[BambooFenceKnot, you need to edit your reply to me to change '[quote>' to '[≈quote≈]'
(the now-useless closing '[/quote]' in in place awaiting its precursor

) . (Get used to
Preview: heck, I've found my entire msg. wrongly put in italics or quoted after I fumbled
some editing term ! ) Above, the '≈' must be absent; it'st here to avoid effect in THIS
comment (and got by some fumbling of keys I can't reproduce!) thanks ]
This knot is made with a palm rope on bamboo fences outside. It has to hold for a few years.
My uneducated impression is that, although requiring more practice to excute under tension,
it will hold longer than the clove hitch, contrictor, or transom knot.
I had just assumed it was a strong knot and that was why it's used in these traditional fences.
Firstly, please distinguish (elsewhere) between the fence-knot which is a sort of , hmmm, binder
component, and the eyeknot -- to my mind, at the very least, knots are distinguished by loading
profile (though it poses philosophical issues in cases such as mid-line eyeknots (Butterfly) where
loading can be varied). The fence knot, as noted previously, although joining two ends, doesn't
really fit the pure definition of a
bend -- well, the entire knot which binds the fence is a
binder; the component that locks off the ends is ... just a part (we can leave it at that).
Yes, it should hold longer than a Clove hitch, which it has after all as its base; it is a way to
secure the Clove hitch. It might also surpass the Constrictor, as there is nothing for that
binder to do but continuously resist a pull to loosen its ends -- straight pulling back out,
unlike the around-another-part pulling to unlock this fence-knot's tie-off component.
I should remark that there is another, like knot which ties off a Clove Hitch, and it popped up
in the knotting literature as a somewhat humorously astray guess at "Tom Bowling's" verbal
description of what we believe was intended -- viz. the Constrictor knot. This knot simply
ties off the ends in what appears to be a Reef knot form bearing against the Clove's cross
part -- very nice, neat, secure. But it will see the ends oriented at roughly in a tangent to
the knotted point rather than going away at roughly right angle to the tangent as w/your find.
The nice thing about both of these Clove securings is that they are largely independent
of contact with the object -- which thus could be some collection of small cylindrical
objects having much *space* at the binding surface, which spells trouble for knots
like the Strangle & Constrictor & Clove (so, a problem in making the tied-off Clove
would be at the interim step, keeping the Clove tight until one can secure it).
There are cleverer ways of tying off things like this, in which the act of tightening
also entails locking, and a locking got by cordage independent of the bound
object -- e.g., using a Rolling Hitch noose (a crude but simple example). I'm now
fiddling a Clove variation in which the finishing end runs through a Bowlinesque
turn/half-hitch of the crossbar part sufficient to nip & hold the increasing tension
hauled into this end; and then one ties off the other tend. (This binder does have
some dependency for friction from the object.)
Cheers,
--dl*
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