I'm with everyone else on the Animate knots page! I also printed and laminated a card about 3.5 size with a reference guide for 40 + common knots. That cheat-card stays in my pack.
I'm with everyone else on the Animate knots page! I also printed and laminated a card about 3.5 size with a reference guide for 40 + common knots. That cheat-card stays in my pack.
I'm embarrassed to say that animate knots is new to me, I'll rectify that ASAP.
You can't beat Ashley's Book of Knots....it is the knot tiers bible!
Ashley is a great book.
However, The Marlinspike Sailor by Hervey Garret Smith is an excellent book as well. Smith's writing style is also quite entertaining.
It's been a decade or two, but I seem to recall the Boy Scout Handbook had some pretty good information in it.
Last edited by bacon_grease; 03-23-2012 at 20:55.
ABOK , Ashley Book of Knots, is regarded as a standard reference and an master work. However it is not a small book to be carried around. Animated Knots, as mentioned is a good web site but you can also order a cd/dvd that can be carried around and used off line on a laptop.
Geoffrey Budworth an Des Pawson have both published several knot books, some are better than others and or cover a greater variety of knots in one volume than other of his books. Just search for their books on google or at your favorite book book web site to find which of their books meet your needs or which are still in print. Some are the size of paperback novels others the size of a large magazine. Some have drawings and others are all pictures of the knots tied using contrasting colors of line. I recommend either of them for well illustrated books that are small enough to carry around.
If you are looking for an on-line source there are a couple of good places. David Root at one time had a web site under the url of layhands.com. The illustrations were excellent. One of the great thing was that at one time you could download a zip file from that web site, called usefulropeknots.zip, and then after unzipping the file you could click on the appropriate .htm index file for the category of knot you were interested in and while off line view the same web pages off line. ( I have the 4.2mB zipped file, downloaded in 2009, send me a PM if you would like me to try an email it to you)
However, that web site with the link to download the zipped file appears to have recently gone away.
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3752.0
David Root has a new web page that appears to have the same information , minus the link to download the zipped file. ( or at least I haven't spotted it yet on the new url. Here
http://daveroot.co.cc/Knots/Knots_KnotsIndex.htm
DR also has a program which can be downloaded called Knotmaker, I have not tried it. Here is the link
http://daveroot.co.cc/KnotMaker/
Wikipedia has a large list of knots, some are very well illustrated, others not so much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_knots
Anyway, either the Budworth or Pawson books may be closer to what you are looking for. If a certain title is out of print they may be found on used book sites. Other than that if you have a iPod or similar there are several programs that can be downloaded that are pretty good. I think I have 3 different ones on my iPod/iPad. You might find some of them useful. If I recall correctly some were free and the others were inexpensive.
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