I had never understood why people like the Timber hitch - and I do not buy the argument that “it works” : so many things “work”, there are dozens of dozens of hitches that “work”, but that does not mean they are something special…
However, the fact of life s that people do like the Timber hitch, and they do tie it. for whatever reasons - so here is a way to get out something really noticeable out of that mediocre knot : If we add another wrap ( that is, we “marry” it with the Cow hitch ), we get the respectable “tight hitch”, shown in the attached pictures.
It is not as neat as the Locked Cow hitch, of course, and it consumes more material, but the mechanism by which it “locks” the Standing end is the best we have, the opposing bights mechanism - so it is secure, and conceptually very simple.
Devoted fans of the Timber hitch, please, improve your beloved knot, adding one more wrap like this.
The interested reader may notice that this hitch can be considered as a variation of the Cow-hitch-based TIB “tight hitch”, which, moreover, is either end loadable (EEL), shown at :
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=5250.msg34366#msg34366
However, I wanted to allure the fans of the Timber hitch with this thread, not the fans of the Locked Cow hitch… 
This seems more like an improvement of a cow hitch than of a timber hitch.
The timber hitch friction locks when you pull away from the twists. Your knot doesn’t (because there’s half as much pressure on the twists) but does friction lock when pulling toward the twists, and the twists bunch up and get tangled under the crossing as you pull across which does lock up well but I suspect could make a mess to release under load.
This seems to me to mechanically have very little to do with a timber hitch.
THAT end, the end which is twisted, IS “locked” by the twists. This is the “old” Tail End of the Timber hitch. It “locks”-on-the-surface-of-the-pole, it is immobilized, by a fraction of the total load, but that only means that this fraction was more than enough in the first place.
However, the OTHER end, is locked by the opposing bights mechanism, as shown.
You should SEPARATE the immobilization of the Tail End ( the mechanism by which the Tail End does not slip through the knot ) which is achieved by exactly the same way of the Timber hitch, and the immobilization of the Standing End ( which self-locks it, and enables the knot to accumulate tensile forces, and to remain tightly wrapped around the object(s) even after/while there is no tension on it any more ), which is achieved by the opposing bights mechanism. Two different things.
Half of the knot, the part which has to do with the security of the Tail End, does, and half of it, the part which has to do with the Standing End, does not. It is a hybrid, but I thought it would be interesting to show it, for the fun of the Timber hitch s fans…
Maybe with the application you tried it on that’s true, but in the one I tried it on something (not everything) was very clearly not as good, not in terms of “security” of the tail actually coming out, but how well it grabs the object for tightening and ultimately also how tight it gets. Of course it’s not clear that these issues of tightness matter for practical use. If your rope is affixed to the object then its affixed to the object and if you’re trying to squeeze a sleeping bag that’s a different matter anyway. The timber hitch is no great knot, but it’s simple, falls apart instantly and grabs well for a quick tug. Obviously you don’t want to use for life and death matters. Your secured cow hitch does seem to be in the same category.
You have not pre-tightened as you should, evidently…
This hitch becomes rock solid - it squeezes the object incredibly, it transfers into the wraps all the force of your hands ( and feet… :)), and locks it there MOST securely. And, of course, this gripping remains in place even after/while the Standing end is not pulled any more. It is not only a right angle hitch ( any of the dozens of dozens single wrap hitches we have will do this job ), but it is also a two-wrap noose and binder.
When you will discover how tight those hitches are, and how well they can withstand even a lengthwise pull, although they utilize only two wraps, you will wonder how on Earth you had been misled like this at the start !
You do not have to be a rower :), but a good breakfast may help !
P.S. I do not believe that you tied it wrongly ( by twisting the other /“wrong” leg of the timber hitch s bight, instead of the one you should ), but I point it out for you, just in case…
I did pre-tighten, (not at first, I wanted to see that too) and even the ultimate tightness before self restriction – when the collars start to pull up instead of SE pulling through – was different (better for TH). I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying you’re wrong for at least one scenario with one one rope and object type tested. It’s plainly clear that there is half as much pressure on the twists and more friction against the standing end which relates to the earlier self restriction, so it’s not shocking that one scenario exists where that’s relevant. There are clearly advantages to the CH version too.
