Check E-mail :: Blog :: Help

Printer Friendly Copy Download This Document

Instant Pioneering 1 : Basic Principles
Cubs and Scouts can build pioneering projects with nothing heavier than garden canes lashed together with elastic bands. You will need an assortment of garden canes of different lengths and a good supply of elastic bands. For very light work you can link two or three thinner bands together with reef knots (fig. 1.) but for general purposes you will find slightly heavier bands more suitable.

When lashing with elastic you must keep the band at full-stretch all the time. It is a waste of effort to work with a slack band, in the belief that you can draw it tight with a good tug at the end. (Fig 2.)

Fig 3 Shows how to put on a square lashing when working near the end of at lest one cane. Simply loop the band round one cane (a), turn it round behind the other (b) and follow on until you have used up most of the band. The lashing can then be locked by stretching the last cm or so and slipping it over the end of one of the canes (c).

 When no free end is available for the final 'lock', a good idea is to push a spent match into the lashing and then loop the band round both ends of the match (Fig. 4)