Fire Dept, some 30 plus yrs ago
Fire Dept, some 30 plus yrs ago
There's really only about 3 I use...Marlin Spike, lark's head and 2 half hitches...look here http://www.animatedknots.com
First from my dad and then more in Boy Scouts.
Well, first my folks; you've got to learn the shoelaces, for certain.
Then, a couple of years in Cub Scouts (never made it all the way into Boy Scouts; baseball was more interesting to me at that age) taught me half-hitches and square knots.
Then, a couple of years in Army JROTC in high school taught me the basic knots for doing a rope bridge. Cow hitch for the tensioner, and how to tie a slippery half-hitch. Also learned (and promptly forgot; I need to relearn it) how to make a Swiss seat harness.
Then, camping occasionally and coming here has taught me the rest. +1 on animatedknots.com. Wonderful resource.
double knot Kindergarten teacher (bless her patience), fly-fishing knots (dad), trucker's hitch (father in law) for attaching canoes to truck racks, bowline (bow hunting mentor) for tying in to tree stand and whoopies (great folks at Hammock forum). I'm thankful for all these great mentors!
I have learned, and will learn a new knot from any source I can. Even decorative ones. Enjoy looking through knot books too. Especially the Ashley Book of Knots. Wow!
My favorite way is to sit with a knot guru that will show me so I can ask about related knots and learn variations all together. Only problem is remembering them all. If I don't use them, I lose them.
Ummm... here.
Reading through HF I was slapped upside the head with all kinds of knots, bends and hitches that I had no idea what they were, but everyone else seemed to know and use them.
So I looked up a bunch of them on the intarwebs and now I know a few. ...I think, until I have to use them and notice that I forgot most of them.
That is a great avatar, Pretbek!
I learned the basics (square, two half-hitches, taut-line) in scouting a long time ago. Then the Army taught me the one-handed bowline. After I became a Scout leader and had to teach a few, I looked up knots online to figure out the ones the boys needed to learn. THEN I was hooked!
Then HF- opened up new worlds. Like bushcraft knots for tarp lines (powercinch and siberian hitch, anyone?). Prussiks, marlin spike hitch, monkey's fist, survival paracord bracelets, braiding hair, ..... oh wait. Those last few were for my daughter.
I was the only kid in kindergarten that could tie my own shoes... so i was also tying everybody elses... I guess that in itself shows how i liked tying things from an early age. Roll on 20 years and i have been and still am in the Scouts, and my interest in ropework continued throughout and i now own a couple of books as well as spending FAR too long on the internerds learning more and more about it. I knew what a whoopie sling was before i even dreamt of starting to hang in a hammock (which is still a dream for no more than another months when i have some money to buy a WBBB(i do have a homemade jobbie, but nowhere to hang it...)). I sit for hours in the loungeroom making a mess with trimmings of ropes as i splice and tie and just generally fiddle... I just love rope!
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