Hi Again,

Jen(hopefully I have the first name right) asked a questions about working with sisal and I wanted to give her some information on it

So, since I am doing that, I also wanted to say thanks again to all of you for the wonderful praises of my kitties. I have told them all about what you have said and given them some extra treats and ear scratchings. I don't know if they understood, but they really liked the treats and scratches.

I also wanted to say I appreciate the encouragement that you have given me with Joey and letting me know that I am not alone in this. Also, I am not a professional photographer, I don’t even play one on TV, but I liked the compliment.

Now back to the real reason for this post, Sisal. Sisal really isn’t really much more complex to deal with then carpet, it is just more time consuming. All you really need to do is anchor it at the base of the post and start to wrap the post up until you reach the top. I know that sounds too easy and I will get to what I considered to be the hard parts in a minute. The first 2 sisal post I did I used a couple of half inch screws for the anchors, and the next two post on the nice trees that I did I used a good staple gun. I actually went out and bought a professional electric one from sears, it cost me, but it was well worth the price. I am truly a man when it comes to tools and I never pass up the opportunity to get a new one. The first hard part with sisal is that it is really abrasive and I highly suggest wearing gloves when working with it. The next is that you need to make sure that you wrap it tight, and that takes effort, I was worked up a sweat when I did the posts and my hands hurt from griping and pulling the rope. The first 2 that I did were really a bear because I did them all in one shot, but the second 2 to I was able to use the staple gun and put in an anchor every 7 or 10 wraps and that break made it a little easier. Really that is about it as far as the effort goes, it is not hard it just takes brute force. I also saw a suggestion of taking a piece of wood and a hammer and using that to pound down the rope courses to make them closer, but I had not figured out a way to do that and keep hold of the rope.

As far as the actual rope goes make sure that you get plain sisal and nothing that has been coated, you should be able to get it at just about any decent hardware store. I also liked the 3/8 inch size, 1/4 seemed to small and 1/2 too big. In the 3/8 size 100 feet will cover about 33 inches of a 3 x 3.5 inch post. I have also seen some sisal posts in the store that use a carpet instead of a rope, that would make creating a sisal post easy. I have looked for something similar but have yet to find it, my next place to look will be the carpet store.

Anyway, that is about it. Please let me know if you have any question on this or cat cat tree building in general. I am by no means an expert, but I will answer what I can.