For those familiar with Zeppelin Loop & Zeppelin Bend

[dmacdd]

  A clear description, of a not so clear manipulation, almost torture..., of the most beautiful, simple, symmetric Zeppeln bend...( And, please, don t leave the written instructions back home...) There is a loud dissonance between the original bend and the tying method of the derived loop..  Sorry, but my hard disk / brain memory is foul, and I always find so convenient to return to my/ours/anybody s first love, the bowline...

Actully, I no longer think the 3 step instructions are unambiguous for a mind not as prepared as mine was to receive them -- a right handed mind correctly (luckily) assuming a right handed instructor, a mind seeking and being guided by the b and q evolving in the manipulation.   At the moment, though, these instructions, now explicitly disambiguated in my mind, b and q, and roo's clever new diagram, all overlap and coincide in my mind to produce a uniform method for the loop and the bend that I'm not likely to forget.

[knot4u]

I'm sure you know what you're doing, and it's probably simple to you.  However, without diagrams, what you wrote is not simple, and I don't know exactly what you're doing... grrrr 

[dmacdd]

    Here is a picture of the unfinished knot, just before the fifth (5) step . The standing end is coming from the top of the picture, the first, auxiliary loop is the one with the vertical long axis, the second, the main Zeppelin loop, is the one with the horizontal long axis, and the working end is showing here looking like a hook, just before the stage when it becomes a tail that passes through both eyes.( initially through the first, and finally through the second eye.)

Hmmm... I don't see the b and q in that. There may be a way to see them, but I don't.  The utility of JCS's three steps is that they can easily be imagined to correspond to a b and q embedded in the evolving knot.  The Overhand knot is just a distorted "finished" b -- the b with its top bending over and passing through its base, as pictured in roo's new diagram.   The subsequent manipulations can be imagined as the construction of a finished q, again as in roo's new diagram  This correspondence makes it obvious how the same method can be used for the bend.

[knot4u]

    Here is a picture of the unfinished knot, just before the fifth (5) step . The standing end is coming from the top of the picture, the first, auxiliary loop is the one with the vertical long axis, the second, the main Zeppelin loop, is the one with the horizontal long axis, and the working end is showing here looking like a hook, just before the stage when it becomes a tail that passes through both eyes.( initially through the first, and finally through the second eye.)

I tried that, and it's pretty sweet.  Let me practice that a few times and see if I like it better than Roo's "Alternative Method" (Option 1).

[dmacdd]

Suggestion to roo:

re-draw the alternative method so that it can be seen to correspond by easy mental distortion to the new diagram and to JCS's instruction.  E.g.  it needs a starting overhand knot of the other hand.  When I follow JCS's instructions, my overhand knot can be easily seen as a "finished" b, a b with it's top leaning over and passing back through its base, like the new diagram .... etc. I'm not suggesting making it look obviously like the new diagram, necessarily, but currently it requires mental operations that are too difficult to establish the correspondence. The correspondence is easy and useful in understanding the alternative method, and should therefore not be obscured.

[roo]

Suggestion to roo:

re-draw the alternative method so that it can be seen to correspond by easy mental distortion to the new diagram and to JCS's instruction.  E.g.  it needs a starting overhand knot of the other hand.  When I follow JCS's instructions, my overhand knot can be easily seen as a "finished" b, a b with it's top leaning over and passing back through its base, like the new diagram .... etc. I'm not suggesting making it look obviously like the new diagram, necessarily, but currently it requires mental operations that are too difficult to establish the correspondence. The correspondence is easy and useful in understanding the alternative method, and should therefore not be obscured.

But the point of the alternative (follow the leader) method is that  it can be employed regardless of the handedness of the first overhand knot.  

[roo]

...if we try an imitation of the tying method of the (two lines) bend on the (one line) loop, we will spoil the essence of both...

So am I wrong to tie the Sheet Bend with the same method and mental imagery as the Bowline?  What precisely is spoiled?  The duplication of procedure sure saves on my mental burden.

[knot4u]

Suggestion to roo:

re-draw the alternative method so that it can be seen to correspond by easy mental distortion to the new diagram and to JCS's instruction.  E.g.  it needs a starting overhand knot of the other hand.  When I follow JCS's instructions, my overhand knot can be easily seen as a "finished" b, a b with it's top leaning over and passing back through its base, like the new diagram .... etc. I'm not suggesting making it look obviously like the new diagram, necessarily, but currently it requires mental operations that are too difficult to establish the correspondence. The correspondence is easy and useful in understanding the alternative method, and should therefore not be obscured.

I currently prefer Roo's "Alternative Method" (Option 1) for both the loop and the bend, but I'm open to seeing other diagrams.

