The Ever Evolving Dying Process of Creating Shibari Nylon Rope Color
It all started with two large pots bought at a local store. We thought they would be large enough to dye 500ft of rope at a time.
The first two colors of nylon rope we dyed that evening were yellow and green. That's 500ft of the original dyed yellow rope that you see in the large pot on the right. As you can see, the pot doesn't hold the full 500ft. We didn't expect to ruin a few cooking utensils that night, but somehow we had to figure out how to flip the bundle of rope over to dye it all. This is when we realized that a uniform color could only be achieved if we could submerge all 500ft all at the same time and for the same duration.
We started our rope journey in January 2022 when it was very cold outside. Even though we had a plan to dye the rope, we didn't actually know where to dry it. Here you see our first batch of dyed red nylon rope drying on the floor in front of the heater. Of course this created a another unexpected problem because the rope turned into one big pile of horrible knots that took several hours to take apart and respool.
As we improved our process over the next few months, we installed bars on the ceiling of one of our humanpup play rooms so we could hang the rope to dry much faster. Here you see Alpha Pup Kabous hanging a batch of dark purple rope.
After dyeing the first set of rope, we realized we needed to create some tools and procedures to make the process faster. Our first challenge was to to get all the rope submerged in the dye bath at the same time. So we built the rope cage you see in the background to house the rope while dyeing. With that cage we could drop the entire 500ft nylon rope into the hot dye bath all at once, rather than feeding it in by hand. However, creating that cage by hand resulted in a few minor injuries on our hands. Mental Note: cut metal is very sharp. Hey pups, don't try this at home, we don't recommend it.
The rope cage didn't work out so well to make the dyeing process easier. After much consideration, we invested in larger pots and installed a custom build gantry crane in the kitchen ceiling. This investment made the dyeing process safer, faster, and we were finally able to cook up a full 500ft all at once for the same amount of time. This is how we were able to create more uniform color absorption throughout a full 500ft length of rope. In the above photo you can see the green carabiner of the gantry crane attached to a steamer pot that's being lowered into the hot dye bath. For deeper colors we leave the rope fully submerged for up to 30 minutes, but some of the lighter colors we create need only a few seconds fully submerged. This setup makes it all possible.
Back in January 2022, after dying our first 6,000ft or rope, it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to measure and cut it. We did it all by hand, and our measurements came out more than a few inches off. In fact, all the rope you see hanging in the HLP Rope Room is all all the wrong size. Even though we wanted to cut 7.5ft, 15ft, 30ft, 40ft, and 50ft rope lengths, nothing came out correct. Every rope is either too long or too short by a foot or more. Once we realized that we could sell rope as a fundraiser for HLP we knew we needed to invest in a reliable way to measure rope. The device to measure rope is called a cordage meter. There are only a few companies that make such devices, and they cost more than $500. When we tried to buy one we found out that all of the manufacturers of these devices were 6+ months behind in their order fulfillment due to pandemic related shipping delays. With a little ingenuity and applying our own in-house engineering skills, we built our own cordage meter that you see in the above photo. This is what we're currently using to measure and cut all of our ropes. Obviously it's not certified for accuracy by the Board of Weights and Measures, but we've been surprised by it's accuracy none the less.
