Lashings & Camp Structures: How to Tie a Square Lashing, Tripod Lashing and More

What is a lashing – and when do you lash instead of knot?

A knot joins rope to rope or rope to an object. A lashing joins pole to pole. That difference matters: two round sticks touch at a single point, so a single knot around them lets them pivot, slide and scissor. A lashing solves this with two kinds of turns that work against each other.

• Wraps go around both poles. They hold the poles together and carry the load.
• Frapping turns go between the poles, around the wraps. They pull the wraps towards each other and take out every last bit of slack – much like tightening a belt one more hole.
• A start hitch and a finish hitch anchor the cord. In most lashings both are clove hitches.

In the drawings on this page the three parts are colour-coded: cream for wraps, orange for frapping turns, green for the hitches. In reality it is one continuous piece of cord.

Lash, knot or notch?

Not every joint in camp needs a lashing. A ridgeline between two trees is a job for knots; a pot hook is carved; a peg is hammered. Lash when two rigid pieces have to stay at a fixed angle to each other under load.

Which cord for bushcraft lashings – and how much do you need?

Almost any cord will lash, but some make life much easier. The ideal lashing cord has a slightly rough surface so the wraps grip the bark and each other, very little stretch, and enough thickness to pull hard without cutting into your hands. Smooth, stretchy cord is the usual reason a first lashing works loose overnight.

How much cord per lashing?

The classic rule of thumb from pioneering: allow about 1 m of cord for every 2.5 cm of combined pole diameter – or, easier to calculate, 40 cm of cord per centimetre. Add the diameters of all poles in the joint and multiply. The rule is generous on purpose: it leaves enough for both hitches and something to grip while you pull. Running out one turn before the end means starting again.

A cooking tripod needs one length of about 6 m plus a hanger cord; a rack with six square lashings and one diagonal lashing on 4 cm poles swallows around 22 m. Count your joints before you leave home – the bushcraft kit list and the Kit Builder help you decide how much cord goes in the pack, and the tarp and cordage planner covers what the shelter needs on top.

Start and finish knots: clove hitch and timber hitch

You only need two hitches for all four lashings. Both are covered in detail in the hitches section of our knots guide; if you are unsure which knot suits another job, the Knot Finder sorts them by task.

Clove hitch – start and finish of almost every lashing

The clove hitch is two turns around a pole with the second turn trapping the first. It is quick, uses little cord and, crucially, can be slid along the pole and tightened right against the crossing before you load it. As a start hitch, leave a short end of about a hand's width and twist it around the standing part so it gets buried under the first wraps. As a finish hitch, tie it as two half hitches, one after the other, and work each one tight against the lashing.

Timber hitch – the start of the diagonal lashing

The timber hitch is a loop that tightens itself: pass the end around both poles, around the standing part and then twist it back around itself at least three times. Under tension it grips harder; without tension it falls open. That is exactly what a diagonal lashing needs, because its first job is to drag two poles together that do not want to touch.

How to tie a square lashing, step by step

The square lashing joins two poles that cross and touch – usually at about a right angle, but it works at any angle as long as the load pushes the poles together or along each other. It is the lashing you will tie most: every crossbar on an upright, every rung, every table top.

The path of the cord is always the same: over the crossbar, behind the upright, over the crossbar, behind the upright. If you remember that the cord never crosses a pole diagonally, you cannot go wrong.

Checkpoint – what a good square lashing looks like: three neat wraps on each side of the upright with no turn riding over another; two frapping turns visibly squeezing them; both hitches hard against the joint; no movement when you twist the poles against each other with both hands.

How to tie a diagonal lashing

The diagonal lashing is for poles that cross but do not sit firmly against each other – typically the two braces of an X in the middle of a frame, where there is a gap that has to be pulled shut. Its wraps run diagonally across the joint in both directions, forming a cross of cord over the cross of poles.

