Hi All
As most of us know, the transom knot is really the strangle knot with an extra cylinder slipped in directly under the nip and perpendicular to the original cylinder. So that’s fine if you can either tie a strangle knot in the hand and slip it on, or tie directly on the first item and insert the other.
However, I was annoyed/embarrassed to find myself unprepared for the case where the two cylinders (steel pipes in my case) were aligned very precisely and I didn’t wish to move either but merely bind them to prevent them being knocked out of alignment during loading (with firewood). Short of daylight/time I used a cable tie and hid my face with shame.
That was long ago, but the shame still burns, so last night, based on drawings/photographs of the half-formed knot, I taught myself to do it (in the hand, since that’s convenient, but “pretending” the ends weren’t accessible).
I’ve learned it, but I’m not happy with what I came up with. It feels awkward/unnatural, so I’m hoping there’s a nicer way to tie it that I’ve missed. Or failing that, some refinement in technique. So all suggestions welcome.
Here’s how I do it (I’m right-handed):
[ol]- Hold one small-diameter (1-3cm) stick vertically in the left hand, and another similar stick horizontally on top, holding it in place with your thumb.
- Pin the cordage under your thumb with the standing part hanging down vertically. Allow a long working end since the entire knot will be tied with it.
- Take a turn with the working end behind the upright above the crossing point of the sticks, going behind on the right-hand side and coming back out on the left-hand side.
- Drape it down diagonally, loosely across your thumb, from upper left to lower right.
- Repeat the turn on the bottom part of the upright, below the crossing point of the sticks, just as you did above it.
- Go over the standing part and up and under the crossing diagonal, just to the right of your thumb.
- Continue under the right-hand strand of the upper “collar” just above the tip of your thumb.
- Check that the standing part and the working end are both in the middle of the two collars.
- Carefully work the knot together as you withdraw your thumb.[/ol]
Generally the two cylinders will not need holding if the ends are inaccessible, but this procedure is just to understand the knot in a way that hopefully can be adapted to cylinders arranged in various axes.