Helical loops

xarax · 4 July 2014 17:15

When the ( common, standard ) bowline is heavily and unfavourably loaded ( “unfavourably”, regarding its “balance”, the alignment and distribution of the tensile forces running along its three limbs ), its nipping loop may “open up”, and degenerate into an open helix. Therefore, if the nipping loop of a bowlinesque eyeknot IS an open helix already, then this eyeknot has nothing more to fear !
It turns out that, if the knot tied on the Standing Part after the eye ( post the eye ) is wrapped and squeezed by a helical structure tied on the Standing Part before the eye, the returning eye leg can be firmly attached to the line, without being entangled within a “closed” nipping loop. ( If we do not trust the single helical turn, we can always add another one). I have shown a number of such “helical” loops, where the knot tied on the Standing Part after the eye is a fig.8, a Constrictor, a Strange, etc, ( 1)(2)(3) . They seem to be secure, good-looking, and probably very strong eyeknots as well ( strong, because the first curve of the Standing part is very wide ), and I believe they should be examined further.

Helical loop(s) ( Constrictor )(front view).JPG

Helical loop(s) ( Constrictor )(front view)(B&W).JPG

Helical loop(s) ( Constrictor )(rear view) (B&W).JPG

xarax · 5 July 2014 10:38

The Strangle is also a tight knot which can be tied on the returning eye leg ( the Standing Part after the eye ), inside the core of the helical nipping loop. The advantage in this case is that the two collars are wider, as they now turn around two rope diameters - the disadvantage is that, when the eyeknot is ring-loaded, the second/“lower” collar is forced to widen even more, and the nub may be deformed a little bit.

Helical loop(s) ( Strangle )(front view).JPG

Helical loop(s) ( Strangle )(rear view).JPG

xarax · 5 July 2014 10:41

The Strangle core, squeezed inside the surrounding helical coil.
Note : If the “yellow” segment passes under the “red” one, before it exits from the nub ( so, if, inside the helical coil, those two segments are twisted around each other - as they are in an ordinary Strangle - and not parallel to each other ), the loop becomes TIB ( See the second attached picture ). However, this does not mean much, because there does not seem to exist a simple way we can tie this knot in-the-bight. The only advantage is that we can un-tie it easily. Now, I can not imagine a situation when, although we have to tie the loop in-the-end, we would gain something because we can un-tie it in-the-bight, without using the ends…

TIB arangement.jpg

xarax · 5 July 2014 16:22

Even a very simple structure ( much simpler than a Constrictor or a Strangle ) can become sufficiently tight around itself, so securely self-locked, if it is squeezed inside the helical nipping coil. See the attached pictures of a helical loop based on an S-shaped knot tied on the returning eye leg. The way the pair of the eyelegs, on the one hand, and the pair of the Standing and Tail Ends, on the other, are interweaved within the “lower”/second and the “upper”/first collars, respectably, explains the efficiency of this very simple locking mechanism.

Helical loop ( S )(front view).JPG

Helical loop ( S )(front view)(B&W).JPG

xarax · 7 July 2014 10:38

One of my favourite helical loops is the one shown at the attached picture : the knot tied on the returning eye leg is the 5_1 stopper (1). As I had mentioned in Reply#2, this loop is TIB - but I have not found an easy way to tie it in-the-bight - so perhaps I should only say that it is UTIB ( un-tiable-in-the-bight ) :). The reader who would like to tie and try all those loops for the first time, should better tie them first on a short piece of rope, in the “reversed” way : starting from a somewhat tightly dressed knot / stopper he would decide to tie on the returning eye leg, after the eye ( tightly dressed, so it will retain its initial form though out the tying procedure ), then forming the eye, and then driving the Working End “backwards”, towards the Standing End : first tucking it through the second/“lower” collar by the one or the other side of it, then forming one, two or even three left- or right-handed helical nipping turns around the stopper, and finally tucking it through the first/“upper” collar.
I have no idea which one of all the numerous combinations would be proven to be the more stable and strong, under heavy loading - because that is the raison d etre of those loops, IMHO… Most of them are beautiful knots, because of this elegant helical belt around their slim waist, and because of their symmetry. Moreover, the helical coil can be translated along the Standing End very easily, so, even if they are fixed loops, the size of their eye is easily adjustable, However, even those advantages may not be enough, if these loops do not offer something more than what a simple secure, TIB, easily tied and untied bowline does - and I believe that this may be better stability and/or greater strength.

http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~koseleff/knots/kindex1.html