Checkpoint: seen from the front, the cord forms a clear plus sign over the X of the poles, three strands in each direction. The gap between the poles is closed, and the braces no longer rattle when you shake the frame.

Square or diagonal – which one where?

Shear lashing and round lashing: A-frames and longer poles

The shear lashing joins two poles that lie side by side. Spread the free ends and you get shear legs – an A-frame that carries a ridge pole, the end of a washing line or one side of a camp table. The trick is restraint: the wraps must be firm but not as tight as you can pull, because spreading the legs tightens the lashing by itself.

Round lashing: making a pole longer

Leave out the frapping turns and you have a round lashing, used to join two poles end to end. Overlap the poles by at least a quarter of their length, tie one round lashing near each end of the overlap – eight to ten very tight wraps each – and finish with a clove hitch around both poles. Because there is no frapping, tightness comes from the wraps alone; a small wedge driven between the poles under the wraps takes up the last slack. An extended pole is fine for a flag, a tarp prop or a light ridge line support, but it is always weaker than a single pole: never use it where it carries weight overhead.

How to tie a tripod lashing

The tripod lashing is a shear lashing for three poles. It is the fastest way to a free-standing structure: a camp tripod for the pot, a stand for a water bag, a lantern post, the core of a tipi-style frame. Three legs stand on any ground and need no hole and no guy line.

Checkpoint: the tripod stands without wobbling, the three tips cross neatly above the lashing, and when you press down on the crossing with your full hand the feet dig in instead of sliding outwards. On hard or frozen ground, set the feet into small scrapes or against stones.

Variant: the figure-of-eight tripod lashing

Many scout handbooks teach a second version in which the wraps are woven – over the first pole, under the second, over the third and back. The figure-of-eight pattern builds the spacing between the poles into the wraps, so the legs spread very easily; in return it is a little less rigid. Both versions work. Learn the plain version above first, because it is the same movement as the shear lashing, and try the woven one when a tripod of thick poles refuses to open.

What to build: camp tripod, pot hanger, A-frame, table and rack

With four lashings you can build nearly all classic camp furniture. Start with the tripod – one lashing, immediate use – and work up to frames with several joints. Always decide first where the structure goes: the camp zones put the kitchen downwind of the sleeping place and everything with a fire on mineral soil, away from roots and overhanging branches.

Cooking tripod and pot hanger

Three poles of about 2 m, 4–5 cm thick, lashed about 30 cm below the tips, with the feet about 1 m apart: that is a camp tripod tall enough to hang a pot over a small fire. Tie a hanger cord to the crossing above the lashing and hang the pot from a carved pot hook, so you can lift it off without touching the cord. To adjust the heat, shorten the cord with an adjustable hitch or carve a hook with several notches.

A tripod is only one way to get a pot over the flames. Our campfire cooking setups compare it with a pot crane and with cooking directly on coals, camp cookware explains which pots have a usable bail handle, and a small burner from the camp stoves guide is the answer wherever open fires are not allowed.

A-frame for a shelter ridge

Two poles with a shear lashing make an A-frame; a ridge pole laid into the crotch and resting on the ground at the far end gives you the skeleton of a ridge-pole shelter. A square-lashed crossbar half-way up stops the legs from spreading and turns the A into a rigid triangle. The same frame carries the ridge of a lean-to where there is no suitable tree, props up the open side of a tarp shelter or forms the entrance of a debris shelter.

Camp table, wash stand and drying rack

A wash stand is simply a tripod with three short crossbars square-lashed between the legs at hip height; a bowl sits on the bars. A camp table is two A-frames or four uprights with two long rails and a top of thin poles, each square-lashed or woven on with one continuous cord. A drying rack is the frame from the drawing above: two posts, a top bar, two crossed braces. Racks keep wet clothes, boots and pots off the ground and are among the most useful half-hours you can spend in a camp that lasts more than one night – see the base camp section for where they belong.

