I’m a complete novice at tying knots having only recently become interested in the genre. I find that tying a knot in a piece of paracord while waiting for, say a dental appointment or the like, to be wonderfully calming.
I’ve been lurking here awhile and have absorbed a lot of ‘knotty’ information, but I still find that in any given scenario which requires a knot, I am sometimes at a loss to know which is the best one to use, because there are so many to choose from.
So, may I make so bold as to ask the following question -
supposing that some higher power decreed that you would only be allowed to use 5 knots for the remainder of your life, which 5 would cover all contingencies, or if indeed 5 would be enough?
That’s a little like asking which 20 English words you need to know to cover all contingencies. After stumbling long enough, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that it’s easier to learn more words. ;D
But since you’re a beginner, maybe you can start learning the language of knots with some simple ones, and then branch out from there:
Hi, Festy. I’m pretty new to knot tying myself, and while I think Roo’s analogy about English words is a good one, I can resonate with this question. I’ve learned about 70 knots at this point, so hopefully these choices come from enough of a breadth of options to be a decent selection, but I have a smaller list of 20 that cover pretty much every situation I can imagine encountering (e.g., I’m not a climber, so I’m not likely to need to Prusik my way to safety), so in my opinion you wouldn’t need to expand your knot vocabulary too much farther to really have most of your bases covered (knots reliable enough to trust with your life, double and triple loops, more specialized binders, etc.).
I recommend the following, and I’ll give my reasons for each. The limitation of your question is that I’m choosing these as the knots a person might find most useful in daily life (the majority of the time). Obviously, if you want to get into sailing or rock climbing, you’ll have to get more specialized.
Bowline - best all-purpose loop knot, easy to tie; I have to have a particular reason to use a different loop knot
Double sheet bend - a good multipurpose way to join to ropes that will accommodate a difference in diameter between the ropes (larger one forms the U, smaller one does the wraps); the double is almost as quick and easy to tie as the single, and will hold reliably in a broader variety of situations
Reef knot - my most frequently used binding knot, the easiest and best suited to most day-to-day use; there are better binders for various situations, but very often, the reef knot will do; it’s worth knowing the difference between this and the granny knot because the latter is unreliable and can jam
Round turn and two half-hitches - works around pretty much any object, and possible to tie under strain, which I find is often the case (you’re hoisting something or suspending something or trying to maintain tension in the line when it’s tied off)
Adjustable grip hitch - a good tension knot (better than the tautline in my opinion) that provides enough tension and grip for most things I ever need to do; I have also used it as a binding knot for cinching tight around a bundle or similar thing; if you have a pick-up and need to tie things down really tight somewhat often, substitute the trucker’s hitch
I went back and forth on this. I love the zeppelin bend, and whenever I’m bending the working ends of two lines, I prefer to use the zeppelin bend: I think it’s elegant, it just won’t let go, you can always undo it easily, etc. I wasn’t confident I could speak to whether the zeppelin can deal with lines of different diameters. I’ve seen references to double wrapping just the smaller line when there’s a great difference; how great a difference can the normal single wraps accommodate?
The thing about the sheet bend is that it’s so versatile. The zeppelin bend is limited to two working ends (as far as I know), whereas anywhere you can make a bight, you can tie a sheet bend, including the mid-span sheet bend, which is tied using only bights in the middle of two ropes. You can use it to bend a working end to a loop, bend two loops together, tie two lines into one bight to make a three-way sheet bend, etc. I’ve found a surprising number of situations in which I couldn’t use a zeppelin and a sheet bend did the job. I wanted to choose just one bend to recommend, so I picked that one.
Festy, my apologies, I realized rereading your post that I misinterpreted your question somewhat. It sounds like you know a number of knots, and your question is about which knot to select for a given application.
I recommend picking favorites as you go. Sometimes several knots will do the same job, so you need a non-practical reason to choose one over the others. If I consciously label a knot as a favorite (either because it is the one best suited to a task, or because out of the ones that will work I prefer it for reasons of familiarity or aesthetics), it comes to mind more readily, and the others fade into the background because, in a sense, I have given myself permission to forget about them, with the confidence that I can meet my needs without them.
