Making rope?

[ThinkerX]

I'm not sure where Diana would get her hands on any oakum, since I don't think Leeds is anywhere close to the sea, but she might be able to come up with a substitute.

Anything sticky would probably work - say tar from the supplies used to repair the roof or some such?

 

[Ireth]

That's quite possible. Thanks, Thinker.

 

[Ireth]

Coming back to this with more info and more questions. XD I've done more research on the cathedral I'm using, and found that the belltower is ~140 feet high (I assume from the ground to the top of the spires). That gives me a good grounding for how long of a rope she'd need to make. I'll just say the finished rope is 140 feet to keep things easier rather than guesstimating for exactly where she'd be climbing down from. If some ends up of the ground, then there's nothing wrong with that.

My questions are, how long would it take to make a 140-foot rope over a period of ~6 years? Would she need to gather every single scrap of yarn/cloth/whatever first and then do all the knotting, splicing, tarring and braiding for the core, followed by all of the final twisting for the rest? Or could she do all of the things in stages, adding to the length as she went?

 

[Kit]

Length- she could drop a little ways at the bottom, but she will also need 2 feet or so to tie a knot to something at the top.

 

[ThinkerX]

One thought:

She need not make the entire rope in one go - simply make it in twenty or thirty foot sections, and then tying them together.

 

[Ireth]

*nod* Good idea, Thinker. I'm still having some issue with how long it would take, though. Assuming an average of 1 inch's worth of rope per day, and no working on Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday or Easter, her progress after six years would look like this: ((365-55) x 6) / 12 = 155 feet total. Well over the needed amount. That doesn't account for leap years or sickness, or anything else that would alter her pacing for better or worse. I want her to be still not close to finished the rope after six years (i.e. the start of the story), then finish the rope over the course of at least a few months -- at first probably at the same rate as normal, but finally culminating in a desperate all-nighter to get through the last 20-30 feet, give or take, before the climax.

 

[ThinkerX]

Simple enough - have her make the rope twice. First time around it gets stolen or confiscated or destroyed somehow. Have a scene where this absolutely crushes her, and then have something happen which motivates her to do it all over again.

Additional thought - not all of the rope even need be rope. She could tie a plank to the end if need be.

 

[Ireth]

Maybe... but redoing six years' worth of work in a much shorter time seems a bit unrealistic even if she's desperate, especially if the villain is onto her scheme. He'd be more vigilant after catching her once, and not likely to let her repeat the offense at all, or even think of doing so.

 

[ThinkerX]

Maybe... but redoing six years' worth of work in a much shorter time seems a bit unrealistic even if she's desperate, especially if the villain is onto her scheme. He'd be more vigilant after catching her once, and not likely to let her repeat the offense at all, or even think of doing so.

Assuming he thinks that is what happened.

Your MC makes rope. She hides the rope as she does so. Big renovation comes up - your villian is playing full time toady to his boss. Villian stumbles across rope maybe literally, and instead of suspecting her, concludes idiot workmen put it in the wrong place because well, they got rope all over the dang place.

Villian gives rope to workmen complete with a no interuption or explanation allowed lecture about leaving stuff laying around. Workmen look at each other, put it in their bag and take it with them. Villian is so busy worrying about his boss showing up and the utter mess the workers are making he doesn't suspect your MC made this particular rope.

Your MC *knows* she had a real close call, and does no more rope making at all for a good couple of years - because this really spooked her.

 

[Ireth]

Assuming he thinks that is what happened.

Your MC makes rope. She hides the rope as she does so. Big renovation comes up - your villian is playing full time toady to his boss. Villian stumbles across rope maybe literally, and instead of suspecting her, concludes idiot workmen put it in the wrong place, and gives it back to them, complete with a no interuption or explanation allowed lecture about leaving stuff laying around. Workmen look at each other, put it in their bag and take it with them. Your MC *knows* she had a real close call, and does no more rope making at all for a good couple of years - because this really spooked her.

One HUGE problem with that. The rope in question, being made mostly from scraps of yarn trimmed from Diana's tapestries, will be multicolored. The villain has seen all of Diana's many tapestries before, and is the one who provides the yarn for her to make them with, so if he saw that he'd have good reason to be suspicious. Who else would make something like that out of yarn scraps? Nobody else goes up into the belltower (except Vincent, but that's another issue).