You’re over smitten by believing that you can get more than 2x advantage of a simple wrap with two wraps of rope. You cannot. At best you can effectively nail the tail end down and get two hands advantage but both at once isn’t feasible either of course unless you really use a nail.
I am saying that you are wrong, but you will “see” someday…
I use 8 - 12mm climbing ropes and 4 - 12cm slippery PVC and steel poles, to try the security of the Tail End - if tied, dressed and pre-tightened properly, this hitch will not be released by the slippage of its tail, ever. If you use less slippery poles, the twisting of the legs of the bight will work even better, of course.
It is true that the tension of the wraps is almost halved, but it is also true that the area of contact is almost duplicated… Half of the tension is more than enough to keep the twice twisted Tail End secured. Also, because all the length of the twisted part is always in contact with the surface, the friction forces between the twisting and the surface are well utilized. ( In a Timber hitch, the last part of the twisted pair is tangent to the surface of a cylindrical object, so it may not be or remain in contact with it ). If you feel it is not enough, you san always twist it one more time, as we do in the Timber hitch.
WHO exactly believes he can get more than 2X advantage of a two wrap hitch ? Not anybody who had read what I had written about the number of the Zig Zags, that you thought it was over-simplified !
You always focus on the mechanical advantage thing, and you can not appreciate the efficiency and the utility of the locking mechanism thing… You should study the opposing bights mechanism more. It is the best line-self-locking mechanism we have, and, if we already have two wraps and a bight, it consumes no material at all.
Eat your breakfast !
Ok, my eyes are wrong then. I guess I’m not seeing happen what it looks I’m seeing happen. I better get a vision checkup.
Or you don’t make it happen ! Tie the hitch correctly, using climbing ropes, and not very thin poles, pre-tighten it as hard as you can, and then try to pull the Standing Part out of this thing…
If you do that, it may be your spinal cord that will need medical help ( as it had happened to me, with all those tight hitches…), not your eyes !
Who ties timber hitches with expensive climbing ropes? The knot is meant for dragging a log or similar.
The moment my 22cm pot was freed from its content ( the last twisted pieces of which, shown at the right lower part of the picture, and now traveling “downwards” :)). I seized the opportunity to take the attached picture. The two-warp Timber hitch, tied on three cheap, different ropes : a 12mm braided marine rope, a 6mm paracord, and a 10mm climbing rope.
Those “tight hitches” are meant to withstand some lengthwise pull, and this becomes important only when the surface of the hitched object(s) is slippery enough. If it is very rough, any one-wrap hitch would suffice for this. Also, if the diameter is very wide, and/or the surface is not slippery enough, one has to remove the slack of the bight by pulling its free end, because the tension forces induced from the Standing End would nt be able to reach there, after their long and/or bumpy journey along the two wraps.
The hitches with Standing Parts which travel along a Zig Zag path on the surface of the object(s), most of the times can be loaded by one, only, end. Therefore the tension forces inserted into the wraps from this end, should be able to reach the tip of the Zig Zag, first, and then the Tail End, otherwise the mechanical advantage they offer will not be utilized. If the surface of the object is not slippery enough, we can always use a tight hitch based on a tight nub at their “neck”, like the Bull Clove hitch. There, the distance between the entrance of the direct continuation of the Standing End, and the neck, is equal to the circumference of one, only, wrap, so it is much easier to remove the slack and pre-tighten the hitch, by pulling the Standing Ends alternatively, the one after the other.
... more of a ... cow ...MOOO! Indeed, so. For the [i]timber hitch,[/i] I would simply make a round turn (or further wrapping) around the S.Part before dogging the tail --what Ashley presents as [i]#1669[/i]. Doing this I think should help the material-stressing forces at the S.Part's entry, and keep the knot from loosening (if set reasonably tightly, snug to object, and so on ; some wrappings will be better than a pure coil, if their two legs both enter closer to object).