I actually have a list of all the knots I know, broken up into categories, with my favorites highlighted. I keep the non-highlighted ones out of interest, but I practice and mostly use my favorites. For example, when I think of hitches, all things being equal, I would prefer to use a slipped buntline: it holds pretty much no matter what and can accommodate just about any shape object, but mostly I just like tying it. A gnat hitch will do basically the same job, but I simply don’t enjoy tying it for whatever reason, so I don’t bother with it.
Anyway, I think taking the time to go through the list of all the ones you know and allowing yourself to basically develop an affinity for particular ones may help with the selection process in the moment. I haven’t forgotten how to tie the others on my list, I just don’t need them coming to mind most of the time.
I am not sure that all the knots you mention are “proper” Sheet bends… Is the Blackwall hitch a Sheet-bend-based hitch ?
Anyway, I see your point. The Zeppelin knot is a beautiful pure symmetric bend bend ( end-to-end knot ), and the desperate attempts ( by people who have not been able to understand how it works ) to deform it badly, and then utilize what is left out of it as an ugly loop ( the fake, so-called “Zeppelin loop” ), had failed miserably - despite the systematic advertising here and there in the web.
Perhaps you should also use, as arguments in favour of the Sheet bend, the most simple symmetric bend there is ( and can be ), the Symmetric Sheet bend (1), or the bowline-like ( post-eye-tiable ) eyeknot, the Sheet bend “bowline” (2), because it can serve as a lockable slide-and-grip loop (3).
Roo: I looked up the links you gave and I never knew that the bowline is not a secure knot under certain circumstances. I’ve read that some people call it the ‘King of Knots’ but it’s amazing what you find out when you ask the right person.
Luca: I’ve shown your knot to my boss and hopefully he’ll try it out soon (only joking)
Erizo1: wow, 70 knots, I’d know very few compared to that. The ‘round turn with 2 half hitches’ is amazing, it hardly seems to be a knot at all and yet it’s grip is powerful.
Another question, this time about the Zeppelin knot that you guys all seem to think highly of: can it be used instead of the bowline setup which features in this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EyfYyJkZss?
That is to say can you start with a ‘double Zeppelin’ and the two more ‘Zeppelins’ at waist and chest? If yes, is there a link to show how they are tied?
Don’t be too impressed with 70 knots, there seem to be a lot of people on this forum who have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Ashley Book of Knots (ABOK) which has thousands
P.S. It may be instructive tie a Double Zeppelin Bend to see this extra step (carried out with on both halves of the knot, instead of just one): http://notableknotindex.webs.com/Zeppelin.html
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You’re the only one who refuses to see the correspondence between the Zeppelin Bend and the Zeppelin Loop. Get over it already. Do we really have to hear the same nutty line every time someone discusses the Zeppelin Loop?
That’s not a bad list. What’s funny is that most of those knots are not my “favorite” for their category, and in reality I would most often be using different knots for the particular purpose because in reality I have memorized a multitude of other knots that are specialized for niche applications. However, versatility is essential when there are only five slots. Each knot should have a broad range of capabilities, as those knots do.
1. Blackwall hitch.. 2. Gleipnir. 3. Bowline. 4. Zeppelin knot. 5. Round turn and two half hitches. 6. Alpine Butterfly midline loop. 7. One knot you are going to figure out and tie by yourself.
Regarding number #7, I do not mean a “new”, or even a “good” or a “nice” knot ! I mean a knot that one would tie by just playing with the ropes, trying to figure out a simple enough and stable tangle, where the tail(s) will not slip out of the knot s nub too easily. It may be a new or an already known to everybody knot, a good or a bad knot, a nice or an ugly knot, it does nt matter ! The important thing is that this will show to the novice knot tier that knot tying is not rocket science, that knots are very simple rope-made mechanisms that can easily be explained / understood, and that everybody can enjoy knotting.