 

[ThinkerX]

One HUGE problem with that. The rope in question, being made mostly from scraps of yarn trimmed from Diana's tapestries, will be multicolored. The villain has seen all of Diana's many tapestries before, and is the one who provides the yarn for her to make them with, so if he saw that he'd have good reason to be suspicious. Who else would make something like that out of yarn scraps? Nobody else goes up into the belltower (except Vincent, but that's another issue).

Nobody goes up there under *normal* circumstances. Renovation or repair would be a different story. Maybe swiped by a crooked worker instead of villian? MC counts herself lucky that worker did not take rope to villian?

 

[Ireth]

Possibly. Such an idea could be tricky to get across in the story though. Since it has to happen a matter of years before the story begins, I don't think I could effectively establish it in a scene without it ending up being a flashback (which I'm not good at) or an infodump through dialogue (which wouldn't be nearly as effective as showing it in an actual scene of its own).

 

[ThinkerX]

Simple enough. Something happens that prompts her to start making the second rope. As she does so, she decides she does not want this rope to 'vanish' as did the first one - and have her choose a hiding place with that in mind. More of a passing thought with maybe a mental curse directed at the workman sho stole the first rope.

 

[Ireth]

1) Would Diana not think to hide the first rope in the best place she can think of - ex. stuffed into her mattress where nobody would think to look when renovating? (For the record: yes, she would.) How then could it be found by a random person?

2) Again there's the time issue. The story will take place over a matter of months, probably no more than six. She'd have to work very hard and fast to squeeze six years' worth of work into so many months, and what with the actual plot that needs to happen as well as her day job weaving tapestries, her time to work will be quite limited.

 

[ascanius]

1) Would Diana not think to hide the first rope in the best place she can think of - ex. stuffed into her mattress where nobody would think to look when renovating? (For the record: yes, she would.) How then could it be found by a random person?

She probably would take the greatest care to ensure that rope is never found. It is her life line and hope to the outside world, i doubt she would be careless enough to allow for anything to happen to it. If however you need a reason for her to make another rope have her simply break it. She gets her finished rope, decides she is to scared to use it without testing it. She tests is using something twice her weight, snap rope breaks. Then she learns what she did wrong and how to make her next rope better.

2) Again there's the time issue. The story will take place over a matter of months, probably no more than six. She'd have to work very hard and fast to squeeze six years' worth of work into so many months, and what with the actual plot that needs to happen as well as her day job weaving tapestries, her time to work will be quite limited.

In six years she could probably have six or seven ropes depending on the availability of material. The thing that will take her the most time is going to be figuring out how to make rope along with a system to do it. Once those two things are understood the work would probably go really quickly adding feet by the day, even more if she devotes all her time to it. The limiting factor in this is of course the availability of resources. If though she has the remains of her broken rope that could easily be used to make another and she would have all the resources she needs. In that case it would just be learning a new method and system to make the rope stronger, but she would probably get it done a lot quicker than the first time, six months is doable in that case.

I think the biggest thing that will make this time consuming for her is going from knowing nothing about rope making to making a rope that will support her weight. There would probably be a lot of trial and error in this process. That is where she is going to loose a lot of time just figuring out how to do it, that's the hard part. it would be the same if I decided to make a tapestry only have seen one. It would take me a very long time to make anything that could be called a rug even, but once I got a system down and the basics progress would proceed rapidly, at that point it would be more about fine tuning the system.

 

[Ireth]

She probably would take the greatest care to ensure that rope is never found. It is her life line and hope to the outside world, i doubt she would be careless enough to allow for anything to happen to it.

Exactly. Which is why I'm not entirely sold yet on the idea of having her make more than one rope.

In six years she could probably have six or seven ropes depending on the availability of material. The thing that will take her the most time is going to be figuring out how to make rope along with a system to do it. Once those two things are understood the work would probably go really quickly adding feet by the day, even more if she devotes all her time to it. The limiting factor in this is of course the availability of resources. If though she has the remains of her broken rope that could easily be used to make another and she would have all the resources she needs. In that case it would just be learning a new method and system to make the rope stronger, but she would probably get it done a lot quicker than the first time, six months is doable in that case.

That depends on the availability of time she has to work. If she spends her days either weaving tapestries or cleaning the belltower, she might not have a lot of time to make her rope, which would mean it would take her a while to make progress. And since she needs to make 140 feet worth of rope strong enough to hold her weight, she'll need a lot more time to get it long enough.

