truckers hitch for tarp ridgelines
taut line hitch for tarp tie-outs
prussiks for hanging tarp from ridgeline
sheet bend for tarp tie-outs
bowline for making easy-to-remove loops
larks-head for using those loops to attach to things
Mountaineering and Freedom of the Hills is a basic resource about all things woodcraft, hiking, climbing...
I can tie a monkey's fist. Which is mostly handy as a party trick, and those really rare occasions when I need to toss a line across a distance, and have three minutes to prepare. Possibly why I don't attend a lot of parties.
I find it works great with any kind of twine or rope so long as there is something for the knot to bite on.
Something ultra smooth like monofilament line or dental floss and the knot slips all the way down under load.
Something semi-smooth like the white twine you find for tying down loads an many build material stores might require a 4th loop to get enough to bite.
It's not quite a taut-line hitch... at least not this one.
The taut-line hitch is a little more complicated because the 1st two loops around the standing end go INSIDE the bight advancing toward the bight.
But with the knot I'm describing, it's three (or more) loops around the standing end in the direction away from the bight. Then feed the working end thru the bight and back.
I'm a sailor and there are a lot of different knots used on sailboats. However, for hiking so far, I haven't used anything other than a bowline and a square knot.
There are a lot of small books and even pamphlets that list knots and how to tie them.
I would say all outdoorsman (not just hikers), need to know the bowline, the tautline hitch, half hitches, clove hitch, sheet bend, square knot, overhand or figure eight loop, and the trucker's hitch (which requires knowledge of a loop knot and half hitches).
(those happen to be 5 of the 6 required Boy Scout knots, with the truckers hitch and loop knots added). The other BSA knot is the timber hitch, which I have never used outside of showing Scouts how to tie it. The others are in my outdoor repertoire.
Time is but the stream I go afishin' in.
Thoreau
Another one that is super handy for splicing very dissimilar pieces together is the Albright Knot. I used it recently to join together some 5/8" webbing and some 2.2mm cord.
Edit to add: I don't think it needs 10 wraps of the smaller cord in order to work well... I used only 5 for my application, which was joining bear bag line to the webbing.
Last edited by cmoulder; 05-02-2017 at 16:27.
Truckers hitch is probably the most useful knot I ever learned. If you need to cinch something down this is the one to do it with.
I will give you the most leverage than you can get with just rope.
Very easy to master after a couple tries.
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I find myself using a tautline hitch all the time, and an occasional square not, clove hitch, or basic overhand knot. Most of the others I haven't used in long enough that I'm probably very rusty.
Diamond knots are the spawn of Satan
You can walk in another person's shoes, but only with your feet
Thats not an improved clinch knot. Here is a link to a picture of an improved clinch knot.
https://www.google.com/search?q=impr...YO3X0Zch57qHM:
Grogs Animated knots is an excellent knot tying app.
http://www.animatedknots.com/iphoned...hp#ScrollPoint
Any of the basic 5 scout knots.
Square
Bowline
Clove hitch
Tautline hitch
Two half hitches
It looks like I'm pretty much talking about a type of "improved clinch knot" (specifically this one, but NOT this one... the difference being which side of the bight the working end goes thru).
The biggest difference is that you DO NOT pull the knot all the way down, you instead use it as a slider knot.
My version of a trucker's hitch is to start with the inline figure 8 (like the actual trucker's hitch starts), but then I use my modified improved clinch knot to tie the working end thru the figure 8 to itself. Once again, the modified improved clinch knot can be slid up and down the line to loosen or tighten the hitch.
Last edited by Feral Bill; 05-03-2017 at 13:51.
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