User:SnowyCinema/Boys' Life/Volume 1/Knots Worth Knowing

KNOTS WORTH KNOWING

How to Tie Some Useful Knots

Several of the finest knots known to sailors, scaffolders, steeple-jacks, and the like, will be described and illustrated in these little articles.

They are contrived so as to hold securely and not to slip, while they can be loosened very quickly even after they have been drawn very tight. And they are quite easy to make. A sharp chap will master each knot pretty quickly by practicing the knots with a piece of new cord or rope.

In the explanations which are given the standing part of a rope means the main part, or long portion; the loop (most knots begin with a loop) is termed the bight, and the short part of the rope, which is used in forming the knots, is called the end.

{image}

{image caption="Overhand knots."}

The commonest knot that is made is the overhand knot. The standing part of the rope is held in the left hand, while the end is passed back over it and put through the bight.

Thousands of people are unable to tie any other knot. It is a good enough knot for some ordinary purposes, and it can be tied in a second, but it has serious faults—it jams when drawn very tight, and the rope, when a lot of weight is thrown upon it, is liable to part where the knot is, on account of the turns being so short.

The overhand knot is often used at the end of a rope to prevent the strands from fraying out, and it sometimes comes handy when a large knot is required at the end of a rope as a stopper knot.

In forming the knot, if you pass the end of the cord twice through the loop before pulling it tight you get the double overhand knot; by passing the end through three times you get the treble knot, and so on. These trebles and fourfold knots are used on the thongs of whips, and they look very firm and neat.

(We shall tell you in each issue how to tie a fresh knot. Learn this one before the next appears.)