In today’s Knot of the Week, we’ll be continuing our lashings with the Ladder Lashing. A few different techniques exist for tying a Ladder Lashing, but the way I’ll demonstrate here is a field expedient way you can use to quickly create a rope ladder.
While I’ve tied this using climbing rope and dowel rods, this was merely for the demonstration and to make it easier to see. When you’re tying one of these in real life, a natural fiber rope like Sisal Rope is preferable, as climbing rope doesn’t bite on wooden rungs like natural fiber will. This goes for all lashings as well, if it’s a lashing, stick with natural fiber rope. It can also be soaked in water prior to lashing for a stronger hold when it dries in the lashed position.
Being a “field expedient” way to create a ladder, this isn’t the most stable platform under an abnormal load (as noted in the ratings below), but it will work in a pinch. Just be aware of these limitations. For a refresher on how to tie the Timber Hitch, which I’ve utilized to attach each line, click here.
Ladder Lashing » Lashings
(Strength: 3/Secure: 3/Stability: 1/Difficulty: 3) See below for what these ratings mean.
Ratings
Strength/Security/Stability/Difficulty
Each knot will be assigned a rating from 1-5 (1 representing the lowest score) based on the following four properties:
Strength – All knots will weaken the strength of a rope, however, there are knots that are stronger than others. The scale here will reflect how strong the rope remains with the specified knot.
Security – The security scale refers to how well the knot will stay tied, and resist coming loose under a normal load.
Stability – Stability refers to how easily the knot will come untied under an abnormal load (i.e. the knot being pulled in a direction it was not intended to) A lower score here represents instability.
Difficulty – The lower the number, the easier a knot is to tie.