How to fasten a length of plastic rope which is just too short

Question

If I have less rope than necessary to tie multiple knots fore safety, and I am trying too tie both the ends to an iron rod (similar to how I have depicted here with another rod in between or straight between two iron rods), the rope is about 20 centimeters longer than the distance between the two rods and hence leaves very little room for a comprehensive knot

This is just for drying clothes, so the weight that would be hung is not very high, but yes it needs to stand a wet jeans trouser probably and yes it would be better if I can reuse the rope in its entirety but not mandatory (this is just a temporary arrangement for the rainy season).

Answer 1

You can't really get a great knot with that little rope, but you can make it stronger. Here are some ideas:

• Melt it together. The easiest way is to use melted plastic from another source (a plastic bag perhaps) and spreading it all over the knot. The biggest problem with this: It won't come back off easily.

• Use a few safety pins on each knot, going through the rope on both sides of the knot. Not super strong, but it will handle drying wet laundry.

• Get a vicegrips and set it to squeeze tightly. Use it to squeeze the knot in place, and then just let it hang there until you wish to remove it. Much stronger, but you'll be shorter by two tools, if you even have these.

• Attach the rope lower down on the opposite wall, which will give you more slack and improve the chances of your ability to make a good knot.

Answer 2

With plastic or nylon rope you could cut the fussed ends and separate a few inches of the rope on each end into the individual strands.

Most ropes will separate into 3 strands. Once you have the rope split on the ends just take the free strands and tie them to the bars or you can re twist and fuse them with the bar in the middle.

Doing this will reduce the strength of the rope considerably, but if you're just hanging laundry and you start with a rope similar to the one in your picture it should be more the strong enough to hold.