Helical TIB ( front view).JPG

xarax · 7 July 2014 12:56

To tie a not only TIB, but easily-TIB helical loop, we have to use yet another collar - which may seem too much, regarding the required ropelength… I am always reluctant to use such a not-functioning, structurally, collar, which is needed only to facilitate its tying by the knot tyer, but plays no role in the security and/or strength of the knot itself.
See the knot shown in the attached pictures : to tie it in-the-bight, after we form the helical “tube” and the eye of the loop, we have to form a bight, reeve it “upwards” through the helical coils, and tie the first/ “upper” collar with-the-bight, then reeve it through the helical coils again, this time “downwards”, and finally reeve the eye of the loop through it.

enhaut · 18 July 2014 18:20

:o
Just one person?
This thread needs a visitor.
Since I am polite, I dont come empty handed;
this loop utilized 2 inversed helical loops, and as in your offerings (expect the last) the tag end comes out nicely pointing upward.
This tag end makes some hard turns to finish this way, maybe weekening the rope at some point.
I have tried without success to jam it using soft rope, the bottom nipping turn (near the big eye) always stay supple and pliable.

xarax · 18 July 2014 18:53

In those loops, the helix is formed on the Standing Part before the eye ( on the “nipping structure”, where it replaces the nipping loop of the common bowline ), not after the eye ( on the “collar structure”, where it replaces the collar of the common bowline ).
Moreover, the conjectured/claimed advantage of this mechanism, is the wide curvature of the continuation of the Standing End, which bears 100% of the load. If one uses a double helix, he would be forced to use two narrow “helical tubes”, which would take back any advantage there may had been offered in the first place.

Luca · 19 July 2014 02:47

Hi enhaut,

The first picture below represents an exploded version of what seems to me to be your loop above.
The second picture represents the presumed loop before starting to load it.
The third picture represents the presumed loop after a no so high loading.
The fourth represents a lightly exploded version(because in the third image perhaps not it appears very clearly what happened) of the loop after the load(in all three the pictures with the black background the standing end is the strand of rope at the bottom right).
So it seems that in this case a nipping loop that wraps around a single diameter of rope, not only causes a problem with regard of the strength of the knot, but perhaps even more (if I executed the knot as you show) for its stability.

                                                                                                                                     Bye!

xarax · 19 July 2014 08:17

@Luca

I see you have discovered the CAMERA ! Great invention ! However, you should not forget the laws of optics ! ( 1: How the light - of the flash, for instance - is reflected on the surface, so you should better tilt the camera a little bit, not point it perpendicularly on the surface, and the object lying on this surface. 2 : How we take focused pictures ) :).
As I said in my previous post, this loop has no relation to a Helical loop whatsoever. If we should include it in a broader class of bowlines, we can say that it is a form of the Braided bowline tied by SS369 (0), where the continuation of the returning eye leg and the Standing End ( the Standing Part “above” the nipping loop ) are braided to each other.
Another similar bowline is the Double Harness loop (1), where the one link ( the corresponding to the “collar structure” ) is retucked once more - although differently than it is in the Valentine s bend (2).

enhaut · 19 July 2014 12:36

Thanks Luca,
You almost got it right.
Look at my exploded version, the tag end goes between the two helixes.
These are the hard turns I was talking about.
Maybe you can explain what a high loading is in case I want to try it myself?
How old is your rope?

Anyway as Xarax pointed out it is a form a Braided bowline and I am glad to know it, thanks!

Ps, Luca, I had to use a flash too (morning here) but I did it holding a piece of paper in front of the bulb deflecting the hard light 8)

enhaut · 19 July 2014 18:01

Black tape, who cares?
Not the place to expose niceties.
It’s totally on purpose, for didactic reasons one should at first glance establishes where the tag end lies.

Luca · 22 July 2014 00:28

Hi xarax and enhaut,

Thank you. For me, that I don’t have practically any experience with photography(either digital or analog), it’s like having just broke through a door… for now I’m going around the rubbles of this door …please be patient,I hope to explore over and to do better in the future…(but in any case it is the camera of a smartphone that I did not pay so much …)

Thanks for your picture of the exploded knot:I think I got the knot in the right way:in my ugly picture maybe is not very clear as it comes out the tail, but in my opinion is as in your picture, which, it is true, shows an exploded version of the knot that is more respectful of his real geometry(but the hard turns ( that I personally not really like in a loop, especially with regard to his nipping turn) should be visible in my second picture above).

