My local Maritime museum has asked me to set up knot tying stations along our nature trail. Any suggestions ,maybe pictures or sites I could look at. I’m sure others have done this .
Threestrand
Fred Dant
First thing coming to my mind are the Six knot challenge tables.
There are a few different ones around, here are a few photos,
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/willeke_igkt/detail?.dir=89a4&.dnm=fe27.jpg&.src=ph
and following 3. More info on the challenge you find here:
http://www.igkt.net/beginners/six-knot-challenge.html
You could also do just one knot at each place.
Use natural rope (sisal ?) for a nature effect, or nylon / plastic rope for availabillity.
Having thick rope is slower (no speed records) but better for teaching.
You can tie rope(s) to a tree, fence post or lamp post or set up a table with some pictures and the needed eyes, bolts or bars, if any.
Willeke
Hi, I agree that the knots of the 6 knot challenge are a very good series for your stations.. One knot at each station seems like a good idea, or make it progressive, one knot at station #1, then repeat that knot at #2 and learn a new knot, then at #3 repeat 1, 2 and learn new three. Because as in many things, repetition seals the memory. We have a wonderful training table.. an interactive knot board.. but I have noticed at shows that unless it is tended by someone the beginner is trying to memorize the shape and does not see the hand motions that result in the knot. So I suggest step by step photos at each station so they learn the most efficient moves to make the knot. At out last show a fellow had me do a step by step of the thump mat and before the end of the show he came back and gave me a plastic laminated 6 photo turorial with my hands making the knot. It is weather proof something like that could be tacked up to each station. Sounds like a fun project. Good Luck.
Roy
Thanks.Several people have giver ne some good ideas. Still looking for more and pictures.This is my winter project but I have to really get a move on.
Merry Christmas Fred Dant
Hi Threestrand,
For pictures try <www.animatedknots.com> and for hard copy see the excellent books by Mr. Budworth and Mr. Philpott as well as the Ashley Book of Knots. I think if this is a nature trail this need not be too complex a knotting tutorial but something light and fun. Keep us posted please.
I have quite an extensive library myself, but I was hoping to find some ideas on the physical characteristics of the stations. In other words, I want to steal someones ideas that have proven to work. In the past I have had people tell me of knot tying stations at parks they have visited, but don’t remember who they were or any details about them.
Fred
Fred,
From the reactions here I can see we are thinking along 2 different lines.
One is, there will be an event for which there will be manned knottying stations. So there can be set-ups that needs someone to keep an eye on it but that person can also teach.
The other, there will be stations placed along the trail and they will stay there a long time, un-manned. So the explanations need to be simple and self explanatory.
Can you tell us what kind of set-up you are going to make, that way we can help you better.
Willeke
This will be a series of permanent displays. During regular events I usually do demonstrations.I’ve always been suprised that very few adults seem as interested as the younger people, especially the Scouts.This is where I spend all my effort. Every once in a while I run across someone that has a real knack and interest for knots,and then I feel like all my effort for this lost art is worth while.I started splicing eyes for gas money at a marina for my boat when I was 8 years old.Also was a Boatswainmate in U.S.Navy,so I,m hooked on rope.
Fred
So you are looking for a set-up where there are simple drawings, do it yourself style, that older children will be able to understand and that parents maybe do with younger children.
The rope should be weather proof, sturdy and preferably vandals proof or not interesting to destroy.
For permanent posts you do not want to tie to the trees, but maybe you can use fence posts or lamp posts which are there for your posts.
If we work with these things in mind, maybe someone can remember a like set-up
And maybe we have some members who can sugest a list of knots and good drawings they use to teach children in a like situation.
Willeke
I had thought of stations on 4x4 posts, maybe with A-frame roof, to keep out of weather,and behind plexiglas .pictures/diagrams , and maybe knot in several stages of completion, then line attached to display where the knot could be tied.Stands could be for single knots or large enough for several knots . Of course , enough tying lines so more than one person can try the knot at one time.
HARK! Is that reindeer I hear on my roof? I’ve been good. Maybe Santa will leave me some good ideas.
Seasons Greetings to all.
Fred Dant
Wow!
You’ve proved it, I have been too close to Law Enforcement for TOO LONG!!
Your idea sounds like a collegiate “practical exam” for rapists, kidnappers, etc. not to mention Darwin Award candidates. No offense meant, please, but think about it…
If you keep the cordage out of the hands of the participants, how will they learn?
BUT…
If you let them fondle the cordage, what’s to stop them from trying out these nifty new knots they’ve just been taught on each other? ? ? ? ? ?
Okay, if you don’t naturally suspect your fellow humans of anything deviant, what about accidents??
[Kid]“Look, Ma! I just tied this … [i]GKKKKkkk[/i]!!!”
[Ma]“EEEEK! HELP!! My BABY!”
Please tell me you will have some supervision? I’ll do it, if need be!!
