I’ve been a long time lurker here and have gathered some very helpful information throughout the years, so thank you to everyone who contributes here. I am a beginner at knots. I know a few by heart, but I am certainly a beginner in the grand scheme of things. I backpack and camp quite often and I have a couple of questions. I’ll ask one in this thread and the other in a separate thread.
How could I use 550 cord to, first, keep a rolled up sleeping pad (blue one from Walmart) tightly rolled up? Then, once tightly rolled up, how could I use 550 cord to attach the pad to the outside of my backpack (assuming there are plenty of attachment points)?
I’m looking for a healthy balance between an efficient use of cordage, effectiveness of lashings and knots, and ease of tying and untying the knots.
Once you have it sized correctly, there’s no need to untie the base knots. So it can be used over and over again. Just untuck the free ends to loosen it. Those free ends can also be used to attach to your backpack at your aforementioned points. Here are some options for consideration:
Having the pad loosely attached to your pack should make it easier to access any of the various pockets and pouches in your pack.
You could also just use the standard shoelace knots to bind up your pad, in the form of slipped reef knots. In that case, though, you cannot so easily just use the free ends to then attach to your pack, so you’d probably need some separate line for that.
...rolled up sleeping pad (blue one from Walmart) ...
I’ll take it then it’s Robot or human?
–a foam pad, with its own biding straps (think “wide”). :
A close-fitting bag would be nice, otherwise, one
needs to take some care about damaging the foam?
–i.p., not to versatackle thin cord around it!
Are you planning on using the included straps?
One idea I had, testing it only on my nearby leg and
not a foam pad (my leg comes with pressure guage ;D ),
is to make a rather opengirth/cow/larkshead hitch
in which the corners of the bight part (“corners” given
how “open” it is, you see --we’re intending to take the
ends in opposite directions along the roll) themselves
are larksheads through which we’ll reeve the ends,
and so get some friction-gripping security,
from which we’ll take each end towards its respective
end of the roll and make further around-the-roll tyings
of some sort --maybe similar. And then there could be
ends enough to tie off to the backpack.
I guess I should ask this first. How do you intend to orient the pad on your pack?
Parellel to your spine or across the pack parallel to your waist. If the latter, would it be preferable at the pack’s top or bottom?
Does your pack have an external frame?
If you want the tails at each end to tie it to the pack, I would middle a cow hitch and go toward each end with a series of half hitches. Then use the ends to affix it.
Or you could put the cow hitch on one end and using the cord doubled, half hitch to the other end. Use the two tails to tie on with. The pad may swing tied this way though.
Thanks a lot for your replies roo, Dan_Lehman, and SS369. Very good suggestions so far. I’m going to look into each one.
To answer your questions . . .
Concerning if the pad has straps or not, ha, I wish. This pad is from a looooong time ago. Nowadays they come with straps, but not way back then.
Ideally, I’d like to have the pad on the outside of the pack, at the bottom, in the back (on the side farthest away from my body), parallel to the ground.
