Please do try it, somebody. Then I'll look less crazy <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Really this stuff is quite remarkable in how it behaves. Dry it out, and it weighs almost nothing but is so fragile that you can snap it with a slight tug or a sharp bend. Soak it in water for a minute, and it becomes the supplest, most slippery stuff I've ever seen in natural fiber. With my braided line, I literally cannot break it using just my hands between being unable to get a grip on it and it starting to cut my skin. Using a pair of pliers to get a non-nonsense grip on the cord, I estimated its breaking strength at over 15 pounds (for an approx. 1x2mm braid). Not bad for tree bark eh.

It only stays strong for a few hours, though, maybe as little as one hour in dry and warm conditions. I assume the bigger the cord the longer it stays wet. It is an ideal on-demand cord, and you just keep it wet when you need to use it, but there's not a lot of survival type tasks that work that way. You'll have a lot more need for cord you can tie and then forget about.

Currently I'm testing what its "service lifetime" is like, by wetting it and then letting it dry out again. Have a piece on its fourth cycle and it's still strong, though it's kind of fraying a little bit. I think that's more a matter of my vigorously pulling on it than just getting wet. Treated gently and kept away from abrasion, I don't see any reason (based on current findings) that it should not last at least a dozen times of being used.

The braided version is MUCH more practical than the twisted, I've discovered. Twisting is easier to make up front, but requires quite a lot of upkeep to keep twisting and stretching as it dries. If you don't keep twisting and stretching, it becomes an ugly unraveled mess. The braided stuff can't unravel because it's all bound together, so the fibers just swell and shrink in place. That's my recommendation for any fellow pine-cord experimenters, is go for braided.