Friday 4 March 2011

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.

10 comments:

How to Macrame said...

what a real work of art! I just love the diagram of the foam covered form, it really shows the detail needed to create this piece. thanks for such helpful photos!

Knotty Bear said...

Thank you for your kind comments, and I am glad to have been some help.
Take care,
Barry

Yuriy said...

I like the knot! You are hero for sharing such useful and wonderful information

Knotty Bear said...

Thank you for your Kind Comment Yuriy, though I think "Hero" should be reserved for the likes of people saving lives and serving their countries in times of conflict.
But much appreciated in anycase ;-)

Take care,
Barry ;-)

Anonymous said...

I ve just started.Wish me good luck!

http://up.picr.de/8301223vtd.jpg

Knotty Bear said...

Good Luck Stefanos.
I look forward to seeing the finished Item.

Take care,
Barry ;-)

George said...

Impressive work Barry, I was working on an extra wide herringbone (gaucho) design last summer:

http://whatknotnow.blogspot.com/2011/08/herringbone-weave-turks-head-knot-extra.html

not quite as involved but this required four attempts to get it to come out correctly. The customer wanted four of them!

nice work!

George

Knotty Bear said...

How Do George ;-)
Thank you for you kind comment; much appreciated!
The wide Gaucho knot is a very handsome looking knot, I used two pretty much identical knots on the ends of the grip of my Fluo Ditty Bag handle,you can see it on this page: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ropeandcanvas/page3.html However they are tied freehand and directly to the grip by the braiding method; I have never been a big fan of pins and grids, though you may think different from the above post;-)
Sometimes you just have to use them!
Take care,
Barry ;-)

Anonymous said...

Hello Barry,
As fellow knottier I realize how much of you soul went into this work of art. So, I want to if you sold this and for how much. If you don't mind my asking.

Knotty Bear said...

To me, something is worth what I am willing to pay for it, since this item was not made to sell I did not put a price on it nor document the time taken exactly.
So all I can say is how much would you be willing to pay for it? That would be what it is worth to you.
For me it is a case of, if you make me an offer for an item and I am happy with that offer, regardless of its true value in man hours, materials etc, then that is how much, but I can't give you a figure for this item, sorry.