My Method of Rope Prep With a Mandolin

[proteus]

WARNING Use a dang cut resistant glove. Cut level 5. If you don't use a cutting glove and cut your fingerprints off or you lose a finger dont come crying to me.

First get some rope tobacco. It's basically a cigar. So I love GH Black or Brown Irish so these pics are Brown Irish.

Get a mandolin and push block. Push is a piece of 1x2 about 4 to 6 inches long depending on your hand and mandolin size. The kind with adjustability. I use one with a 3mm setting which is about 1/8" if I am thinking right. I use metric in my daily life.

The trick is to grasp the rope and twist it as you slide it down the very sharp blade at an angle. If you go strait against the blade you'll smash the rope up. Blades are slicers not choppers. A slicing motion is to ride the blade side to side while making forward progress. It's two motions...forward and side to side.

Picture 1. The Mandolin setting. Note the push block.


Picture 2 The start of the cut. Here is where you hold the rope with your right hand and twist while pushing with your left hand using the block.



Picture 3. Progress. Twist and push and slide along the blade. The cut is half way done and moved left to right and a half down.



Continue to push and complete the last bit of leaf cut by pushing the block all the way against the blade so that the leaf is between the blade and the wood. Here is where you DO NOT WANT YOUR FINGER. It will be gone.

Picture 4 the completed slices. Note the mezzaluna. Use it to square up the rope first.



Prep the coins like you normally would. Make ribbons etc. There is a julienne setting on this mandolin which I might play with but for now this is my way.

This also works very well to make flake from plug.

Every blade must be razor shaving scary sharp.

 

[Auxsender]

I appreciate you sharing this and I don’t mean to piss on your mandolin parade but this seems dangerous and cumbersome to me.

A cigar cutter is:
Less dangerous.
Less hardware.
Less expensive.
More portable.
Generally easier.

To each their own always and I wish you all the best with this technique but it’s very much not for me.

 

[minerLuke]

Thanks for sharing your method, if you want to process a larger volume of rope/twist this looks like it would work.

I usually just slice 2 or 3 coins, what I need for a bowl, with my pocket knife. As long as the knife is sharp the coins usually slice very easily.

 

[Peter Turbo]

Just use a cigar cutter and don't risk cutting your fingers

 

[HRPufnstuf]

Very clever, what's more I have a mandolin. Thank-you!

This is far more precise than a cigar cutter and mandolins commonly come with cutting shields for carrot coins. Don't fold to detractors, this idea has merit. The same detractors would use a circular saw rather than a table saw,

 

[The Amish Tyrant]

As a dumb line cook who got paid to play with fire, knives and dead flesh for about 18 years, a mandolin still scares me. Use a cigar cutter or knife instead.

Finger tips don't grow back, my man.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Pshhh, that's weak, use a ham slicer.

 

[huntertrw]

This might be safer...

 

[proteus]

I appreciate you sharing this and I don’t mean to piss on your mandolin parade but this seems dangerous and cumbersome to me.

A cigar cutter is:
Less dangerous.
Less hardware.
Less expensive.
More portable.
Generally easier.

To each their own always and I wish you all the best with this technique but it’s very much not for me.

With a cigar cutter, even with cigars, you would still twist the cigar while cutting. Many use the cigar cutter incorrectly like a scissors without the twisting motion.

One drawback to the cigar cutter is it has a limit on the ring gauge and pipe rope can be fatter than the cutter hole unless using a cutter without a fixed hole size. The other draw back is that it is hard to get consistently even thickness in the resulting coins.

I agree the cigar cutter is less dangerous and can be used successfully in spite of these drawbacks.

 

[proteus]

As a dumb line cook who got paid to play with fire, knives and dead flesh for about 18 years, a mandolin still scares me. Use a cigar cutter or knife instead.

Finger tips don't grow back, my man.

Funny thing. I worked in the food industry as a station chef and then as bread baker for over 10 years. I have a side gig as a caterer now. I had a fellow baker tell me I wasn't experienced enough because I did not have enough burns on my arms. I thought about this. Would a shop teacher not be experienced enough unless missing a few digits? I always use safety equipment like heat resistant oven mitts and cut resistant gloves. And just using regular knives I know many chefs without pieces of fingers for failing to tuck. Hearing protection. Safety glasses. They all serve a purpose. Everything is dangerous in life and in a kitchen.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

This might be safer...

View attachment 270874

I don’t know… both a mandolin and mandolin cutter will fuck your fingertips up, ha ha.
I still have a mandolin cutter, but I only use it for making slaw. I had cut my fingertips off once in a potato chip making accident about 15 years ago. It doesn’t hurt the moment it happens. When it hurts is getting the wounds cauterized at the doctor’s office. Then going back every few days to have it done again till it heals.

 

[Peter Turbo]

With a cigar cutter, even with cigars, you would still twist the cigar while cutting. Many use the cigar cutter incorrectly like a scissors without the twisting motion.

lol ok

One drawback to the cigar cutter is it has a limit on the ring gauge and pipe rope can be fatter than the cutter hole unless using a cutter without a fixed hole size. The other draw back is that it is hard to get consistently even thickness in the resulting coins.

Not that anyone needs one for cutting pipe tobacco ropes but they make 60 ring gauge cigar cutters, which would easily handle any size rope.

Can't get even thickness with a cigar cutter? Challenge accepted.

The ridiculousness of the need to slice up pipe tobacco with a mandolin is just that, ridiculous.

 

[proteus]

@Peter Turbo I once thought a PVC/PEX tube cutter could work too. Now that's ridiculous. Even an old fashioned cast iron plug cutter could work too. Just an aside I have a commissioned restoration project starting to restore one from pre-1920s era. Pipe smoking is inherently TIMTOWTDI. (Pronounced Tim Toad-ee) There is more than one way to do it. As long as the method used works then it's good to go. Thank you for your feedback.

 

[Peter Turbo]

@Peter Turbo I once thought a PVC/PEX tube cutter could work too. Now that's ridiculous. Even an old fashioned cast iron plug cutter could work too. Just an aside I have a commissioned restoration project starting to restore one from pre-1920s era. Pipe smoking is inherently TIMTOWTDI. (Pronounced Tim Toad-ee) There is more than one way to do it. As long as the method used works then it's good to go. Thank you for your feedback.

My man in one of your pictures you're using a piece of wood to push the rope over the blade, like, come on.

 

[proteus]

@Peter Turbo You da man! I stopped using the wood push stick and with a protected hand just cut half way through the rope while rotating it along the blade. Processed 8 oz of Brown Irish in 10 mins with highly consistent results and no loss of blood. Thanks for the suggestion. You were right using a push stick was ridiculous!

 

[condorlover1]

I remember seeing this very clever Victorian device that you put your length of twist into a tube which had a small handle and blade at the top of the tube. As you turned the handle the twist was moved up the tube and sliced off in even slices. I wish I had purchased the damned thing at the time!

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

If Tobacco were made of plastic I'd suggest a hot wire cutter, but I can't think of any machine that can cleanly cut natural fiber better than a good sharp knife.
Most people have never experienced the cutting power of a knife sharpened at 10 degrees per side with and edge thickness of 0.005".

The closest you can get off the shelf for under $100 is the Spyderco Santoku:

https://www.knifecenter.com/item/SPK08PBK

These are not produced to 10DPS and .005" because the edge of a knife in that configuration will basically explode the moment it touches anything with any side pressure, but this is by far the thinnest kitchen knife on the market.

(I haven't used it in a while but given that my own Spyderco Santoku is still covered in tobacco oils I'd say that means it's my favorite tobacco knife.)