Repairing Rope Ends

I'd like to believe that some of being a good horseman is knowing how to take care of your gear. Or so I tell myself when I spend alot of time making repairs not only on tack but fences and waterlines.

I spent the weekend doing much more manual labor than I intended and got very little time in with my horses. Besides the normal cleaning of stalls and such, I planted some fruit trees, cleaned and organized most all of my hand tools and repaired the house cooler.

I also took a moment to repair some rope that I use all the time. After I was almost finished repairing lunge line ropes and some rope halters, I decided to shoot video on how to tie on the ends of rope, in this case some of my pack saddle tie down rope.

If rope ends are not tied up and/or melted, then they fray and unravel leaving you with un-useable lengths of rope.

I use cat gut to wrap around the end of a length of rope, the pull the ends of the cut gut underneath the wraps to keep it in place. Then I melt off the un-useable part of the rope using a metal heat device that I salvaged out of a dumpster years ago and repaired. You can do the same with a sharp pair of scissors or knife and a butane lighter like the ones with a long shaft that you light Bar-B-Que grills with.

Keep you rope repaired, out of the dirt and dry and it will last for years.