Ringing Forums

I think it all depends how far gone they are. Ours got pretty disgusting due to the hand gel used during COVID. I clean ours with warm water and a tiny drop of washing up liquid, if they are really bad by briefly dunking them in the water, otherwise just wiping them repeatedly with a cloth. If necessary, I've used a soft nailbrush to get the gunk out from between the strands. The key thing it to be gentle and patient, you may have to go over them repeatedly - you'll need to rehydrate the goop to get it off. And they will take a considerable time to dry out afterwards.

Here's what Avon Ropes say, which is basically the same thing:

Hemp and Flax are textiles, we would suggest you can use some weak washing liquid/powder and wash them in some warm soapy water for a short period of time which will remove most dirt, you can use a scrubbing brush, but try to keep the time they're wet for as short as possible. We will suggest you allow the ropes to drip dry in a warm room or laid on a radiator. You will notice the natural fibre tail ends get looser and may never return to your original stiffness, even when re-acclimatised within the tower. We suggest you do not get the rope near the sally, or get the sally wet.

We will add a disclaimer to this that Avon Ropes Ltd accept no liability for this advice. Each tower is different, the rope fibres are at different ages and have had different conditions through their life, so anyone washing bell ropes does so at their own risk.

I would add a cautionary note on the potential perils of rope-cleaning. Many years ago, we rescued a set of old but re-usable ropes from a dusty belfry. Without giving any thought to the probable outcome, one of the ladies in the group dumped them in her washing machine. THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT AN OPTION! The result was a set of soft limp ropes that stretched like bungee ropes - and the sally colours merged into one another. They were hung with weights for several months as we tried to eradicate the stretch.

On a subsequent occasion we patiently scrubbed the sallies and the grubbiest part of the tail end with minimal amounts of soapy water and a nail brush. It was tedious but worth the effort.

We’ve successfully washed sally’s & tail ends. The top end was removed c0.5m above the sally (top end needed replacing). Sally’s and bottom end were put in a pillow case and washed in a machine on a wool cycle and wool detergent. We tried it as we didn’t have anything to loose. I think 2 Sally’s per load.
Worked very well but they took 2 weeks to dry so don’t try it if you don’t have a washing line and good weather forecast. I don’t think tumble drying would be an option.

Back in the 70s we found some ropes that were dirty and covered in old grease from leaky earrings. I put them in the washing machine (a twin tub so no fancy cycles). I can’t confirm that the sally colours merged into a pinky grey, it they didn’t soften, quite the reverse, they became too stiff to use.

["they became too stiff to use."[/quote]

. . . ah, that would have been in the days before 'fabric softeners' ;-)

So if no softner = too hard, and normal dose of fabric softener = too soft, there is presumably an optimum dose somewhere in between.

Perhaps you have hit on a potential commercial opportunity for some entreprenurial TC or steeple-keeper. Where & when does the research begin?