Raised bed frame

A bed off the ground is warmer and drier than any mat on wet soil. The simplest frame is two thick logs as rails with a platform of springy poles lashed across, raised only a hand or two above the ground. Keep it low: you get all the insulation benefit with none of the fall risk, and there are no legs that can fold. Lash every third or fourth cross pole with a square lashing and let the others lie in between.

Choosing poles: dead standing wood, diameters and the law

The best lashing poles are dead, dry and straight: thin trunks that died standing in dense young woodland, or straight branches caught off the ground. They are light, stiff and already seasoned. Wood lying on wet ground is often rotten on the underside – push a thumbnail into it and bend the pole over your knee before you rely on it. If it creaks, cracks or feels spongy, it is firewood, not furniture.

Cut poles to length with a folding saw – it leaves square ends that stand well and wastes nothing. Trim side branches flush with a knife or small hatchet, always cutting away from the hand that holds the pole, because every stub is a place where the cord hangs up and a wrap ends up riding over another. A shallow flat or notch carved where two poles cross stops round wood from rolling and makes any lashing far more stable; the cuts are described in carving basics.

If no natural poles are available or allowed, bring your own: bamboo canes, hazel bean poles or broom handles from a garden centre are ideal for practising in the garden, and a set of three light poles turns any picnic place into a training ground.

Load and stability checks: test before you trust

A lashed structure fails in one of four ways: a pole breaks, a lashing slips along a pole, the whole frame racks sideways into a parallelogram, or a foot sinks or slides. None of these announces itself politely. The answer is the same every time – test deliberately, low to the ground and with more load than the structure will ever see in use.

Triangles are what make frames rigid. A rectangle of four poles and four square lashings can still fold flat, however tight the lashings are; a single diagonal brace stops it. That is why the tripod is so forgiving and why every rack and table gains from one brace per side. When in doubt, add a brace rather than another wrap.

Natural cordage and withies: lashing without rope

Lashings are older than rope from a shop. Any long, flexible, tough plant material will do, and for a structure you will dismantle and leave to rot, natural bindings are the tidiest choice of all – nothing synthetic can be forgotten in the woods.

• Hand-twisted cord from nettle or lime bast is strong enough for a tripod or rack. How to make it is described in natural cordage: the reverse wrap. Plan generously – a single tripod lashing takes several metres.
• Withies are thin, fresh shoots of willow or hazel, twisted along their length until the fibres separate and the shoot becomes as supple as rope. Hold the thick end, twist the thin end, and work the twist down the shoot before you bend it. A withy is wrapped two or three times around the joint and its end tucked under itself; it will not take a clove hitch.
• Split spruce roots and strips of fresh bark make flat, grippy bindings for light racks. Use them wet; they shrink and tighten as they dry.

The same rules apply as for poles: take living shoots, roots and bark only with the owner's permission and never from protected areas. Test every natural binding harder than you would test cord, because its strength varies from piece to piece, and never use it for anything that hangs over a fire or carries more than light loads.

Troubleshooting: why lashings slip, rack and work loose

Practice drills: from first lashing to camp furniture

Lashings are a rhythm, and rhythm comes from repetition. Three broom handles and four lengths of cord are enough to learn everything on this page at home.

Lashing practice is also one of the best group and family activities at camp: every child can wrap, the result is visible at once and a wash stand or a tripod for the water bottle is something to be proud of. Ideas for age-appropriate jobs are in bushcraft with kids. A natural next step is to carve the hooks, toggles and pegs that go with your structures – see carving a spoon for the same knife grips on a bigger project.

Taking it all down: leave no trace

A lashed structure is finished when it has been taken apart again. Frames left standing in the woods are litter with good intentions: they trap wildlife in forgotten cord, invite others to build on them, and annoy landowners enough to close places to everyone.

Dry your cords at home before you store them, check them for cuts and glazed, melted spots, and retire anything doubtful to practice duty. Sisal and jute in particular rot quickly when packed away damp. The whole routine of breaking camp is described in breaking camp; how to dry and care for the rest of your tools is covered in tool care.