Take care,
Jimbo
(PS: A local neighborhood put up a “Nature Trail”, along which they installed “Fitness Stations” – pullup bars, aerobics accessories in 4x4 timbers, etc. every furlong or so. They were greatly heralded and admired. Within at most a day or two, local lovers were using the “Stations” to – shall we say – “practice the lessons of the Kama Sutra”. “Is that bar sticky from pine sap or … ??” The whole “affair” (pardon) is now a local joke.)
sounds like somebody,s doing new years eve a bit early
Fred
Unfortunately Jimbo is not doing “new years eve a bit early” but trying to post warnings to you. This is a sad comment on our times. But on the knotting front I think anything without a tutor or mentor will go astray, not from Jimbo’s safety issues but… Just think about your best knot and then think how far it is from the knotboard version of it. Maybe a knotting station is a sad idea, even without Jimbo’s safety tension. Knots are moving and dynamic.. knotbords are static and imutible. Good instruction must also be dynamic. Which knot boards are not.
I guess that because Jimbo said the excersise trail where he is located was being misused and you didn’t like his graphic expression you attributed his post to alcohol. You may well be correct in that but please give a thought to the root of his posting: Some people will find a way to missuse any public feature. Perhaps you thought his experience with it would not apply to the nature trail where you are. That would be good. I’ll be glad to hear back from you in a year or so as to what how the trail and display stations were used. I can think of places I’ve lived or visited where it would not go well at all. This is not to say that you should not make knot tying stations on your trail. I think it a grand idea. Maybe give Jimbo half a thought as you work out the stations and make the stations as safe as you can for unattended young people and not attractive to missuse by adults. It often seems that for every 10,000 people who appreciate and enjoy a site there will be 1 who will mark, distroy or disfigure it. I think that was Jimbo’s point. Therefore if you think about safety and vandalism as you design your stations you can make a better job than if you don’t. I’m sure a lot will depend on how you see public access facilities being used in your area.
It often seems that for every 10,000 people who appreciate and enjoy a site there will be 1 who will mark, distroy or disfigure it. I think that was Jimbo's point.That was it exactly, PABPRES. Would that there should be "only" one!
(The euphemistic warning was merely to dodge the speech police. The newspapers in my area were not so circumspect! The “Fitness Trail” is now a laughingstock, although some of us still discreetly enjoy it as designed…)
That and also the reality that a highly publicized disaster, however well-intentioned, would disgrace all knotters. We have enough problems with PR as it is, what with the BDSM crowd putting up nigh as many knotting sites as the salty crowd does… Recall, if you will, that knotting was once a capital offense, if some church leader saw you cleverly kinking cord! (I often wonder if they hung, drew, or garrotted people for “working knot magick”…)
But also, more personally, if there is such a place, on this lonely rock, in the 21st Christian Century, where one can develop nifty, useful public facilities without regard to misuse, abuse, or punitive lawsuits, I want to live there!! And I will gladly supervise, as I said, such a display!!
Regardless, I salute your efforts, and do indeed wish you the Very Best of safe, happy instruction!! I truly hope your display is the most popular feature of the museum! :-*
J
Happy New year to all.
Been gone a few days. My comment on Jimbo probably was not appropriate, and I do take his comments seriously. Safety is a very big concern of mine. I am also aware that some vandalism will occur. But most of my stations will be in open areas near other places of interest. I dont plan on having any of them out of sight
of the normal goings on. They will probably get used mostly at times when we have programs like our boat building week.
Still could use some more ideas.
Fred Dant
The knot stations should be to instruct novices in tying useful knots,
so I wonder how the Sheepshank will be seen to be in that set!
Six is a number of a suggested number of knot classes, or one can set
out to have examples of knot mechanisms.
Your best material might be a polyester rope sized 8 to 13 mm, for being able
to withstand the elements, and to be able to be untied after some jokers are
sure to tie and tighten knots in joyous vandalism. Or should the rope be some
cheaper variety in anticipation of simply quickly replacing such problems?
(Well, the nicer the rope, the more able it is to “walk” off with someone.)
The Sheet bend, maybe with different-sized ropes (and some words that point
to using the thinner rope to tie THIS part around THAT part and not vice versa
(“compare …”)!); and then the Bwl with some note about its similarity to the
Sheet Bend (guess that implies an order) and how the similar structure has force
on three instead of two ends.
The Fisherman’s knot which shows bringing knot halves to jam against each other.
Rosendahl’s bend to show that security & easy untying are not reciprocally exclusive
(also the Bwl shows this).
Some stopper knot. The Overhand and Figure Eight, maybe have each attempted
to be tied up close to something (maybe for Sheet Bend added security):
point is to show that former can be but latter (and most other stoppers) is hard
to tie snug to something.
Clove Hitch. Then try adding stopper. Then again, make simple knot with ends
and have Constrictor. Or bring end over cross turn and tuck, for near-Constrictor
#1674.
And a friction hitch (Rolling Hitch, Blake’s H.–which could be put in contrast to the
Anchor bend) will impress or surprise people the most, I think. Gripping isn’t generally
thought of as a knot function.
knudeNoggin