Arborists have a secured cow hitch that they refer to
as “cow and better half”, in which a half-hitch is put
into the tail after making the cow. I find a better
implementation of this --“better” re security when slack–
in orienting the half-hitch as befits Xarax’s (& my)
favor of “opposed bights nipping” (as is found in the
ossel hitch, somewhat passively effected) ::
per X.'s image, take the cow’s tail over the S.Part,
around over the collar & under the S.Part and then
out to close the h-h (i.e., over tail --between
tail & collar is the nip, here. THIS will nip irrespective of
surface contact --or none-- with the object,
unlike that inferior cow that X. keeps bringing up
–udderly uncompelling, IMO. (Yes, I got caught re
charges of insecurity, but I continue w/doubts and want
independence of pinning tail vs. object, please! Let’s pin
tail with cordage alone, and be sure!) 
X. talks of “more than is needed” re nipping the tail :
there have been reports from the arborist field (from
the canopy?) of slippage of the knot --complete(!)–,
even with some fair tucking of the tail. Possibly, an
orientation that loads hard into the collar --and thus
is pulling tail-side prior transfer of force around the
rough object to fully nip …-- can result in this?
Anyway, if it happens to you up in the tree or down
on the ground or … homeowner with OOOPS, TIMBERRRR’d
heavy wood into house, you will remember it !!
(A quick stopper knot in the tail might be good
insurance, here.)
–dl*
This is a white cow s MOOO, or a black s ?
I have used this tricky thread, to show a knot I had tied in my effort to see the Timber hitch as less dumb than I think it is…
( ABoK#1669 is still too Timber-hitch-like… a lumberman s knot, that is )
Unlike THIS superior knot :), the “inferior”, “utterly uncompelling” Locked Cow hitch I “keep bringing up” happens to be TIB… but you should had noticed that, because I “keep saying” it.
( However, I should nt expect from you to notice that the hitch shown in that thread is also TIB, should I ? Of course, it may be one of the rare cases where TIB-ness makes no sense at all )
P.S.
A “tight hitch” will never have any problem keeping all the parts of the knot, its “locking” nub included, in contact with the surface of the hitched object(s) - so the supposed “insecurity” of the Locked Cow hitch is a figment of imagination. If a “tight hitch” can not be pre-tightened, or has not been pre-tightened, it does not exist, by definition…
ALL the snug hitches work just because, and only when, the Tail Ends are buried under riding turns, and squeezed in between them and the surface of the pole - so the criticism on the Locked Cow hitch misses the point, even there. If we want a hitch where the only part in contact with the surface of the object(s) will be its wraps, we have to use a noose-like hitch, like the Bull Clove hitch.
The Locked Cow hitch is an improvement over the ABoK#1683, as explained in :
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4441
Its parts are meant to be in contact with the surface of the hitched / bound object(s), just as it happens in ABoK#1683…
However, prior to the tying of this superb, most tight, most simple, TIB hitch , I had tied the one shown at:
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4035.msg24357#msg24357
which does not depend on the contact of the “locking” nub with the surface of the object(s) so much - but it is not TIB. The Locked Cow hitch was an improvement of this, because it was simpler, AND TIB, yet it presented the same efficiency regarding the security of the locking of its Standing End.
Recently, I had tied the variation of the Locked Cow hitch, which can be loaded by both ends (EEL = Either End Loadable ), and it is also a TIB knot :
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=5250.msg34366#msg34366
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=5250.msg34820#msg34820
( I notice it just for the record, because, when I had presented the original Locked Cow hitch for the first time, the only thing I received from the knot tying “society” was silence. Now dan Lehman tries, in passing, to throw against it some cow s whatever :), perhaps because he had not found anything reasonable then, or since then (2012) ).
Indeed, TIB isn’t what I expect to need, want, or use.
P.S. A "tight hitch" will never have any problem keeping all the parts of the knot, its "locking" nub included, in contact with the surface of the hitched object(s) - so the supposed "insecurity" of the [i]Locked Cow hitch[/i] is a figment of imagination. If a "tight hitch" can not be pre-tightened, or has not been pre-tightened, it does not exist, by definition...That is an idealist's view which is at odds with the forces of Nature! --YMMV.
ALL the snug hitches work just because, and only when, the Tail Ends are buried under riding turns, and squeezed in between them and the surface of the pole - so the criticism on the [i]Locked Cow hitch[/i] misses the point, even there. If we want a hitch where the only part in contact with the surface of the object(s) will be its wraps, we have to use a noose-like hitch, like the [i]Bull Clove hitch[/i].Well, that makes for interesting thoughts about how the [i]Improved Cow + Better Half[/i] (what I described above) is a noose-hitch --about what then is the *knot* component for the compound structure (which is hardly so easily seen and spatially --length of segment, i.e.-- compact, as is the [i]clove hitch[/i] knot of noose-hitch [i]Two Half-Hitches[/i])!
