Lesson 12: Learn to measure lengths correctly

Whether a rope has been forcibly twisted or has generally undergone unnatural twisting can be determined by the lay length. To measure the lay length, you need the following utensils: paper strip (cash register roll), wax crayon, ruler, ballpoint pen. With the help of the paper strip and the wax crayon, a negative of the rope surface is created. For this purpose, a negative print of the rope surface is made by placing the paper and tracing over it with chalk. The result is an impression of the strands on the paper. To determine the lay length of the rope, a certain number of impressions must be counted. The number of outer strands is decisive here (in the picture below, there are therefore 8 outer strands). The distance between the start and end points gives the lay length in mm. It is recommended to count at least three measurements and divide the total length by three. This reduces measurement errors.