Greetings,
I thought I’d share with everyone a great knot board one of my friends made for his Scouts. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any pictures, but I’ll try my best to describe it. I think it’d make a great addition to any Scout Hut or knotter’s lair.
He used a square, 1/4 inch wooden board, probably 4 feet by 4 feet. He then divided the board into sections, using white rope as gridlines. The rope was nailed down with some small-head tacks. (Note that the nails didn?t go all the way through the board. If you try to make one, be sure your nails are shorter than the thickness of the board.) He wrote the names of the knots at the top of each column. Then, he tacked up step-by-step rope figures, going straight down, in order of tying. (For example, for the reef knot, the first figure would be a rope that was crossed once, tacked onto the board. The one below that would be the next step, and so on until you come to the finished product at the very bottom of the board.) This particular rope was sprayed with polyurethane, which gave it a nice gold color that stood out against the white gridlines.
He then drilled one hole directly below each finished knot at the bottom of the board, and slipped a rope through each. This way, one could use the two ropes, (one from each column) to tie the above knot. He also added a bar across the bottom to tie things such as the taut-line and two half-hitches. He hung the board up on the wall so the scouts could just walk by whenever they needed and practice their knots.
Hope everyone enjoys!
–Son of Liberty