How Good Is Yu At Knots?

[TBow]

Just curious about yall's prowess at knot tying.

As a kid, I belonged to Cubs and Boy Scouts, and ya I had the scout manual with all the pictures of the various knots. Every so often we'd pull out rope pieces on meeting nights and try our hand at those fang-dangled clumps of rope that were suppoed to resemble the pics in the manual, but to be honest, my attention span just wasn't there and my resulting efforts always seemed to be "never-ending knot" topped off with the ever hard to undo "granny knot"!

Then when I garduated school, I went to work as a sailor for a year and a quarter with the Canadian Coast Guard, where, strange as it seems, all those scout training efforts actually came in handy. Although not proficient in my early sailoring days, I got better at it as it was now part of my job and the boatswain and officers would commit time for us newbies to pratice. Well I left the coast guard for a couple years then retruned back with the guard for over 35 more years. I was running small boats 9 months of the year and securing loads on helicopters and trucks where those elusive knots soon became 2nd nature to me. I even got pretty good at rope splicing. I recall on one moose hunting trip where we were using a dual tracked swamp buggy to retrieve a moose from a mile and a half back in the bush, that the V-belt broke on the fan/generator. The engine was overheating, the battery was just about dead and the rig wouldn't run. We were 40 miles from the nearest town with a moose carcass heating up in the back of the buggy. No time to doddle! I took a piece of 5/16" rope, spliced it into a knotless loop and mounted it back to replace the V-belt. It didn't have to last a long time, just enough to get us back to the road and out of the wilderness we seemed to be stuck in. It actually worked. Thank you knot tying lessons!

And of course 45 years of hunting in the great out doors had many occassions to use those rope tying skills too. I may knot (pun intended) be a master knotsman, but I like to think I can handle myself around a rope better than the average person. I guess I'd say on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best), I'd like to think I'm around an 8 or 8.5.....at knot tying that is!

So how are y'all with a chunk of rope? How many of y'all are ex-Scouts....or Guides?

TBow

[hungry hunter]

Former Life Scout, Retired Navy, have tied a few knots. Favorite is Bolin.

[gzilla45]

My knot tying skills were learned in Cub scouts and honestly I was never good at it. There have been many occassions while hunting or camping that I wish I knew how to tie good knots though.

[Jeramie]

Im not a professional by any means but I tie quite a few different knots. I had to learn from tieing down hay, tieing up horses, hanging deer, using rope to tow/ drag, etc. I have a pretty big mental playbook I use on various things.

[Tominator]

Got pretty good with marlinspike when I was in the service. I still commonly tie bolins, figure 8's, squares, and clove hitches. I taught Ohiobucks how to tie a timber hitch to use when dragging a deer out with an ATV, I'm sure he still remembers. I can still tie a few others, but my favorite, almost useless knots are the merchant's knot, thieve's knot, sheepshank and the might knot.

And, if all else fails, you can tie a favorite of a bos'n I knew in the service. His motto was "thirteen half-hitches will hold anything."

[Rhino]

I'm not a professional either. I was in the scouts many years ago & use some of those for towing, etc. too. I also know my fishing knots.

[dbHunterNY]

I know how to tie somewhere around ten legit knots. Don't do much to need more than that. Coolest one is used to skid out small timber and still be able to get it untied by pulling with one hand. I don't know what it's called. My bad with the names.

[Ultradog]

My uncle who was a WWII Navy Vet drove me to the station the day I was sworn in and left for Navy bootcamp. I remember on the drive there he gave me a little pep talk about the Navy and a part of it was mentioning all the good it had done him later in life.

Among other things he mentioned, "I can still tie a knot that you can use to pull a pipe or rod straight up out of the ground and it wont slip off".

I learned later that he was talking about a clove hitch with a few half hitches behind it.

Nowadays I don't use my knot skills too often but it seems that every time I do tie a good knot I think of my now deceased Uncle Bernard.

I can still tie a good bowlin, and occasionally use a clove hitch.

I can also still weave an eye in the end of a rope and make a turks head to keep a rope from fraying.

[Tominator]

Coolest one is used to skid out small timber and still be able to get it untied by pulling with one hand. I don't know what it's called. My bad with the names.

Sounds like a merchant's knot, and yep, it's cool. :cool2:

"I can still tie a knot that you can use to pull a pipe or rod straight up out of the ground and it wont slip off".

I learned later that he was talking about a clove hitch with a few half hitches behind it.

.

Sounds like a timber hitch. Never did learn how to splice a line or make a turks head, that's a very useful skill though.

[Ultradog]

I could short splice but never make a long splice.

As for the usefulness of a turks head well...

In today's world of nylon and polypropylene rope there's not much need for a turks head.

A propane torch to melt the end is so much quicker.

[Adjam5]

Part of what I do is pull wire for a living. Knots and working with rope are a everyday thing.

Bolins, squares and half hitches are the most used on the job for hoisting and wire pulling.

[bowhuntMN]

I learned quite a few knots while at fire school in our fire fighter 1 and 2 classes and rescue-basic. Can't say i've used them all in real-life situations but I almost always use a clove hitch when raising and lowering my gun or bow from a treestand. It's a simple knot and it holds well for what I need it to do. But like one of my classmates says, "If you can't tie a knot, tie a lot."

[Flintlock1776]

Career requirement for me.

Here's a brief outline that may be of help

http://www.google.com/search?q=tying+knots&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uL2wTcfiIsLIgQernOGMDA&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1680&bih=961

Edited April 21, 2011 by Flintlock1776

[Leo]

I can do pretty good with knots. Used to tie all the rigs and do the first mate thing for offshore saltwater tournaments. That also included twisting wire rigs out of monel which isn't as easy as people think.

I also make stuff out of paracord. Here is one of the collars I tied for one of my dogs.

This turkey has a tote I made attached to him. With it you carry the tom out like a mailbag. Easy way to carry a turkey and keeps your hands free.