Samson Cordage Company for about 150 years.

43:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

43:14Josh Clark:And if you go to like a big box hardware store or something and you just get like a little 50 foot small thin rope, it's probably a spot cord.

43:25Chuck Bryant:Yeah, they feel real nice because they're cotton.

43:27Josh Clark:Yeah.

43:28Chuck Bryant:If you've ever used a clothesline that's not wire.

43:30Josh Clark:Yeah, there you go.

43:31Chuck Bryant:It's probably a spot cord.

43:33Josh Clark:Yeah. If you've ever tied up your neighbor to a chair, probably using spot cord if you're not into the duct tape thing.

43:40Chuck Bryant:And came into the room saying, well, well, well, look how the tables have turned.

43:46Josh Clark:That's right. I hope that comes across as a joke. I know I'm sure that's real world violence. Or although you could just be tying them to a chair to make them watch The Simpsons or something. Let's say that's what I was talking about.

43:56Chuck Bryant:OK. And then another special rope. And these are very special ropes, by the way. It's the lariat. And lariat is the correct term for what a lot of people call lassos. But I looked it up, Chuck. Lasso is a verb, and it's what you do with a lariat, which is a noun.

44:17Josh Clark:Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. You lasso a horse or something?

44:20Chuck Bryant:Yes, exactly. And you and I both have our own lariats. Do you remember Kathy with a K and Phoenix gave them to us at the Phoenix show?

44:27Josh Clark:Kathy, I thought it was Denver, but was it Phoenix? Phoenix. Okay, yeah. I still have mine. It's hanging up at the camp.

44:32Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I can't tell you how many steer I've wrestled with mine already.

44:37Josh Clark:these are traditionally made with horse hair or rawhide. Today, they're usually braided with nylon or polyester, maybe. But the key to this thing is, is that it's stiff. Like I said, sometimes you might need a stiff rope. So, you know, if you've never used a, or tried to lasso something, you might be surprised to know that it's a, it's a, you know, it's stiff. It's very stiff.

45:01Chuck Bryant:Super stiff. And it barely fits in your suitcase from Phoenix back home to Atlanta. I know.

45:06Josh Clark:We managed it, though.

45:07Chuck Bryant:Yeah, the way they work, though, is a Honda knot, which slides up and down the rigid rope or stiff rope very easily. So when you get it around a steer's horns, you pull it and the loop closes. But it doesn't close midair on its way to the steer's horns like it would if you made it out of a spot cord.

45:27Josh Clark:That's right.

45:28Chuck Bryant:There's also, we can't not talk about climbing ropes, Chuck.

45:32Josh Clark:Yeah, that's what keeps you alive if you're into rappelling and rock climbing. They used to be made out of plant fibers before nylon, just like any other rope that we're talking about, of course. But, you know, if you've seen an action movie from the old days, and that rope is being, you know, wearing against that rock at the top of a cliff. Yeah. And it starts going, doing, doing, doing. and you're worried about your action hero, then you need to go to a nylon rope because one of the important things about a nylon rope is it's not going to fray as much like in the movie. And also, if you fall, it's going to be a little stretchier.

46:12Josh Clark:So in the old days, if you fell off of Everest in the old days with a fiber rope, the entire force of falling just stops in an instant because there's zero stretch, and that's no good.

46:23Chuck Bryant:No, that produces rope trauma. Ha ha ha! Very nice. It can cut you just clean in half. That's what I've heard. So with climbing ropes in particular, there's a special type of rope construction that's used called the kern mantle construction. And it refers to the kern, the core, like a kernel. And that's made of nylon rope. And then there's a mantle, the shell, that is made of braided nylon that protects the internal nylon rope. So the internal kern rope is load-bearing. the outer shell rope protects that internal load-bearing one. But because they're both so strong, if one failed, the other would be able to keep you dangling.

47:08Chuck Bryant:And they're stretchy enough that rope trauma is brought to almost nil the possibility of it when you fall off of a cliff wearing a Kern mantle rope. That's right.

