Ropes and roperies
Note - Wire rope manufacture is discussed separately under 'Lineside Industries - Rolling Mills, Wire Drawing, Wire Rope, Electrical Cables and Pipe Works'.
Ropes were essential in the days of sailing ships, which continued in regular use into the 1960s, hence rope manufacturers are generally associated with the ports and harbours. Having said which there were several roperies (rope factories) inland, there was a large works in Stockport south of Manchester and the last British hand-laid rope works was (I believe) in the Lake District. For agricultural and industrial users there was a range of thin cord, generally called 'twine' which was also produced n rope factories (some made nothing else).
At the end of World War two the main products of the cordage industry were rope, cord and twine, agricultural twine (mainly bailer and binding twine for making bales of hay) and trawl twine (used to make fishing nets). In the 1960's there was the big increase in the use of synthetic fibres in place of natural fibres. The effect was most marked in the case of rope and packing twine.
Other developments, of particular importance in the larger sizes of ropes, were the introduction in the 1960's of braided (plaited) ropes, and the adoption of 'square rope' machinery for the production of 8-strand plaited ropes. However the British firms faced increasing competition, new fibre cordage industries were established in many countries, notably in East Africa, Mexico and the Philippines. Portugal, taking advantage of cheap sisal from its overseas territories, synthetic materials obtained at allegedly 'dumped' prices, and relatively cheap labour, became a leading supplier of sisal and synthetic cordage.
The developing use of combine harvesters in place of binding machines brought about the virtual extinction of binder twine, while the demand for baler twine, owing to new agricultural developments, was at best only stabilised. Developments in packaging accounted for a decline in packing twine, at the docks fewer larger ships required fewer ropes and bulk handling and containerisation reduced the demand for rope slings.
Rope is technically a stout cord with a diameter of more than one third of an inch (8 mm). Wire rope is, as the name suggests, made from wires twisted together in the same way that fibre rope is made. Rope or 'cordage' is closely associated with docks, wire ropes are generally made closer to the iron and steel works.
Up to the later 19th century the rope was made in a 'rope walk', a very long building (up to a quarter of a mile long), the work involved human powered machinery until the later 19th century when steam power was introduced. Rope walks still exist (well they did in the 1980s), they are used by smaller firms producing specialist ropes, most were fully enclosed but quite a few had open sides. Ranged along this are a series of posts with metal rods set at a slight angle resembling a comb, as the cord is spun it can be dropped onto these, keeping it off the floor. The scale of these building can be judged from the illustration below taken from a 1940s school book, fortunately (for railway modellers) more modern machinery does the job in a very confined space.
Fig ___ Interior of a rope walk
The ropes would be formed into coils (balls for lighter cords) and tied to ease handling. Big ropes in long lengths, such as ships mooring ropes, are coiled down forming a stack. The coils of heavy braided mooring lines I remember from my time at sea were about five feet in diameter by four feet high with a hole in the centre about eighteen inches across and secured with four or five strips of steel 'band-it' strapping.
One point to note is that the size of rope on ships is measured by its circumference, hence a three inch rope is about an inch thick. Ashore they tend to use the actual diameter, so a three inch rope would be three inches thick (that is a very thick rope!).
The sketch below left shows a large coil of cable laid rope being secured with rope, on the right are coils of smaller rope, in the lower left is a ball of tarred line for repairing fishing line (the inset top right shows an enlarged view).
Fig ___ Ropes coiled for shipping
As can be seen a coil of rope could be both large and heavy, at the rope works a substantial crane would often be provided to allow these to be loaded onto road or rail wagons for delivery. The example shown below is actually based an a ropery receiving bay at a railway company stores, however it is (I think) an attractive building and would serve as the dispatch bay of a rope manufacturers. The roof on the prototype was pantiles, which makes a change. The heavy timber crane on the side of the building, serving not only the loading area but also the upper doorway, is worthy of note. In the photograph on which the illustration is based there was no visible winding gear, however a substantial set of block and tackle would allow man-power to lift the big rope shown above for loading. On reflection I should have added a cat head for a hoist above the upper end door as well. The railway siding would run across the end of the building under the large doors on the upper floor (used both for materials inward and products going out, although most would be handled in the yard. The heavy crane can swing round to lift onto wagons on the siding. Probably the best approach would be to use a shortened form of the building as an extension to a main building as shown right.
Fig ___ Ropery loading bay
All cordage is made in the same basic way; yarn is twisted together to make strands, these are then twisted (in the opposite direction) to make cord or rope. The twisting is called 'laying' and the individual strands are passed over and over the rope, not twisted, so they do not try to unwind in use. Three strands or yarns wound together is called a 'hawser' laid rope, three of these twisted together is called a 'cable', four strands makes a 'shroud' laid rope and there are various other such terms for a range of rope types, non of which need concern us in the present context.
The degree of twist given to ropes is generally such that the rope is from three-fourths to two-thirds the length of yarn composing it. The ropes and other cordage needed by the ships would be made close by the port but not often within the port area as the early rope works required a lot of land.
Almost any fibre can be made into rope, broadly speaking these fall into two basic types 'soft' and 'hard'. Soft rope, such as that made from cotton has many industrial uses, ropes used for 'belt drive' systems such as in the textile mills were usually cotton, lighter and more flexible than hemp these ran silently, slipped less than leather belts and could extend up to 80 feet between pulleys. The cotton was supplied as thread or cord from the cotton spinning mills. Similarly flax or jute yarns were supplied by spinning mills as ready to use material for the rope works.