I think that do not know what it means “high loading” :-[ (maybe it sounds like " loading from the top"? ;D), perhaps “heavy loading” is more correct, but also this I do not even know what it means;maybe I know what it mean a " not so heavy loading ".
Anyway not only xarax has its own laboratory,I too have my laboratory( ::))(the picture below:for now it is better that you continue to use the dark glasses .. 8)):I use this represented version of the Trucker’s hitch,grabbing the end of the rope,with the back on the floor,with the knees bent and the feet against the side of the couch, after that,I stretch out my body as much as possible, pulling the end of the rope(the couch is robust, yet for now I am confident that the armrest will not flights against my face … :o)

I love my old, white(well,not more so white)rope! And it’s not so old, is that it has made a life full of excesses!

Some details on the trials that I have made with the loop that you showed us(perhaps in some cases it may be useful to use a worn rope to highlight the flaws of a knot? :-):I tried the loop four times: three times it happened what I show with the images above(the time that has not happened,the phone rang while I began to load the loop;I went to answer the call, and when I came back,I finished loading the loop, which in this case was not capsized(! ???)).

                                                                                                                   Bye!

luca s laboratory.jpg

enhaut · 22 July 2014 13:47

Luca
You made a different loop.
Look carefully please at the attached pictured.
On your rendition of the loop I have traced white lines, when the flow is disrupted it means that the strand goes under, ok?
Consider the exits you will understand.

xarax · 17 October 2014 14:54

To this day, I have not managed to figure out an easy way to tie the TIB Helical loop based on the Strangle, shown in previous posts, in this and other threads. It can be tied sooo easily in-the-end, and can be untied sooo easily in-the-bight, but not vice versa !
Of course, one can always tie the two-collar version of the Helical loop based on the simple S-shaped collar structure, shown at Reply#5 (1), which can be tied easily in-the-end as well as in-the-bight - but I do not really like the redundant, functionally, second collar around the Standing End… ( The same thing I had confessed for a beautiful, yet a little bit portly lady, of the genuine Zeppelin clan, shown at (2)). Without the second collar, the loop is still TIB, but the collar structure becomes too simple and rather loose - it can not keep the two collars ( the “higher”, around the Standing and Tail Ends, and the “lower”, around the eye legs ) at a fixed distance to each other : I feel that the helical coils of the nipping structure, under heavy loading, will “spread” along the nub ( which, in its turn, will become very elongated…), their angle with the lines of the “core”, the collar structure around which they are coiled, will become too small, and so they will lose their firm grip on them : then we will need many more wraps to obtain the same result, because lines that meet each other obliquely, and not with angles near the optimum angle ( the right angle ), can not “bite” each other hard and deep, so they tend to slide on each other. ( Moreover, the “lower” collar becomes too narrow…). In any case, any simple S-Shaped collar structure can not be as compact, tight and secure as the Strangle-based collar structure. So, I would be glad if anybody out there would be able to discover some way to do this - the Helical+Strangle loop is a new, very interesting TIB loop, and it would be a pity if its TIBness can not be utilizable…

xarax · 19 October 2014 06:44

Although it may well turn out that we will not find any simple, easy and quick way to remember how to tie, and to tie in-the-bight the [i]Helical + Strangle TIB loop/i, I believe that we will find one for the Helical + fig.8 loop, or one of the three Helical + fig.9 loops ( fig.9 comes in three distinct forms (2)(3)), which are also TIB. Actually I have something in my mind, but I have to practice it for a while, to see if it is really easy and quick - we need much more time to evaluate tying methods, than tied forms …

xarax · 4 May 2015 09:52

An interesting question about those Helical loops, is if they can be loaded by either end ( be EEL, Either End Loadable ). This question had never crossed my mind, until very recently, when the importance of the EEL condition was pointed out by Moebius. Right from the very post (1), till now, I had always supposed that the helical coil is “tied” ( if we can say that an open helical coil is a “knot”, which can be “tied” and “untied”, but that is another matter ) on the direct continuation of the Standing End.
Now, the difference between this coil tied on the direct continuation of the Standing End ( or being formed at the direct continuation of the Standing End ), and on the direct continuation of the returning eye leg, is that the former is loaded from its one end with 100% of the total load, and from the other with 50% of the total load, while the later is loaded only by its one end, and only with 50% of the total load. However, if the coil is long enough, and has a sufficient number of turns, its area of contact with the knot which it “encircles” can be such that it will not be pulled out, and “open” the eye. The advantage it has is that , if it is “tied”/formed of the returning eye leg, it is loaded, most of the times, only with 50% of the load, so it is easier to it to avoid slippage.
How long should such a coil must be, or how many turns it must have, to be able to withstand a pull from its one end, while the other end is unloaded, I have no clue. Of course, it will depend on the material, but also on the dressing of the knot, because all Helical loops can be tightened very much, and become rather short, or left almost loose, and remain elongated. So, the rope length of the segment that forms the helical coil is not a constant property of it, but varies, according to the knot s dressing. And, last but not least, it will depend on the load itself…
One should examine them case by case, load them by the “other” end, and see what happens. He can always add more turns “encircling” the same core, until he finds that they grip the core as much as they should - because most cores can be left long enough, to offer enough surface area for a more “dense” helical coil around them, with more helical turns ( which turns, when they are close the one to the other, become almost indistinguishable from normal, common, “closed” “circular” nipping loops ).

