Cast Net, For Sale!

How Do All ;-)

I have just added this Beautiful hand braided Cast Net to my Etsy Shop

12 feet diameter hand braided Cast Net.

This Beautiful Cast Net was a labor of love and over a year in the making 

The main body of the net is hand braided in 0.33mm, 19lb monofilament Nylon line.

The centre and bottom edge of the net are hand braided in 0.44mm, 32lb monofilament Nylon line.

There are over 29,000 knots in the finished net.

The actual spread diameter of the net is just over 3.65m (12ft)

The lead line is 6mm Polypropylene line, has 118 1oz lead weights on it, is 13m (43ft) in length and hand braided to the perimeter of the net.

The 24 brail lines are made from 0.70mm, 60lb monofilament Nylon line.

 The horn in the centre of the net is turned from Nylatron and has Stainless Steel brail separators mounted inside, the horn is attached to the net with #18 Bonded Nylon twine. 

 The hand line is 9mm hollow braided Polypropylene about 30ft long with a wrist loop spliced in one end, the other end is spliced to a swivel connected to the brail lines.

Well over a hundred man hours (too many more to even count) went into the making of the practical work of art, and the price I am putting on this net is in no way close to the actual value of such work of art, in fact it is a mile off! but I am at a point where I would rather see this item enjoyed, displayed and/or used by someone that can truly appreciate its real value.

I will also include any information on use, care and repair that I have.

The net is supplied in a Plastic snap lid bucket for ease of transport and storage.

Price: £500.00

P+P Via Royal Mail Special Delivery (insured) £30.00 UK mainland only.

Please contact me for overseas delivery quote.

This net can be purchased either via my Etsy Shop or you can buy directly from me if you do not want to set up an Etsy account, and I will invoice you via paypal.

Please contact me if you have any questions: knotty (dot) bear (at) gmail (dot) com

Please check out my Etsy Shop for more items.

Thank you for looking.

Take care,

Barry ;-)

Shekere / Sekere

Shekere / Sekere.

A few weeks ago I found a Shekere in a charity shop in Eton whilst out shopping in Windsor.

It was pretty grubby and the netting was a nice shade of nicotine and coffee brown, with the long ends of the net hanging in a frayed mess, urgh! 

But as I am interested in all things to do with net making, no matter how tatty looking I had to have it for interests sake. 

I only paid £2.00 for this item so in any state it was a real bargain.

(note: all pictures are of the refurbished Shekere, as I forgot to photograph it in its original state)

I took off the beaded skirt and soaked it in a concentrated stain remover for a few hours and then poured off the almost black liquid. I then soaked it over night in a strong biological washing liquid solution and gave it a  thorough rinsing.

The net came out a bright white just like new, and the beads also looked just like new.

I scrubbed the Gourd body with a mildly abrasive but non scratch citrus cleaner and the Gourd turned from a coffee stained brown to a nice orange brown colour. I also sanded the top of the opening smooth and straight as this had just been left ragged by the maker. 

There was a marble stuffed into the top of the opening which took an age and some ingenuity to remove without damaging the neck of the Gourd, and then also some loose debris inside which was left from the the Gourd not being cleaned out was removed.

It was amazing what a difference this made to the tone and resonance of the gourd which was actually quite good for its 8" diameter and small opening.

I polished the Gourd body with a quality wax polish, though I could have also oiled it with Danish oil or similar, some people use a Polyurethane coating on the outside but I think it looks too unnatural and plastic, just like the beads, but they seem to be the best thing for the job.

I replaced the netting, and decided to finish the bottom of the net off with an extra row of meshes and an adjustable cord rather than the long tail of knotted cords as was original, the tone of the gourd seemed to be dampened with the long tails when hitting the bottom with the heal of the hand, you can use either method and each has a slightly different playing style.

I could have completely replaced the net with my own but for the sake of it the original net was fine, if a little unevenly tied in a coupe of places, and for £2.00 I am not complaining as I have a nice little instrument now, which also sounds pretty good for its size.

Take care,

Barry ;-) 

Net Making Tools (p1)

Here are a selection of the tools I have made for net making, Including Mesh Sticks/Gauges, Portable bench or table clamps. and various pieces to make life a little easier. Click on the pictures to see them full size.

Mesh Sticks/Gauges.

I have made many sets of Mesh Sticks in various materials including Wood, Plexi Glass, Steel and Stainless Steel.

Below is my current favorite set of gauges, these are made from a selection of Strainless Steel sheet, recycled Bandsaw blades and Steel crate banding, the four on the left are made from 1.4mm Stainless Steel sheet, the top three on the right are made from the back portion of  bandsaw blades which is 0.9mm thick, the next one down and the bottom one are made from Steel Banding which is 0.63mm thick, with the two remaining made from the 0.9mm bandsaw blade, the length of most of my gauges is 130mm (5") this I find the best and most comfortable size for most uses. the last one in the set is only 75mm (3") long. the widths vary from 6mm up to 53mm in this set and all the corners are rounded.

This next set is made from hard Plexiglass; about 2.7mm thick, this was one of the first sets I made; and it was a chore to shape them as are all are feathered to a fine edge on both faces.

these vary in width from 25 - 65mm  the largest one being 150mm long the rest are 130mm long.

This next set is one from Jann's in the US, I bought a couple of these just to check out what was commercially available.

The gauges are molded from plastic, all the gauges are 150mm long and vary in width from 17-73mm.

the edges of the gauges are rounded but the corners a still pretty square, these are cheap and chearful and great if you don't want to; or can't make your own gauges.

These next gauges are some I made for use during Net Making workshops, these are all made from 0.63mm Steel banding, are 130mm in length and 32mm in width, the blue black colour is from heat treating and can either be left as is; or polished as in the second from last gauge in the picture. this and the last one are 19mm in width.

These next two Mahogany gauges are all that are left from a batch I made as workshop hand outs, off cuts from making my Sailmakers Bench, these are 41mm in width; and are tapered to a thin edge across the whole width.



The last is a set of spare gauges, the first two being rather thick 2mm  Stainless Steel sheet which were a  little heavy to use for any lenth of time. the next few are some of the workshop gauges which have been polished up, some Bandsaw blade gauges, Stainless Steel Strapping, and a guage made from Ash which has an eliptical form across the width.

Portable Bench Clamps.

I made these clamps so that I would be able to make nets or hold work shops any where without having to worry about finding places to attach the net being made.

Here you can see how a  a bag net is attached to the clamp using a swivel attchment and Stainless Steel button. the leather chaffing pieces are slid over the Stainless Steel post and are screwed to the clamp.

Here is a double screwed clamp, this one I now use as the base for my Netted Xmas Tree.

Net Making Buttons.

For want of a better name, these buttons are used by inserting the the button and loop though a grommet starting ring of meshes, and hold the net whilst making a cylindrical bag net, the use of a swivel makes for ease of netting.

A Cast Net Making loop.

This wire loop and adustable length lanyard; I used when making a cast net.

All of the starting meshes are held on the wire loop, which can swivel around as you net, the small cam cleat holds the line at any length, and the lanyard is shortened as the Cast Net body grows in lengh.

More To Follow.



Take care,

Barry ;-)