Evening all.
Just nodding in with my intro. Great site, but I aint yet got the full measure of the nav.
Semi retired Mariner, always had more,n a passing interest in knotting.
Browsing through the site, has made me realize just how little I know.
Walrus
Welcome Walrus,
Each of us knows just little, but together we know a lot.
We can help each other and get help from each other in turn.
Can you tell us a little more of what kind of knots you like?
Willeke
Strange perhaps, but I,ve never thought about which type of knots I like, or why.
Its clear to me, from browsing here, that I have been unadventurous and never eally moved on from the “large and clonky” wholerope things that Ive done for donkeys years.
Never got into any of the fine and fiddley stuff, so its a overdose of eye-candy, flicking through the pics, here.
Not without some small degree of envy, I might add.
Better that I should blow the dust off my ditty bag, get some more material, and get started again.eh?
Walrus
HI Walrus,
From where do you hail? Our little group has members all over the world, so chances are we have someone close to you.
SR
I will step forward too as a newbie. Hi all!
I mostly have an interest in practical knots, but I am also looking to increase some skills in the decorative area.
Mornin, SR et al.
I hail from the UK , an East Yorkie.
Please dont mention flat hats, tripe, or whippets.
Nor cricket, come to think of it.
Eeee bah gum!
Walrus
Hi Walrus,
I thank you and I I think that you and I are going to get along just fine. For one thing I want to know all about the heavy line you think of as so common as to be not worth discussion. For the next I think you may come to love the small craft line and the decorative stuff. So welcome to IGKT and KHWW. I wish you will have a long and fruitful visit with us and I hope I’ll learn about the heavy line and hope you make some lace or some such. There are IGKT branches all over the British Isles and (but for a 6000 mile gap) some fine knotters on the West Coast of North America as well as the whole world. I love that I can hear your accent in your post. A joy to hear from you! There is no insult intended at my enjoyment of the accent nor do I shun you for what you consder to be a newbie.. You could teach so much to IGKT and KHWW and I hope you can take the time to post some of the skills that you take for granted. A newbie on then site but not in the world.
Walrus,
Have you taken photos of your ropework?
I can do a lot of little stuff, but I never can do the ‘real’ knots and splices in heavy rope and I just love to see it.
If we are not carefull there might be a day soon that there is no real knot to be seen anywhere but a museum.
So please take photos and remember that ordinary for you might well be special for someone else.
V.V.V.V.V.
Welcome,
Can you also please tell a little about yourself, have you been tying for a while or is it a recent new hobby?
You can see what kind of knotting I do by clicking on the WWW icon near my name, but I do even more, but mostly were decorative and practical meet.
Willeke
Morning all and many thanks for the welcome.
I would really like to say that I feel at home here.
But.
I,ve been fossicking around the site and the links and, honestly, I am completely gobsmacked by the standard of workmanship.
Not just that; the presentations, the absolute precision, the total grasp of elegence in design, the complexity, the sheer depth and compass of of knowledge.
The projects undertaken, in hand or completed are, just too much for me to grasp.
Also, the level of discussion, the research…just reading through it, is akin to being sat at the feet of Plato!
I didn,t manage to find any mention of a 96 strand, pentagonal-sennited bellrope, made from holographically tinted and reverse-plaited nasal hair of the White Rhino…but I feel it,s more,n likely that somebody out there, is presently working on one! ;D
My first reaction, is to quietly close the forum door behind me, :-[ and come back in another 60 years, when I,ve got summat to show.
My stuff, is of a purely pedestrian nature and its just the product of idle time.
By ,ell!..I,m beginning to think I shouldnt have disclosed that I was a mariner!
I keep very little of my own work, mostly I give it away or leave it on the ships (mostly bellropes and beckets from wholerope)and , regarding photos, I wouldnt have a clue how to go about posting , being a bit of a technophobe.
regards to all
Walrus
Eigh, Walrus! Don’t be a’tall leery about admitting (1) you can’t do knots and (2) you’re a mariner. Most of the working seamen I know are too busy handling the craft(s), running nets and throwing trash-fish back to be having time for knotting and fancy stuff. They’re lucky if they know six working knots and two hitches…they usually leave the bends to the SCUBA crowd… Time off is usually spent in repair and maintenance and that’s as should be, so it’s our pleasure to be here to be able to show you a particular knot you 'd like to learn or just to provide the “eye-candy” for you. For us, it’s fun (in my case it keeps the hands flexible) and for you it’s fun… we’ll never get on in the political world that way, but then, who’d (censored) want to?
True, the standard of quality here is somewhere just short of incredible (I am especially knocked out by the beckets section…) but again, you’ve a group of people whose passion is doing it right, and it shows. It’s also why I don;t have anything up here of my own. These folks are good!
