I am using some 1/8" nylon cord from the hardware store, which I have used on other projects. Anyhow, I was working with some crown sinnets 3,4,5,6 and 8 strand. Had luck with all of them except the 8 strand, which I could not keep very tight and had a hollow. After I put on the double foot rope on the end, I stuffed the hollow with a couple of pony beads and tightened up everything as best I could. It did turn out to be a nice little fob that looked like an acorn.
What can be done to keep the crown sinnet tight while working with it?
you have found the answer already. Depending on cord size and numbers of leads you will most certainly need a core, either temporarily, but more than likely permanently.
Doing a crown sennit with 8 strands or more you will get a hollow center. Depending on the material and how tight you tie it, with 8 strands you might tie a solid strand. Doing an over 2 sennit will help. When I’m doing 8 or more strands I’ll take a piece of the same cord and tie the sennit around it, the first couple of passes will be a little awkward. If I’m doing something large, like a bellrope, I’ll make a core of several cords or even a wooden dowel. I very seldom tie 1 over crowns, 2 over tightens and holds much better.
When tying the 2 over, I get lost a bunch, so you need to keep track of the loops and where the leads are going to go through them. I hold onto the first made loops (bights?) so I make sure I don’t loose my place. I thought of aligator clips until I get use to where things are going.
Crown vs Wall question. Is a wall and inverted crown knot, i.e. if you tie a crown and flip it over, does it become a wall knot? and if so, why can I not seem to tie a wall sinnet, without it looking goofy.
A wall knot is an inverted crown but if tied as a sennit the orientation is different - the wall knot strands emerge from each knot pointing up whereas in crown sennit the strands emerge pointing down but both sennits are normally tied in the same direction ie upwards - if the wall knot sennit was tied downwards then it would be identical to a crown knot sennit. I hope that makes sense!
To add on to what Barry said, since I do a lot of these type sennits, I’ve found that another important observation is that with a crown (rhymes with down), the strands not only end up pointing downwards, but also outwards, away from the center. The wall, on the other hand, not only moves upwards, but inwards towards the center.
Here’s a question, over the next is a 1-strand crown, over the next two is a 2-strand crown. But what about with walls? I know I’ve seen a MWK tutorial where they went under two all the way around and called it a MWK. Is that correct, is there no such thing as an Under-2 wall? Or should a strand have to make a complete circle back to itself before being called a MWK?
I think I’m right that adding one tuck gives a single MW, going all the way round gives a double MW (the latter method can be used one tuck at a time and although tedious is easier to some people that tying a double MW directly in multiple strands).
I do a tripple tuck with my MWK, starting with a wall and then making 2 more passess. Easier right now for me than doing it in one go. But there is always practice.
On the crown, I figured out what I was doing wrong on the over 2. I finally saw that I was not tucking the last lead through the last 2 loops, but was simply passiing the last lead over into the single last loop. Doh. last lead -1 goes through one loop and last lead has to go through 2 loop.
I did try a 3 and 4 over crown, but 3 was no better than 2 for looks and 4 looked unsightly and mis-shapped.
Is a loop created on a crown or MWK a bight or just a loop?
When doing an over two crown, to keep myself from getting lost, I tie it as a crown then take the strand and go through the next. Most of the time I only get lost on the last strand so I usually pay more attention.
You can also take the 8 strands and double them to make a 4 strand crown sinnet. It makes a neat pattern with 6. I wonder what a multiple crown sinnet would look like with 8 strands.
I just made a post on how to tie this knot,
It’s in the “Knots applied to Fire Performance Eqpt” thread.
When you tie the knot, are you going over the first adjacent rope, as you do with the 3 and 4?
There are variations where you cross over 2 or more adjacent ropes, or any number of ropes less than 50% of your total number of ends.
In my video, I cross over the three adjacent ends for the 8 stranded crown sinnet.
This means multiple strands hold each other strand in place, and each strand crosses through the “hollow center” you are getting with going over 1 adjacent, allowing for a full center, and therefore a tighter knot.
I have the double crown down now. Just took a little practice. Now I have to master the 6+ lead double Mathew Walker Know. One of the leads keeps diving under to early when I go to tension the knot. When I get done, one side of the MWK look correct, but the other looks a little wonky.
Tom
Edit.
I should have said, complex crown (i.e. 2 over) rather than double crown.
Well done but be careful - a double crown is a crown knot doubled - you are tying an over 2 crown which is quite different. Doesn’t matter until you discuss outside this thread where you may get an accurate answer but not the one you want!
Are you doing the many overhand knot type MWK? (My favorite but not positive what to call it.) Carefully tighten each strand slowly and not too much at first. Sometimes mine will look a little wonky until I loosen them from the bottom after tightening almost fully and then they will behave. Just a little quarter inch pull is about all that is needed to loosen it enough to make them lay right.
I think I worked out the 6 strand double MWK. I do the wall method, going all the way around and back to the start, then repeat.
I was (and still do sometimes) getting one of the cords nose dive into the knot on one or both ends. I take my marline spike and pry it under the cord and give it a little twist to bring it up again. Then I re-tension.