I think the biggest thing that will make this time consuming for her is going from knowing nothing about rope making to making a rope that will support her weight. There would probably be a lot of trial and error in this process. That is where she is going to loose a lot of time just figuring out how to do it, that's the hard part.

Yup, pretty much.

 

[ascanius]

*nod* Good idea, Thinker. I'm still having some issue with how long it would take, though. Assuming an average of 1 inch's worth of rope per day, and no working on Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday or Easter, her progress after six years would look like this: ((365-55) x 6) / 12 = 155 feet total. Well over the needed amount. That doesn't account for leap years or sickness, or anything else that would alter her pacing for better or worse. I want her to be still not close to finished the rope after six years (i.e. the start of the story), then finish the rope over the course of at least a few months -- at first probably at the same rate as normal, but finally culminating in a desperate all-nighter to get through the last 20-30 feet, give or take, before the climax.

Going back to the original delema. You could have her just make the rope thicker so it take longer for her to make.

or have her spend the first six months testing and figuring out how to make a rope. Like she makes a length of rope ( five feet, or a foot a test length) Then she tests the rope and finds it's load limit for that length and thickness. then scales it up. or she just tests different ways to twin the rope, or braid it together so that it works and can hold 2x her weight.

Another thing could be she is forced to slow down due to her jailor noticing that she is consuming more yarn that is needed in the tapestry. She realizes she needs to ease back to avoid suspicion so it takes her longer.

Or lack of materials. Is there any reason why she is allowed to do the tapestries? Does he sell them? Cuz his business dealing could always interfere with the supply. Like a disgruntled competitor might decide to set fire to his warehouse or something. Hell it could be something simple like a workman was careless and set fire to the dock warehouses resulting in having to wait two or three, even six months for the next shipment of wool to come in, get dyed, and distributed. Don't know how realistic that last one is but just an idea.

Another thing that could happen is she notices weak points in the rope and has to go back and figure out how to redo those specific places and spends a month or two doing that.

Her work load could become doubled forcing her to spend less time making the rope and more time doing other things.

last but not least a combination of these things. Though making the rope thicker is probably the simplest.

Quick question. How many hours each day does she have free to spend making the rope? Oh and why wouldn't she work on holidays? If I were escaping I would work everyday to get the rope complete holiday or not.

 

[Ireth]

Going back to the original delema. You could have her just make the rope thicker so it take longer for her to make.

or have her spend the first six months testing and figuring out how to make a rope. Like she makes a length of rope ( five feet, or a foot a test length) Then she tests the rope and finds it's load limit for that length and thickness. then scales it up. or she just tests different ways to twin the rope, or braid it together so that it works and can hold 2x her weight.

Another thing could be she is forced to slow down due to her jailor noticing that she is consuming more yarn that is needed in the tapestry. She realizes she needs to ease back to avoid suspicion so it takes her longer.

Having her test the rope often is a good idea. As for her captor noticing the amount of yarn she uses, I'm not sure he'd pay too close attention. He's a deacon, not a weaver, so he doesn't have the same knowledge about weaving that she does.

Or lack of materials. Is there any reason why she is allowed to do the tapestries? Does he sell them? Cuz his business dealing could always interfere with the supply. Like a disgruntled competitor might decide to set fire to his warehouse or something. Hell it could be something simple like a workman was careless and set fire to the dock warehouses resulting in having to wait two or three, even six months for the next shipment of wool to come in, get dyed, and distributed. Don't know how realistic that last one is but just an idea.

Yes, her captor sells them and keeps the money for himself. She gets commissions from people in other churches for tapestries depicting Biblical scenes, much like some painters did around that time.

Another thing that could happen is she notices weak points in the rope and has to go back and figure out how to redo those specific places and spends a month or two doing that.

Her work load could become doubled forcing her to spend less time making the rope and more time doing other things.

last but not least a combination of these things. Though making the rope thicker is probably the simplest.

That's a lot of good ideas to consider. Thanks.

Quick question. How many hours each day does she have free to spend making the rope? Oh and why wouldn't she work on holidays? If I were escaping I would work everyday to get the rope complete holiday or not.

Since most of her time is spent making tapestries (mostly for others, but she does have a few of her own in the tower), she has not a lot of time per day to make the rope, so that affects how long it would take. She doesn't work Sundays or holidays for religious reasons. (Note that the holidays I mentioned are very important to Christians.)