Knotsam & Jetsam.

How Do All ;-)

Nothing much happening at the moment, so just to fill some space, here is a few pictures of a new key lanyard I just made.

When I used to cycle on one of those strange upright bike contraptions, I used to like having my keys to hand, attached to the outside of my rucksack so I did not have to take my bag off to get the keys out and open the gate and back door. 

The buttoned end of the lanyard was attached to the D ring on the shoulder strap, and the keys sat in the side pole pocket. 

Though I ride a proper bike now and don't need to wear the pack, I still like to carry a nice bit of knot work with me ;-)

The end of the lanyard has a 4 strand round sinnet eye which attaches to the key fob, followed by an 8 strands square sinnet. then a split button hole of two 4 strand round sinnets, a short 8 strand square sinnet and a fancy complex button knot.

The cord used is 2mm diameter. and the dragon fly brooch is an optional extra! (really just there for some pretty in the photos ;-)

The key fob is my old trusty double ender! made from scrap recycled, UV reactive Diabolo string.

Lanyard is about 650mm total length.

An 8 strand square sinnet bracelet in 1mm line with a complex button knot.

An old Mothers day gift which I stole back to get a picture, a complex crown knot button, Sunflower ABOK #900 in 3 mm cord, fully stiffened, also with one of my Dragonfly brooches.

A selection of my Dragonfly brooches, in 2mm line, fully stiffened, with a brooch pin incorporated into the knot work, much neater than gluing it on the back.

Thank you for looking.

Take care,

Barry ;-)

A “Single” Strand, Extended Version of ABOK #1389.

 

Yup’ that’s right a single strand version of the two strand knot found in “The Ashley Book of Knots” ABOK as it is known amongst us Knot Freaks.

The knot is shown in the book as knot #1389 in the Turk’s-Head section though not really a Turk’s– Head except in the definition that it is a continuous cylindrical braid.

This knot is related to ABOK #3054; a 17 strand half round sinnet.

ABOK #1389 is actually a two strand knot consisting of an underlying 6 part Turk’s-Head which is then interwoven with another 11 parts; making this a 17 part knot.

We have the very clever French man Norbert Trupiano to thank for working out the trick to make this knot work as a single strand knot, and Charles Hamel for publishing Norbert’s findings.
Please see Charles Website were you will be able to find more information.

The original Diagram as shown in ABOK has only 14 bights on the edges of the diagram, this extended knot as pictured above left uses a diagram with 98 bights on the edges of the diagram.

I was the second person in the world to have tied this knot in its extended single strand version?
And after tying it I can see why ;-)

Anyone else tried it yet?

How Did I Do It.

But first: I must say thank you to Norbert Trupiano for making this version of the impossible knot possible, and thank you to Charles Hamel for publishing the needed information to get a good start, and also thank you to Ognyan Savov and Alain Legeay for bringing this knot to my attention.
First off; I decided to make a small 50 bight version to see how it would work out and get a feel for the cord length.
The diagram I used was copied from ABOK and resized to suit making a pattern with 50 outer bights, which I pinned to a foam covered tube of the right size to fit the circumference of the joined pattern and then tied the knot you see pictured on the left in 1.2mm hollow nylon braid.
I started with about 8 meters of cord most of which was wasted after tightening the knot fully. The finished knot is about 40mm I/D.

Now for the real deal!
I resized and printed Norbert’s pattern to make a cylinder of 220mm with 98 outer bights on the pattern, I stuck this onto my foam covered form and put in the pins for the base knot, this I tied in blue nylon twine.
I then followed the rest of the pattern with the 1.2mm diameter, hollow Nylon cord.
See the picture below of this stage complete.

On its side you can see the 492 pins I used to keep everything in place ;-/ no easy task making this knot I can tell you!

After completing the interwoven part of the knot, I then replaced the blue nylon guide twine of the base knot with the white nylon cord used to tie the interwoven part, now making this a single strand knot.
You can see the completed knot on the form below, isn’t it funny how someone always manages to cut off your head in photos ;-)

Once we got this far; there was no turning back, I just had to finish it, so after checking for errors I pulled the pins and started the arduous task of tightening this beast up.
It took a fair while to get it down from 220mm diameter to just 75mm inside diameter, and after all that effort you can se the finished result below.
I started with around 20 meters of cord and after completing the knot I had just over 13 meters or so left.
I hope you like?
Please; if you do have a go at this knot; let me know how you get on.

Below: you can see the finished bracelet pictured with one of the gorgeous tools PJ made for me.