Short answer: got a question? Here you have some of the most knowledgeable practioners of the craft available for query and for free! (Catch me on a pier somewhere and I’ll charge 25p just to talk to you.) So have at it! Ask what you will and we will glady abuse you.
Hi Walrus and “V” to the 5th Power,
Don’t back off or be overwhelmed. This is a wonderful hobby, craft, vocation and advocation and as we all find out somewhere in life.. someone is always a little faster or taller or quicker so enjoy the knotting and post when you can. Everyday I find someone who is making some knot in a better way than me… and I’ve been at it for over 50 years. I look at the galleries and am just as impressed as you are. Also, although Walrus may be a bit far to do shows… if you can find a venue to teach you will find that the person on the street will be so happy to learn what you have always taken as … well growing fingernails.. you didn’t have to think about it. When you start teaching you will have to think about it wee bit.. but that is part of the fun. Well, maybe there is no better place to teach but here on the web. Don’t let that hold you back.
Some months back I was frustrated with the “I invented this knot. Do you know what it is called or can I name it after (fill in the blank).” Thanks to our web moderators I calmed down a bit. I came to think there are no “Newbies”. I had to turn it the way my life goes “There are no strangers, just friends I haven’t met yet.” So now there are no Newbies.. just teachers I’ve not yet learned from and students I’ve not had a chance to share with.
You know? I take a ration of rose fertilizer as I’ve never been to sea. A lubber with moss on his antlers. Yet as you look at my work with the IGKT and IGKT-PAB and the work I’ve published I am not too ashamed about the mud on my clogs.
Please go to <www.khww.net> and look at the PAB gallery so you can see some of the stuff we show. It would be nice to have it all on display velvet and ready for photo opps (I can’t muster that) but we present knotting to a whole huge crowd. I pull my door bell off the wall and my doormat off the porch and go to show (door mat is ABOK #2274 and the door bell {ships bell} hangs off a ABOK # 2360 mat with a complex bell rope to call me to answer {if it will wake me}). Great fun. I ask each visitor (until overwhelmed by the numbers of them.. which often happens) “What knots do you tie.” The answer is usually “None.” Or “When I was a lad etc”.. so I look to the shoes and say “Well your shoes stay on!” or “Well, hook and loop laces.. I guess you don’t.”
Everyone ties knots. Everyone has something to teach. You have found a good place to learn some stuff, but you have something to teach too. Who will do it if you don’t?
In rereading the other posts.. I may have repeated my self.. I may have repeated my self. ??? On my 50th Birthday we had a 3 day party. Leaving was not an option. I had folks from out of my valley, friends of old. It was a refreshing note to have a conversation that did not start as: “What was I saying?” The memory is the first to go and a don’t know what the second thing is. So all the more important to pass your skills and built a family of knotters.
I must go to sleep or all my posts will be … what was I saying? Welcome to the site.
Hi again Walrus!
I’ll bet you know “On Ilkley Moor bah’t 'at” don’t you? Used to sing it all the time as a kid - sometimes go for hours on end! My brother lives in York - has a small contractor business there doing up older houses. Speaking of finely detailed work (reference your comment about the pentagonel sinnet bell-rope) do you know of anyone who does that hair braiding that the Victorians used to do? There must be someone on this site who knows about that stuff. I know we have some knot-tyers who tie tiny cords and thread, but I have never seen a reference to hair - just wondering! Then again, do you have any photos of your work that someone else took? Thump mat or two? Paunch mat maybe? How about a heavy fender or two? I would really like to see some of it, particularly if it involves wire or Stockholm tar! Welcome aboard, terrier ;D!
Lindsey
PS Roy, you are absolutely right about the life of your knotting and your posts - they both provide an educatiuon for all of us.
Very recent, actually. I think I started tying (for no good reason, mind you) in august of this year. I am a bored state worker (New York, US) with too much time on my hands. So instead of sitting at work not working all day, I have my practice string and my connection to the internets to keep me busy.
The practical applications of knotting for me are pretty limited, but mostly i’ve been impressing/embarassing my wife and making tie-outs for the dogs with bits of paracord. However, I have recently re-taught myself how to tie my shoelaces in a proper reef-knot. Not an easy thing to do since I was taught the granny all those years ago and been practicing it every day since.
Thanks V.V.V.V.V., it is nice to know who we are talking with.
I am doing mostly decorative knotwork, but often bordering on the practical. At this moment I am working on different lanyards. I hope to tell more about that when I have finnished writing.
About shoelaces, have you visited: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm
He has the most info on laces that I have ever seen, all in one nice website.
