THK FORMER
A RATHER OLD INVENTION AND NOT AT ALL A RECENT ONE
AS ONE MIGHT BE LEAD
TO BELIEVE ...
here is what is said page 110 Charles E.
GIBSON Handbook
Of Knots And Splices and other work with
hempen
and wire rope (1963 )
[open quote] Using a Former
to make a Turk's Head **]
has the
advantage that the knot can be made
round an object of any material,
including metal, since pins are driven into a quite separate
piece of
wood. This is
the former, a board which rarely needs to be more than 4
i.square and on which
can be fashioned a Turk's Head of almost any
complexity, with the valuable attractions
that all the tucks are made
on the same side of the object so that there is no need to
keep turning
it over or moving round to the back ;that it is easier to remember
where to
make the tucks ; and that the tucks, when made, hold
themselves in place......
....** As
devised by Mr John ALEXANDER and describes in "Knots, Splices and Fancy
Work"by
Charles L. SPENCER (
Dodd,
Mead & Company, 1942)
[end quote]
I am ready to bet that this come from much earlier than 1942 !
Hope you will enjoy that "not so novel idea".
Remembering my long ago gone diving days (practice and teaching)
HOW TO MAKE A BOWLINE WITH A LINE UNDER STRAIN AND USING
ONLY ONE HAND
You are a diver / swimmer in need of help ,
someone throw you a line and you need to
somehow attach it securely onto you so you can be pull and then hoist
on board.
Of course the end of the SPart will be on the helping boat and there
will be some pull
on it.
First take a firm hold of the line (yellow
circle in the drawing) with your left hand (this
is for a right-handed person) , doing so you get a slack
part of line between your hold and
the end of the line.
Pass the slack part around you in your back so that you are 'enclosed'
in it.
With your right hand take the WEnd extremity and do this helical move
described in
the drawing : in one move you will have "made the burrow and
made the rabbit go
outside ready to go around the tree and dive again in the
burrow ': it take an awful
lot of time to explain what is done in the twinkling of an eye really
and can save your live.
SHAME ON A
BOOK COVER : AUTHOR IS ONE OF THE so-called
EX-SPURT AND
AN IGKT FOUNDING MEMBER
AT THAT
Yet look to what beginners are exposed in matter of learning
mistaken concepts thanks to
such publications beneficing of uncontrolled (no examination
boards) good reputation.
In my book THE AUTHOR IS SOLE RESPONSIBLE (it is his duty not to sign
the
authorization for printing if designer or publisher made a mistake ULTIMATELY IT
IS ALWAYS THE AUTHOR WHO WILL BE RESPONSIBLE IN MY
OPINION FOR SUCH
AWFUL RESULT.)
This same guy despite very old posts on Igkt forum and my research in Investigation_4
is
still publishing utter silliness on Franciscan Knot !
Just
show how well author do their
research for publishing or re-editing ?
SOMETHING
FISHY !
ANOTHER CASE OF MISLABELLING IN KNOTS' WORLD :
HERRINGBONE
! REALLY ? NO A MISNOMER
In
architecture
the PSEUDO
FISH BONE pattern ( “arête de poisson”, the
so-called herringbone of
the English speaking world )
should be opus
piscatum
alas this does not exist except as
piffle and balderdash on the Net.
Classical Architectural
Texts and
Treatises ONLY KNOW of opus
spicatum
as a
well
known feature.
opus == appareillage de pierres
== stonework
PISCA
= FISH
SPICA =
WHEAT EAR
Bad
'acquisition' of target by eyes/brain team that makes
the S
jump
inside the word
instead of beginning it.
SPI-catum
giving faulty PIS-catum
may be the explanation.
Why
the English
world chose herringbone rather than mackerel or sardine bones is
still
a mystery to me.
We
French, much
more open in our options, just say ‘fishbone’ or ‘arête de poisson’
,
any fish
will do, not limiting ourselves to herring !
May be that has to do with our very different cooking style
!
I
should have been a bit more
virulent. ( added 2010 July 6th)
I WANT TO INSIST ON THIS
SILLY DESIGNATION BY THE WORLD OF KNOT :
clearly the structure is NOT
that of a fishboneBUT that of
a WHEAT EAR.
IN COMPLIANCE WITH SIMPLE
OBSERVATION IT SHOULD BE WHEAT
PATTERN ! NOT HERRINGBONE
PATTERN.
In the fish's skeleton the 'bones' are 'aligned' two by two ( just as
we
have ours ribs two by
two : a pair on a vertebra.)
Once
again simple observation is all that is necessary = the label
HERRINGBONE IS
MISTAKEN, EGREGIOUSLY SO.
Just look a the pattern in a Standard Herringbone Knot or in a
Standard Herringbone
Pineapple Knot and you will see that the 'layer'
joining two adjacent ///// or \\\\\\
is not 'straight' but 'in zig-zag'.
zig-zag = disposition seen in wheat ears but
NOT seen in the
fish bones.
The
point to observe is the 'point of the V ' you see
that
the 'junction' of the \ branch with
the / branch is either 'meshed' ( wheat ear and herringbone
patterned knots ) or 'strictly
point to point ( fish)
BUCKWHEAT
and WHEAT
found less than a mile from where I dwell.
Fun it is to chase small mislabelling (a constant it seems to be in the
knot tyer's world
,
I wonder, I wonder ....I wonder if the knot makers as a group are not
the
worst
'observers' I have ever met ; may be that explain while
as a rule they ( seem to me to)
prefer ready made 'recipes'
to full
understanding of the innards of a knot ?
A bit like spiders running on
pre-programmed instinctual recipes rather than going like
thinking beings
running using on the spot adaptation via elaborate intelligent
adaptative
behaviour.
Well spiders can spin wonders even if
they do not understand why and how they do
them so no skin off the
spider's nose ;-) )
Another mislabelling IMO is the so-called PINEAPPLE =
those knots DO NOT follow the pineapple pattern AT ALL : no phyllotaxy
in the knot,
no logarithmic spiral at the surface of the knot as
there are in the fruit ( another botched
labellings and very bad
observation of nature by God know who ! Sunflower
phyllotaxy ( easier to get than the pineapple )
You will need to be very inattentive not to see how inept it was to
name PINEAPPLE those
knots which have ABSOLUTELY NO phyllotaxy-like pattern ! This
is a sunflower but in a pineapple fruit the phyllotaxy is similar.
Another one to chalk up to the ignorant(s) ?
In fact this faulty 'observation of Nature' is easier to do
in the case of the PineApple that
in the case of fish / wheat.
This photography was shot a few days ago in PROVINS (medieval
town 90 km from
Paris - UNESCO CATALOGUE of world heritage centre - since 2001 - http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/873
) )
It is NOT a representation of a knot but a knot IN FACT DONE by the
usual method
but not in cordage but in METAL : that is quite
a craftsmanship feat.
I also happened to cross road with this door ;-) I
immediately took a liking to it :
perfect illustration : all the appearances of being an entry door but
just a dead end, just like
some forum just being a dead-end mutual admiration society.
Just my own personal moment of sadism. Bad karma !