I've been working on a simple, lightweight scout kit recently, and needed a way to carry a usable amount of cordage in a haversack or small pack. I normally just use a figure-eight hank for 550 cord, but it tends not to work very well with light bankline. Specifically, #12 tarred, twisted bankline. So, I decided to make a spool for it. Ultimately, this spool holds 27 meters (88 feet) of #12 bankline. Could easily get 30 meters, or 100 feet on there no problem if desired. I split a 1/2" thick plank from a large piece of Red Cedar drift wood I harvested a couple years ago. After I had a plank, I marked out a 2" x 7" rectangle, and cut it out. From there, I just squared it up on my belt sander, and free handed the prongs. Depending on how it holds up, I might shorten the prongs to increase durability. Final dimensions as it sits are 3/8" x 2" x 7". Red Cedar is a wonderful material to work with, and is the most utilized wood in traditional hand crafts in my region. It's light weight, rot resistant, easy to split planks from and easy to work. It's a very soft wood though, and not incredibly durable. For this purpose, it should be just fine. Here's the spool in progress, next to the plank it came from. *Sorry for the pic of the messy bench* Before oiling. Soaking up some BLO. I decided to drill a couple of 1/8" holes, to help hold the strand of cordage at the beginning of the spool. Here it is all spooled up. Roughly 27 meters, or 88 feet of #12 here. And finally, I just added a simple ranger band. This prevents the entire spool from coming undone accidentally in your bag, or while you're only trying to take a short length of cord, but is easily removed if you need a lot of cord. Thanks for looking!
COMPLETELY forgot that I also had this in the "What did you make today" thread. Guess it's here now too.
I like these things a lot. I made something similar (1" x 6") years ago for storing fixed length fishing lines for my carp fishing pole.
Love this I will definitely be copying it if that is ok, I might make it out of something fancy just because
I have used this same basic shape cut out of a credit card/gift card for holding 50-100 feet of fishing line for a small fishing kit. I had not extended the idea to bank line or paracord. Good idea. Thanks.