With a lot of letter of people who did the same you did, relearn to tie their knots.
Am I happy I happened to learn it right!
If you can tie knots at work, have you thought about making things to sell, like keyfobs or dogleads?
(Of course I should not tell you to do other work in the bosses time.) 
Willeke
I suppose since someone else brought it up, I’ll have to do my official intro as well; some of ye in the PAB know me, and I’ve talked to one or two other of you here and there when Knot Chat was going through it’s rocky infancy, but I figure since I’m on topic for once, I’d might as well blather on a little bit…
I’m waving in from Seattle these days, but I was in Cleveland for a long time — if you’re the one knot tyer in Toledo, I feel your pain — but I’ve been tying knots and teaching them since long before even then. Leave it up to scouting to at least provide an opportunity to learn a few knots, but for me it was one of the most exciting things. I had ABOK before I left high school (maybe before I even got there), and was working on cats-of-many-tails about the same time. I’ve developed a liking for parachute cord and I still use it for a great deal of my work, even if that’s supposed to be more decorative.
Lately — and with a hobby that means in the past three or four years, I suppose — I’ve been tying stuff that’s a mix of practical and decorative. I’m still very proud of my bell pull (all rope, no core, just layer after layer of monkeys fists and coverings), even though it’s a bell ringer 50% of the time (think blackjack, in emergencies). Finally had to stop riding the bus about a year ago, and I don’t like ringing keys in vehicles, so I had to get myself a key holder that was appropriate (functionally a wall&crown, crown sinnet, and a star knot [instructions pending some day]). I just tied another one of those at the recent PAB event, and I need to do some more and donate them for fundraising purposes. Maybe I’ll even get some color other that OD.
As to shoelaces, I didn’t see my technique there, but it’s a surgeons, then a surgeons with the loops (in the reef direction so it doesn’t twist), then a surgeons with the loops again (whence again you proceed in the opposite direction, which means of course going the same way you started) so everything forms up into a nice tight, nontwisted little core cylinder. It’s never come undone (even when I try to untie them! haha! kidding). Surgeon’s keeps all in place so the loops can be easily formed, and it works well even in slippery laces (like that time I was using paracord on the boots). Just don’t pull on the loose ends during untying, or you might get a mess.
All that aside, I wish I had more time, not only for the rope and cord itself, but also because I’m a mathematician and researcher at heart, and I need to get back to the knot theory research that I started a year or so ago. I could post all the symbols and group theory, but I figure most people only want the pretty pictures, so I’m holding off for a while.
So that’s me… and we’ll see when I next get a chance to post. Have fun.
Three strings walk into a bar…
Hey guys. This is a very interesting forum and there is obviously a lot of knowledge here.
I’m an ironworker in NYC, USA. I’ve always gotten by with the bowline, running bowline, sheet bend, the clovehitch, the round turn and 2 half hitches, and from time to time the barrel hitch, the scaffold hitch and a knot that I don’t know the name of, but it lets you lower something and then shake the knot out without having to have someone untie it for you. I’m starting to realize that there are a lot more good knots out there and I’d like to learn them. I might start a construction knots thread to ask basic questions, hopefully no one will be offended at the low level of knots knowledge going on there. I’m just a working stiff who’d like to pick your brains.
thanks
rosco
Hi Bridog,
The site “U-braid-it” has the most wonderful selection of para cord in many neon and even more garish colours (also earth tones and other). I see from the photos of the recent PAB event posted at the knotty gallery on <www.khww.net> that Patrick Ducey has made some crosses from neon green para… or so it seems in the photo. It is good to see knotters getting together.
Welcome Rosco!
Pick away - although I cannot vouch much for what brains I might have I’ll gladly loan the one synapse I have left ;D
Lindsey
(squarerigger by name and practice)
Hi Rosco,
I am always two post behind. By that you know that I was posting to Bridog and missed the next two posts. Ah well. There is a site dedicated to the arborists, the tree climbers, who take a tree down one branch at a time without hurting the house. I’ll mess up the URL but it is, more or less <treebuzz.com>. They also want to home safe at the end of the day. The knots your quoted had one that I want to ask about. Knot names are a can of worms and without pictures or reference to published pictures can be a mess. But what was your scaffold knot?
I am always happy to find someone who really is usiing knots and working with line, and the names be damned. Good to hear from you!
I see that Roy mentioned the neon green cross in Paracord that I tied. I actually got that line from SupplyCaptain.com. They have many colors, including the day-glo bright neon green. I wish I could get a paracord made with 3M triptease highly reflective line, but that is another thread.
Paracord is avalable on many websites, it might be worth your time to shop a few sites before spending money.
Patrick