I need to rig up a canvas awning between four pine trees to stop the owls shitting on my car. What is the best rope to tie it up with- polypropylene, polyethelene, jute, Climbing or sailing stuff- that won’t come undone?
Any suggestions for sources at a reasonable price?
Ta.

You may be overthinking this one.

Remember to protect the trees. You wouldn’t want to damage them and have one falling on your car…

Don’t use expensive climbing or sailing rope for this.

Just get something basic and strong enough.

Climbing or sailing stuff- that won’t come undone?

That’s not really the rope. Learn to tie some decent knots.

Nothing fancy just the basic bends and hitches.

http://www.realknots.com/knots/

Remember to make a hole in the middle to let the puddle drain. For bonus points add a funnel to a hose then feed it to a water butt

Cut the trees down?

Capture, pluck , cook and then eat the owls?

Park somewhere else?

Just buy some old stuff people expect money for it.

Any old rope and some of these to keep a bit of tension.
Bungeeeeeeeeee

You may be overthinking this one.

I may be, but my experience of rope is that cheap blue stuff that always seems to come undone whatever the knot. I’m after a step up from that but cheaper than the good stuff.

Is that the same cheap blue stuff that hauliers and farmers use to secure loads to trailers. They don’t often lose the load.

Are you doing a proper knot or just randomly tangling the rope up and thinking you’ve created a knot?

Is that the same cheap blue stuff that hauliers and farmers use to secure loads to trailers. They don’t often lose the load.

Dolly.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=cNWELuXo_bY[/video]

that cheap blue stuff

Polyprop is the cheapest and it is a bit “slippier” than others, so it can come undone easier. You can always just tape the bitter end to the rope which stop anything pulling through.

Have a look for some polyster braid, a lot more expensive but a lot more friction.

Ot take the knots out all togther?

5m ratchet straps?

A climbing shop will sell all manner of cords of varying diameters from big reels that they’ll cut to length for you.

I used polypro for my boat anchor/alderney ring/buoy for years and it never came undone. As above, go to scouts and learn some knots 🙂

The Truckers Hitch is my favourite knot, I tie it in a different way to the captain’s vid above and to these three ways in the vid below. The way I learned allows you to form the initial locking loop and the tension loop in a single movement. The whole knot simply then shakes free.

There are some handy hints on tree felling at its end.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvgFyqFZK54[/video]

Here’s the way I do it.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yMVtd1xAI[/video]

Blue polyprop will be fine – its ubiquitous for a reason. Polypropylene copes with fatigue very well so you just need to solve you’re knot tying. Maybe use some sort of clamp like you’d use with steel cable to get it to behave.

The main issue you’ll have stringing anything between trees is fatigue as you’ll have the trees swaying in different directions in the wind and repeatedly straining the ropes. I’ve known chunky steel cables fail in that application just because its difficult to account for the forces going through the rope as the trees move. The sturdier the trees look the greater the forces involved when they actually do move.

So you ideally want your ropes slung quite loosely between the trees rather than tightrope-tight.

So you ideally want your ropes slung quite loosely between the trees rather than tightrope-tight.

Next thread, “so, this tree fell on my car, and…” (-:

Do owls poo? I thought they threw up a pellet. Are you sure it’s actually them making the mess and not some pesky pigeons looking to shift the blame?

Owls produce pellets and poo.

It’s both. The owls drop pellets full of abrasive beetle wings and rodent parts and then the pigeons unleash their ammonia bombs. It’s a mess.
And the trees themselves are shedding dead needles…
I’m off to learn some knots.

Have you considered becoming urbanreuben?

Nah, there’s enough threads on here highlighting the disadvantages of having neighbours…