http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3020.msg21688#msg21688

enhaut · 4 May 2015 16:33

I had a relook at the Simple_TIB_loop in order to reevaluate the structure concerning the EEL concept.
Maybe it fits the bill only tourough testing would gives us an answer.
The coil is this particular construction is reliable (stable) because it is “locked” (secured) at both “ends” ; it cannot slipped.

xarax · 6 May 2015 04:06

How can one be sooo stupid, I wonder…! !@#$%^&*()_+
I had tied the Constrictor-based Helical loop three and a half years ago (1), and I had even tried to figure out an easy tying method ( which was a tying method, indeed, but not an easy one ! (2)) - and all that time it had never crossed my mind the very first thing I should had thought about all those Helical loops, the very first moment I saw them : that if you loosen the helical turns enough, you can drag them out of the nub by pushing them “downwards”, just like you drag the sock out of your foot - or, which is the same thing, you can drag the nub out of them by pulling the nub “upwards”, like you drag your foot out of the sock. Then, when you would have removed them, and they will not “encircle” anything any more ( they will not have any “core” ), you can straighten them out - and so you can turn the helical coil, no matter how many turns it has, into a straight segment ! This transformation does not involve the ends of the knot, it is a transformation in-the-bight.
Reversing the temporal sequence of those moves, you can start from a simple Helical loop with zero turns, and end with a complex Helical Loop with a helical coil with as many turns as you wish. And here is the crux of the matter : The Helical loop with zero turns, being a much simpler knot, can be tied much more easily and quickly. Therefore we can tie the much simpler zero-turn Helical loops at first, and afterwards we can add to them as many helical turns as we wish /need, in order to tie secure loops for the available materials and the expected loadings.
This way we can transform the Constrictor noose ( which is a noose as easily tied as the Buntline hitch ) into a Helical loop around a Constrictor core, where the Constrictor tied on the returning eye leg, and around the Standing Part before the eye, can have as many helical turns as we wish.
Miraculously, and all of a sudden, the Helical loops become much more interesting, because they can be tied easily, and with any number of helical turns, starting from their “degenerated” versions, where their “zero-turns-helical coil” is not but a straight segment running at the side of the core, not a helix “encircling” it.
In fact, we have to do nothing else than to apply the “haltering/haltered collar” method, and reeve the whole knot through this degenerated “bight” which is formed by the degenerated “helical coil”. We have to “see” this straight segment which runs parallel to the core, and which is going to be transformed into the helical coli, as a “straightened bight”, and make the opening between this “bight” and the core “swallow” the whole knot.
Of course, I know that nobody will follow my keystroking exercise - but believe me, when I will take some pictures, the simplicity of the whole method will be revealed at an instant.
The important thing is that we have a general, simple method to turn the degenerated, much simpler zero-turn Helical loops into their corresponding more convoluted Helical loops with any number of turns, which we did not know how to tie easily and quickly till now : as the TIB one based on the Strangle and the other TIB based on the asymmetric Pretzel.

http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3020.msg21688#msg21688

xarax · 6 May 2015 04:25

And what is the bowline ( and all the bowline-like loops ) ? Just a Helical loop with a helical coil of one turn, only twisted around its crossing point. So, we can tie and untie the bowline-like eyeknots by loosening / enlarging their nipping loops, and make them swallow, or throw up, the rest of the knot. In other words, we can apply the “haltering/haltered collar” method in the case of the nipping loop, if we “see” it as just another “collar”, loosen/enlarge it, and push the knot “upwards” out of it, or pull it “downwards” out of the knot. The “haltering/haltered collar” method is more general than I had thought, because it can be applied to any bight that stems out of the nub, be it a collar, a helical coil or a nipping loop.
Who knows how many bowline-like knots can be tied or untied more easily this way !