July 29, 2016. September 7, 2017. 

 Eric Rasmusen's notes on knots.

Knots are fun to play around with. If you have a shoelace in your pocket they can provide edifying amusement during odd moments. This file is for some of my thoughts on knots. 

 One way to learn knots is to learn a Knot Family. Four  of them are the Overhand, Figure Eight,  Sheet Bend, and Double Diamond families. 

The overhand family is simplest. I cannot describe how to tie knots in a text file, so you will have to look up what it is, but one might say the overhand knot is the most obvious knot anyone might tie. It is the same as the HALF HITCH, I think, and the TWO HALF HITCHES is a double overhand knot.  

A STOPPER KNOT puts a big knot in a rope so it can't slip through another knot you're making. The double overhand knot serves well. 

A BEND ties together two ropes. For the  FISHERMAN'S KNOT, you tie the first rope in an overhand knot around the second, and the second in an overhand knot around the first, and then slide the knots together. Each slides individually, but they block each other's sliding. This is hard to untie, though. If you intend to untie, use  a sheet bend. 

A LOOP makes a fixed loop (not a sliding noose). The DOUBLED-UP OVERHAND KNOT does that (my name). You fold the rope over, doubling it up, and then tie a single overhand knot. That makes a loop. 

A NOOSE make a sliding loop that pulls tight. You can make a good noose by making a  "bight" (a curve) in the rope and then tying a couple of overhand loops around the bottom of the bight and threading the end through the two loops.  You can even do it with just one overhand loop, in which case you have a SLIP KNOT which would vanish if you pulled both ends as far as you could but just is a noose that gets smaller if there is something inside it like a finger. You can also tie a slip knot by tying an overhand knot with the bight (loop) in the last hole instead of the end of the rope. 

A TENSION KNOT makes a loop that doesn't pull tight when you pull on the standing end (the long part) but does allow you to slide the knot along if you pull on the loop end and push on the knot. The TAUTLINE HITCH is the best known, but it isn't in the overhand family. Instead, start the same as the NOOSE above, but instead of threading the end through the two loops, tie an overhand knot around one section of the rope at the end.  The TRUCKER'S HITCH is a tension knot with leverage. You tie one end of the rope to the first thing you're trying to connect, using any knot you like,  and then make a loop knot in the middle, using any kind of loop knot. Then take the end and put it around the second thing you're trying to connect and up back through your loop and down to the second thing you're connecting. You can pull on the end and get this very tight, and then tie it down any  kind of knot you like as the final step. 

A HITCH ties a rope to something else--  a tree, for example. The CONSTRICTOR KNOT could be considered part of the overhand family, I guess. 

     Climbers use Figure Eight knots because, I think, they are easier to untie. 

That's it for the overhand family. 

It is neat that a BOWLINE KNOT is just a SHEET BEND where instead of two ropes, you act as if a bight in one rope is in another rope. So if you want to make a loop, you can make a bowline knot by just tying a sheet bend in the middle of it. You can even use just the middle of the rope, not either end, by tying a sheet bend with two bights--- the one you always need for a sheet bend, adn then make the end yuo thread through it to be a bight too. That gives you two loops when you're done,too, a big one and a little one. 

The KLEIMHEIST knot is easier than the PRUSIK KNOT and better, and can be used  in ascending a rope. 

The SWISS BUTTERFLY is a fun way to make a loop.  You take a big bight, and then twist it twice. Then you take the bight part and thread it back up into one  of the two  holes the twisting made. 



KNOTS. 
  Make a knot website. For each knot, include Speed of Tying, Speed of Untying, Ease of Untying, Difficulty to Learn, Breaking strength, Family (figure 8, etc.), Purpose (bend, etc.), 
How to Tie,good web pictures, Misc. notes. 


KNOTS
 Use the overhand knot family. 
Adjustable grip hitch replaces tautline
 Double overhand sliding loop replace hangman’s noose. 
 They are very similar. Make a bight (loop). Frot he grip hitch, go around the stnding end twice and then go around BOTH sides of hte bight adn tuck it back in through the last loop.  For the sliding loop, go around BOTH sides of hte loop three times and the third time thread it through the two loops you’ll have. 
      The fisherman’s knot is a good bend for when you don’t need to untie later. Just a single overhand on each side and then tighten. 
   The double sheet bend is better than the sheet bend--- at the end, loop around first beofre the tighening slide-trhough. 
     The doubled up overhand creates a loop. That is called the overhand loop knot. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular--- hard to untie, I think. The bowline is easier to untie. 
  The doubled up overhand loop makes a good stopper. It also makes a good bend (the loop falls apart then because it is made up of the two ends). 
   Use the word “doubled up” for when two lengths of the string are used. 
 The overhand knot makes a hitch too. Doing a double overhand knot  around a post makes a noose. 

The Klemheist is easier to tie and to untie than the Prusik.  

http://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/cr_most-useful-knots.html

WhatKnotToDo is a good iphone app 

See https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/explode.htm