AND
KNOTS, TIES,
16
SPLIGES.
a compact, hard, and strong rope, neither breaking
them so loose drawn out from the mass on the other,
the fibres on the one hand, nor leaving as to be easily
— either extreme would be equally and injurious
medium
achieved by
is
fatal
in its results,
to the stability of the rope.
This happy
the modern process of rope-
making, whether by hand or machinery.
At
first
the fibres of
hemp
are loosely twisted to-
and form what is technically known as yarn. When two or three yarns are twisted together they form a strand, three strands form a rope, and three gether,
ropes a
cable.
It will
portion of the cable to the cable
itself,
is
be borne
in
mind that each
twisted in an opposite direction
so that advantage
may
be taken of
the tendency to untwist to counteract the like ten-
dency
in
other portions of the cable.
better understood
diagram of a
by a reference
;
B,
This will be accompanying
cable.
Thus A shows the posed
to the
fibres of
which a yarn
is
com-
c shows
the yarns comprising a strand;
the strands forming a rope D, which together form the
cab'.e E.
These
are, in their turn,
subjected to a
variety of processes in order to insure their bearing an
equal strain prior to their being combined into a cable.
As
a broad general rule
it
should be borne
that the loss of bearing power
by twisting
in
is
mind
almost
one-third, but the tighter twisted ropes gain in durability
what they
lose in power.
A twist of
four-fifths
of the length of the component yarns gives one-third
more bearing power than
if
twisted to two thirds of