–dl*
…or can deliver ! TIB-ness never does any harm - what does, is the “sour grapes” approach, which, at the very end, claims that there are as many knots as the different needs, wishes, or uses for them.
I do not agree with that - if a knot can deliver as much as another, and, on top of that, be TIB as well, it is a better = more versatile knot, regardless if one is going to need, want or use this property. At the end of the day, a “knot” that can be “unknotted” without what we usually expect, un-tucking the ends, is a marvellous thing, per se. When I watch a tightly woven tangle degenerate into the simplest thing in the world, the straight line ( or vice versa, the simplest thing in the world being transformed into a solid, globular, interwoven mass of rope ), I can not but enjoy this magic event !
Rather than “enjoy”, you denigrate anything that isn’t
TIB and repeat supposed benefits of the quality so much
that you “should be sick & tired” of it! The bowline has been
used a lot and long time and I don’t think that its users are
going to run happily after a TIB version such as was
presented long ago in Knotting Matters and also here,
and which knots carry some claim to greater security.
Esp. for those hitching to a tree, the TIB cow hitch
variants have no use, no application, no point.
(Conceivably, a form-&-toss-over-top-of-pile tying
might be valuable for that, and might though NOT
be TIB, but just entail some simple use of the
tail, in common circumstances.
And in other cases, folks might indeed prefer a non-TIB[<<= PET]
knot, such as at climbing walls, leaving a (pre-made/relic)
fig.8 to quicken the tying-in of the next climber
–just thread into harness, then “rethread” into nub,
and not have to do the whole, PET tying of some complicated
secure bowline.
–dl*
I do not know what are you talking about - WHICH TIB version, of WHiCH knot ? WHERE in Knotting Matters ?
If you have seen this 2-wraps Timber hitch somewhere, you should better share this knowledge with us, and not just be cryptic, to make some impression ( to whom ? ).
Did you had to think about a tree ? Was nt a simple ring a thing that could cross your mind ?
I had said that, IFF I can tie a non-TIB knot, or a TIB knot, I would prefer the TIB knot, EVEN if I could not, or would not, tie it in-the bight - because most of the times I can, and I will, and so, with experience and repetition, I will happen to know this single, versatile knot better, tie it faster, dress it and inspect it more easily, like it more. We have discussed about this many times recently - and you pretend to ignore the ceteris paribus condition, that I always set.
So, present me a “better” secure bowline than the Ampersand bowline, for example (*), which will do something better ( be more secure, more quickly tied and more easily inspected ), but the price we have to pay for this supposedly better quality is that it is NOT TIB.
Present me a 2-wrap hitch that will grip the pole tighter, and “lock” both its ends more securely, than the Locked Cow hitch EEL, for example, but the price we have to pay for this supposedly better quality of it is that it is not TIB. ( And, please, do not show this ugly tangly of yours you dared to show some time ago, or repeat the same lesson about the mediocre ossel hitch…)
I, too, have to repeat ( because repetition is the mother of learning…) : IFF the TIB knot can do everything that the non-TIB does, and because it can do something more ( that is, it can be tied in-the-bight, and perhaps more quickly than in-the-end ), we would prefer the TIB knot. Oh, my knotGod…
If you can not, and as long as you will not, I will continue to claim that your whining about the TIBness issue is just another “sour grapes”-like attitude…
(*) If you believe that the required just ONE ( =1) tuck more than the common bowline, makes the Ampersand TIB bowline, or, for that matter, the Scot s TIB bowline, “complicated”(sic), as you say, you should better ride this wormhole more effectively, and travel further into the past !
Just for the record ( of mistakes…): A TIB knot CAN be untied, in its part that is tied after the eye ( post eye ), and still have, and leave unknotted, a “relic” knot in the Standing part before the eye ( ante eye )…
TIBnesss has no relation to PETness ! ! ! ( neither non-TIB-ness, to non-PET-ness )