How Long On Average Does It Take You To

[8thsinner]

I am just curious as to how long it takes people to do regular operations such as

1 foot of

4 strand core or no core

8 strand round

8 strand gaucho

8 strand herringbone

regular size simple type one 8x9 pineapple

triple gaucho

Both over a core

and lastly how about, what is you most common operation and how if at all did you figure to make the operation quicker?

[rgerbitz]

The only thing I've ever really tracked is how long it take to braid a round for a bosal. Its about 34 inches of braid and will take me about 1 1/2 to braid up. That would be a 12 or 16 plait. As for getting faster, don't know if I can get much faster and expect a descent job. Most of the time I feel I waste is in the prep prior to braiding. In getting strings cut, cased or in getting ground work on in an effecient manner. There is still alot of by guess and by golly in what I make as far as measurements and sizes of knots go. Which makes for alot of getting something worked up only to go back and disassemble because things aren't balanced or knots are disporportionant.

Rob

[alaskakid79]

:Mornin,

you should be able to avg. 6' per hour on 4 6 and 8 plaits. core makes no time difference. 12 or more will take u to bout 4' per hr. a pineapple tied and finished should take about 10, 15 min depends on the width of the string.

as far as getting faster. the best way it practice. good needles help a bunch. a scary sharp knife is a must. a pair of mosquito hemostats help. But the thing i think you need to hear the most. is . Braiding is prep work. the better you prep the better your work. the more u prep the better your work. Prep a hide for a string. prep a string for a knot. prep knot for an interweave. prep a knot for a finish. It only takes 15 min to tie the knot but u have an hr or more total in the 3' of string u are using. the better you spend that hour and the more prep you get done in that hr. the happier you will be after that 15 min. Where time is really made up is n the string cutting. My set up will take a whole hide ( tempered ) and strip it out to 1/2" and stretch it up in about 2 hrs. the next day ill spend another 3 to 4 hrs splitting, re gauging and beveling them. so that is only 5 hrs. for over a 1k' of string. most braiders i have met cant touch those cut times although some are faster braiders than i. so spend just as much time thinking about mechanical advantages as u do over two under two. some body with a cord less drill is gunna get a hole drill faster that some one with an old had crank Yankee.

[8thsinner]

See, I have never measured my prep times too closely, I know with a lace maker I can't cut a hide in two hours from the outside, but cutting from the inside one size above what I need I can do that although that can get a little crooked in the odd place. So I am looking into cutting wider laces the same way you do RG, then cutting them down after stretching to get more uniformity.

When it comes to splitting I find it actually quite relaxing so I take my time there but I make sure the blade has just been polished to a mirror finish and ill spend ten minutes on that alone

Soaping lace up for work again I find relaxing.

But I do find the smaller the work the slower I go, the likes of a pineapple in fifteen minutes, not at all when it's finishing width is less than half an inch for bracelets and the like.

[roo4u]

well my mom does all the straight braiding(simple plaiting), and i do all the prep lace cutting knots finishing etc. times are for 2 foot leashes with 6.5 inch handle loops so just over 30 in braided length

4 strand-30 minutes

8 strand-simple o2u2 about 1 hour

8 strand gaucho about 2.5 to 3 hours we didnt do many of this pattern and so were still kinda in the learning phase

these times may seem fast but she braided several hundred leashes a year when we were wholesaling them out. lace braided tight, lines nice and straight even with the speed

i can whip out a pineapple knot on a mandrel or on the item over a foundation knot in 5 minutes these are small knots with fine lace as sliding knots on leashes 6bight with the interweave a 2nd color the larger 8 bight knots take about 10 min with colored interweave. these are just standard nothing fancy.

on a bosal the heel knot using a pineapple takes longer.

3 pass gaucho 15 min or less depending on size.

i love to do the botons that b.g. shows in his book that big boton takes me about 30 mins with fine lace.

foundations for sliding knots i use 2pass ring knots can do those in about 2 mins done around a finger on my left hand instead of a mandrel

i braid my knots using a lacing needle

my most common thing im doing is cutting and splitting lace as we used to go thru a heck of a lot of it. also i finish my leashes with what b.g. calls rein knots so can do those little devils in my sleep.

when i started braiding leashes roo was only $5.50 a sq ft