New answers tagged knots
2
Try a sheep shank to create a loop, then run round the peg and tie off. This gives you an easily tensioned and tied off pulley system.
You could also use a truckers hitch in much the same way, but my scout leader was a fan of the sheep shank and it's rubbed off on me.
It's slightly slower to adjust than a midshipman's hitch but it also holds better under ...
1
I’ve experimented with this a bit. We tried pulling the knot really tight or leaving it really loose. It turned out that pulling it relatively tight (but not too tight) works best.
It also makes a huge difference how you start untying. Start with wiggling/folding the parallel loops where the end of the rope comes out. Once you get a tiny bit of room you can ...
5
First, try with more 'coils', when you tie the taut-line hitch; every coil adds some friction.
An alternative, that I, myself, like a lot, since I find it easier to tie, is the Farrimond Friction Hitch. And again here, if your rope is slippery, wet or stiff, add some more loops/coils, and make sure you 'dress' the hitch so it's good and tight.
A major ...
-1
This is what a marlin spike is for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlinspike
It's not special purpose just for figure 8 knots, but is a general tool for tight knots.
Dates back to the age of sail, when natural cordage would get pulled tight then got wet and would swell.
6
It appears to be an Anchor Bend, which Wikipedia lists as being #1723, #1841 in ABoK.
(Anchor Bend knot, Public Domain from Wikipedia)
I found it by initially thinking the knot in your picture looked a little like a round turn with two half hitches, but with only one half hitch, and it being through the wrong place. That page on Wikipedia though led me to ...
4
The figure-8 knot is characteristically hard to untie after falls. What many climbers do is, once the knot is done, to come back with the end of the rope inside the last bight - this is a sort of Yosemite finish. It makes the knot easier to untie, since after removing the extra strand, a lot of room is left for the rope to be untied (picture here). Andy ...
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