The main types of hard fibre ropes are sisal, manilla, hemp and coir. Sisal takes its name from a port in Mexico but by the 1940s the most important sources were Kenya and Tanganyika, the plant is a bit like a cactus. The fibres are hairy and a pale straw colour but although it resists the effects of sea water quire well it is coated with tar for use in water or for outdoor duties.
Fig ___ Man-handling a bale of sisal
Manila gets its name from the town in the Philippines, and that country still produced much of the worlds manila fibre into the 1950s. The fibre is the leaf stems of a plant, the fibres are a golden brown and resist sea water well. Bales were typically about 24 x 24 x 48 inches (61 x 61 x 122 cm), weighing in at about 8 bales per ton, the bales usually had a light brown Hessian covering.
Hemp comes from a plant in the Mulberry family, grown commercially in Italy Russia, India, North and South America and other places (it is pretty much a weed and grows in most climates). The fibre is a pale yellow colour, similar to sisal but must be tarred for use in water. Bales were typically about 24 x 24 x 48 inches (61 x 61 x 122 cm), weighing in at about 8 bales per ton, the bales usually had a light brown Hessian covering.
Coir comes from the husk of the coconut, the fibres are a reddish brown and produce a rather hairy rope. Coir rope is cheap, and it floats on water, but it is not as strong as the other three principal types (it has a lot of 'spring' however and found favour for use on tug boats).
Before hemp or sisal is spun into thread or yarn it is combed or 'hackled' (drawn over spikes to separate and align the fibres) either by hand or by machine. The fibres, typically 5-12 feet long (2-4m) are combed into an even bunch called a 'sliver', these are then twisted to make yarn, the yarn is then twisted up into strands and these are then twisted up into rope.
Fig ___ Twine being 'laid up' into strands
Once enough yarns have been made (at least three) the rope can be laid up, for use on ships a coating of tar was often added to the strands beforehand, this was done by taking a collection of the yarns, tying them together at each end, and drawing them slowly through a tank of molten tar, emerging through a set of rollers that squeezes out the surplus tar from the fibres.
Rope of three strands can be laid up by hand, although this requires a degree of skill, where precision, speed or a greater number of yarns is required a machine is used, carrying bobbins of the yarn on a rotating frame mounted on a wheeled carriage. By 1900 the rope walk was only used for the final laying up of the rope, the preparation of the fibres and spinning of the fibres being handled by machines feeding the resulting yarns onto bobbins.
The bobbins are then placed on a final machine which lays up the strands which are wound onto larger bobbins or small drums and these are in turn loaded onto a final machine to lay up the rope, the rope being coiled onto a receiving drum (so the long rope-walk building is not required).
There is another type of rope, called braided rope, which is a rounded square in cross section and sheathed in woven yarns. This was introduced in the 1960s and is often used for ships mooring lines. Simulating this is unnecessary in N as metal wire or thread serve as well for this as for conventional laid up ropes, once you get to OO or O scales however some thought might be given to simulating this, probably the best option being soft iron wire gently beaten to a more square section.
British Rope Manufacturers
At the end of 1918 there seem to have been about 380 producers of fibre cordage, many of whom were small concerns interested principally or entirely in soft fibre products. There was only one fibre cordage manufacturer among the founder members of British Ropes in 1924 (discussed below), and his chief product was baler twine, but four more hard fibre cordage producers were added in the 1925-26 take-overs.
By the early 1970s there were three principal firms supplying fibre cordage: British Ropes, Hawkins & Tipson and (from 1972) Belfast Ropework. In addition there were a number of smaller firms, often 'one man bands', producing specialised and decorative rope.
British Ropes Ltd is the largest UK rope maker, formed in 1925 when seven wire rope companies and a fibre rope company merged. In 1919 there were about 50 independent wire rope manufacturers, all faced by the depressed level of demand which followed the war. After British Ropes was formed another nine wire rope companies were absorbed within a year or so, by 1939 only about 29 other British based wire rope firms were still in production.
In 1948 the Bristol Wire Rope Company Limited and in 1954 Wm Cooke & Company Limited, both manufacturers of wire ropes became subsidiaries of British Ropes (it had an interest in BWR since 1925 and in Cooke since 1948).
In 1959 British Ropes embarked on a fresh round of acquisitions which, by 1971, brought 7 more wire rope producers and several fibre rope makers within its group.
Companies absorbed by British Ropes during this period included the following:
1959 - R Hood Haggie & Son Ltd - Wire, fibre and synthetics
1962 - D Morgan Rees & Sons Ltd - Wire and fibre.
1962 - George Elliott & Co Ltd - Wire and fibre.
1963 - Newburn Cordage Ltd - Fibre only
1963 - Garnock Bibby & Co Ltd - Wire and heavy fibre ropes
1963 - Wrights Ropes Ltd - Wire and fibre rope and cordage
1967 - The London Spinning Co Ltd - Fibre only
1967 - Webster & Co Ltd - Wire only
1968 - Healey Brothers Ltd* - packing twine only (using only soft fibre)
1970 - Sinks Brothers Ltd - Wire only
1971 - The Gourock Ropework Co Ltd** wire and fibre
British Ropes also bought the rope-making business of Great Grimsby Coal Salt & Tanning Co Ltd (now Cosalt Limited)
in 1965
*Healey Brothers was amalgamated with John Holmes & Sons Ltd (acquired by British Ropes in 1936) to form British Twines Limited in 1971 and the two factories continued in production.
**Gourock Wire Rope Co Limited, was sold with effect from 1 January 1971 to Martin-Black Limited and remained in production.
The names of some of the other acquisitions, including those of certain subsidiaries of Hood Haggie, were retained for sales purposes.
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