Ha, it just now occurs to me that one could effect the strangle
using common whipping technique : i.e., set up the central
overhand crossing of the tails AND THEN make the wraps around
it all (which though requires that one has access to the rope end),
and pull out the excess on setting it tight --which, yes, should
see considerable build-up of torsion from the wrapping.
… which leads me to muse about other techniques & structures,
of strangles in a series … !
The structure is simple to describe : it’s a multiple strangle knot
–with the particular “multiple” selected according to the
materials and other concerns. Given that whipping generally
runs longer along the rope (about equal to its diameter,
maybe longer), I add wraps to the strangle towards that
lengthening.
And as I found that with more wraps the knot’s buried
crossing-part (“overhand”) seemed too short, I put in a
2nd tuck/twist of that --two vs. one (the same sort of thing
done with a the surgeon’s knot compared to the square/reef ).
(The additional tuck can be made with one end after making
the knot w/just one tuck --like the way to make a constrictor
from a clove hitch (though, with multiple wraps, one might
need a little working to get the twists evenly beneath wraps).
In the 5/16" to 1/2" or so ropes I play with, nylon mason line
seems to work well with 5 or 6 wraps (as counted looking at
the face where one can see each end ; add 1 to looking at
the parallel parts on the opposite side), and the nylon fish
line I’ve used needs more, 7-9 (it’s less flexible and the
center double twist runs longer).
To this base, I wanted a way to be efficient with material
(i.e., not having to estimate length and then cut off a lot),
do tried starting with the initial end short (with a stopper
end for purchase of forceps/pliers/fingers), and then the
finishing tuck done with a bight --so that after the
adding of a common whipping finish with this bight,
I would haul out line and trim it most efficiently, only the
slight length of the initial end being lost to the cause!
Along the way, I realized that other things could be done,
such as --upon completing the strangle part but yet to
tighten the common whipping closure-- pulling some
of the rope fibres back over the strangle and tucking them
beneath turns of the finish. (This isn’t something readily
possible with solid braid, I guess.)
Only when making a reply above did it occur to me that
the strangle knot could be tied with common whipping
technique (which, re torsion, might not suit some stuff)!
To emphasize : one can build the strangle without much
tension, AND THEN pull hard on the tails to set it TIGHT.
I do use pliers or pound the knot with something hard
(or rolling it could work) as a means to getting the
tension concentrated at the initial turns at each end
of the body worked into the center turns --which I believe
does happen, although I accept that some of the seeming
evening-out of tightness could come from simply losing
some of that tension to the tails (drawing them back in).
None of others’ whippings that I’ve held in hand have
had such tightness as I can get. YMMV.
This seems like a big plus, IMO.
That noted, where one works with lighter materials
or more frictive ones --where it won’t be so easy to
deliver much tension into a mulit-wrapped structure,
the binding will be less and the whipping vulnerable
to being slid off (when untying knots, or otherwise).
Other techniques work to help, here, such as somehow
passing the whipping through the rope, and using
a whipping in which one puts tension on each turn
as it’s built (e.g., French whipping).
Or that pulling-back-of-some-rope-fibres over the
initial whipping body to be bound beneath a later
put on binding, so that these would have to be
pulled free before the whipping could slide off … .
For cutting rope, I got one of those cheap wood burning kits with an exacto blade cutter attachment.