Yucca Fibers

Re-visiting making Yucca Fibers. I decided to try out my fine flax hackle I made to separate fibers from the Yucca Leaves. I took a big bundle of the leaves and put them into my flax retting tank. After 5 days I took out 5 leaves to see if the hackle will separate the fibers faster and easier than last year with the small floral frog nails. The find flax hackle I made works great. Made quick work of separating fibers. Not spinning fine but at least cording fine. The fibers are much coarser than flax but they were used long ago in the region. More difficult using stones and sticks to pound and scrape. So what am I going to do with these fibers? I don't know. My last fibers I tried some nalbinding to make a net. I did not do so well but I then got sidetracked and the fibers were left out and they rotted in the winter wet. I did not take care of the fibers. I was a bad boy. You can check out those videos here too.

[@abittwisted]

I corded up some dried fibers and then did a strength pull test and the fibers broke real easy when they were dry. So these need to be corded up wet and then they may need to be greased/oiled to keep the fiber pliable so it will remain strong. Not sure what to think about this.

[@abittwisted]

Follow up to the dry cordage vs wet cordage. I corded up a good amount of dampened fibers and did another break test. It failed just the same as if dry. I will at this time not recommend this type of yucca to use a fibers for cordage or clothing.

[@lol22332]

@@abittwistedyou definitely want to weave with them or at least process them green to maintain the fiber conditioning. As the plant dries it can create many fractures in the fiber length. I’ve made thin fishing line out of yucca which I couldn’t break with my hands. Very strong material.

[@munchkin5674]

You gathered dried, dead yucca leaves to process. Wondering how long dead they were? You soaked them in water for 5 days? Did you boil them any? And no tapping or scraping needed? Actually tapping and scraping on a dead leaf might cause more harm than good. Were these leaves from the wider, denser leafed yucca?

[@shanbentz649]

Thank you for this demonstration. I used the spoon scrape method before and grew weary of it. This is clearly a suitable alternative method! Do you use the tow at all?

[@jmigz23]

Hello. Nice video! can i ask if you've tried using bast cores for fiber extraction? Example in nettle stems, i know that the inner bark is used for extracting the long fibers, but can you use the core bundle as well?

[@abittwisted]

With nettle or flax or hemp the core has no fiber. Only within the bark will you find fiber. The very outer layer has no fiber either. The core is the wood that supports the plant. The inner bark holds the tubes that transfer water to the outer branches of the plant. Those are the fiber bundles.

[@danepiper1]

What do you with the yucca tow?

[@munchkin5674]

How did you make the comb?

[@abittwisted]

Yes. A block of wood and made 3 rows off set from each other and the nails are 3.5” Hot Dipped Galvanized nails. I used those because I did not want it to rust out quickly. The same technique can be used to make your own wool combs but use the smooth long finishing nails or like my recent one was to use 3.5” Stainless Steel finishing nails. I also sharpened the tips. It will never rust and you can comb out your wool or hackle your flax with them. Im going to hand make tapered nails for my next hackle similar to very old flax hackles. But yes, this hackle I made myself.

[@munchkin5674]

@@abittwisted I found a pin frog at Michaels that I have been using. The pins are stainless steel and have very sharp points. It works pretty good so far.