47:18Josh Clark:They came around in 1953. Yep. The aughts. And I guess that's kind of it on rope, right?

47:25Chuck Bryant:That's it. One thing that struck me, I could not find an answer for it, is that in the United States alone, in 2025,$3.5 billion worth of rope was sold. Pretty impressive. But they're projecting it to increase to$6 billion in less than 10 years by 2033. I could not find why. What do we need more rope for? I don't know. Maybe Gen Z is going to finally discover rope in 2033. I don't know. I don't know.

47:57Josh Clark:I'm trying to think of how, like, a data center uses rope or something that's, like, something really, like, growing fast right now. But I don't know.

48:04Chuck Bryant:Oh, yeah. I guess maybe if you include fiber optic cable.

48:08Josh Clark:Oh, maybe.

48:09Chuck Bryant:Or fiber optic rope, I should say, in that, that might account for it. Good call. Well, that's it for rope, everybody, which means it's time for listener mail.

48:21Josh Clark:This goes back to the voice of God, Dan LaFontaine, the famous movie trailer guy in a world. What did it say, Dan? Mm-hmm. No, that was his brother. You should have heard his voice.

48:32Chuck Bryant:Hey, guys.

48:35Josh Clark:Don LaFontaine. I think we did a shorty on him. Wasn't it a shorty?

48:38Chuck Bryant:Yeah, voice of God.

48:39Josh Clark:So, hey, guys. Been meaning to write for a while. And when I heard the short stuff, I was like, bam, now I have to write. because my father was a sound editor in New York City and worked on movie trailers, the sound mixes for them and recording the voiceovers. He met many actors over the years and also Don LaFontaine, who became a good friend of our family. When my younger brother Travis was born in 1971, Don became his godfather even. My mother loved Don and always said he was such a neat guy and fun. And they spent some time partying with him back in the day. I have some old pictures of Don and my parents, those little square ones with the rounded off corners where everything looks like shades of brown and orange and yellow.

49:20Josh Clark:You know the ones, guys. If I can lay my hands on one, I'll attach it, which did not happen, by the way.

49:26Chuck Bryant:No.

49:27Josh Clark:But I'd be tickled to death if you selected my email to be read on the air. Like, you have no idea, LOL. You can even edit down, and I won't mind. Smiley face. Yours, both of you's, truly, that is from Tegwin Allen Stockdale, or the nickname Teg.

49:44Chuck Bryant:What a name. That is a great name.

49:47Josh Clark:Agreed.

49:48Chuck Bryant:Well, thanks a lot, Teglin Allen Stockdale. I don't think I would ever say your name other than to use all three.

49:55Josh Clark:Agreed.

49:56Chuck Bryant:Oh, great. If you want to be like Teglin Allen Stockdale and email us with a great story about something we talked about, we love that kind of thing. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com.

50:12Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

50:27Chuck Bryant:When you're in do-it-yourself mode, the last thing you want to do is drop everything to pick up that one part or tool that you need. That's where MyLowse Rewards and MyLowse Pro Rewards come in. Place your order and Lowse handles the rest. Lowse will make the run for you with free same-day delivery. Members get more at Lowse. $25 minimum and loyalty membership required. Order eligible items by 2 p.m. Subject to weight and size restrictions and availability. Terms at lowes.com slash shipping terms.

50:59Josh Clark:Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them.

51:06Chuck Bryant:And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering, and 24-7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Whether it's help with hormone therapy, weight management, or sexual health, every woman should have access to affordable prescription medication and personalized care that understands the whole woman. Join me, Dr.

51:43Josh Clark:Doug Lucas, clinical lead of hormone optimization and longevity at LifeMD, along with other leading experts on the podcast, Here's Something Good on Women's Health and

51:53Chuck Bryant:Longevity. To learn more, go to lifemd.com slash iHeart.

51:58Josh Clark:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.