Because the loop is harder to conceptualize, I think it's better to tie the easiest loop method and then use that method for the bend (assuming you want to remember only one method for both the loop and the bend).

[roo]

I currently prefer Roo's "Alternative Method" (Option 1) for both the loop and the bend, but I'm open to seeing other diagrams.

One nice thing about the bend's b & q (kid friendly moniker:barbeque  ) method is that if you get the "b" right, you can easily check the "q" form against the "b" knowing there should be a certain symmetry (point symmetry for you math fans out there).

[knot4u]

  I do not want you to see any b and q, or 6 and 9, because that is the whole idea of this method: Do not try or pretend to use the tying method of the original Zeppelin loop ! There we had a perfect symmetry of forms and loadings that we do not have here any more, and iI feel that, if we try an imitation of the tying method of the (two lines) bend on the (one line) loop, we will spoil the essence of both... It is  an end of one line loop that we have to deal here, and we want to tie this loop like we tie an end of line loop, i.e. using eyes and loops, like we tie the bowline ...So tie an eye, then a loop, then another loop, then another eye, pass the tail through both eyes, and here comes the Zeppelin loop!
So forget all about overhand knots and interlocked overhand bends, about b-bitches and q-queens doing 69 or whatever, follow the pure spirit of your first love, the bowline, and just tie another end of line loop!  
   I post a few more pictures presenting the succession of the 6 elementary steps.( Step 1 is the formation of a single eye, the stage just before Step 5 was already posted in my previous post, and Step 6, the contraction of the first, the auxiliary loop, just because it is a function, can not be pictured in a still picture. )

I thank you for posting your pics.  I've practiced your method a few times.  I just can't get it to click like the other methods I know.  That's not a slight against your method.  It's just that my brain is already set and happy with the other methods I know.  Before seeing your method, I could already tie Roo's "Alternative Method" backwards, forward, upside-down, one-handed, etc.

[jcsampson]

". . . all overlap and coincide in my mind to produce a uniform method for the loop and the bend that I'm not likely to forget."

Beautiful statement.

This is why I have said, and will say many times again, that the combination of different perspectives is beneficial to learning, understanding, the development of intelligence, etc.

How many times have I tried to learn something, had a hard time, finally figured it out, and said to myself, "If only they would have said THIS, I would have understood it immediately."

I say also this: "An education is taken--not given." There is nothing that I can do to teach a person. Whether a person learns something owes itself only to that person who is in charge of taking (from some resource or resources) a thing to be learned. Therefore, by learning something, you have shown yourself to be in charge!

JCS

[jcsampson]

"The Overhand knot is just a . . ."

substructure.

Substructures are VERY important, because they allow us to see more easily how things are, or can be, constructed.

. . . similar to the concepts of "top-down design" and "subroutines," in computer science.

JCS

[roo]

...if we try an imitation of the tying method of the (two lines) bend on the (one line) loop, we will spoil the essence of both...

So am I wrong to tie the Sheet Bend with the same method and mental imagery as the Bowline?  What precisely is spoiled?  The duplication of procedure sure saves on my mental burden.

Yes, if you do two different things with the same method and mental machinery, you are wrong !  
The satisfaction of mental parsimony you get at the end is only superficial, because it is based either on a wrong assumption you had in the first place, ( when you were confused by appearances and believed that those things were really different ), or on the wrong perception you have now, when you fail to notice the fundamental differences and conceive two really different things as two different aspects of the same single thing. But really different things are really different, no matter how identical they look! And those two things, the Zeppelin bend  and the Zeppelin loop, are really different things, because the strands in the knots are loaded differently in each of the two cases. When we think of a practical knot, not an ornament, when this knot is functioning, it is not only its appearance, but also its mechanical state that matters. If we could look closer, and we could see how the distribution of loads alter the rope diameters on different places, among other things, we would really tell the real differences that are hidden behind the looks.
The truth is that the b and q, the 6 and 9, that you think you see when tying the Zeppelin loop are only faint memories of the method you have used when tying the Zeppelin bend. You could have not been led there, or get any satisfaction of getting there, if you had not used the real b and q, 6 and 9, in the Zeppelin bend. I try to deal the Zeppelin loop as a loop, and tie it without the prerequisites of the Zeppelin bend, try to pretend that the Zeppelin bend is not yet invented! With this I try to look at the loop in a way that is genuinely appropriate for it, and only for it, because only this way gets me into the heart of the particular knot. I try to understand, not because understanding offers anything more in this case, ( the finished knot would be the same, no matter how it is tied, if it is dressed correctly ) but because understanding is a good thing, is the only thing we have to get deeply involved in reality and enjoy our shorts lives, and because understanding would really offer something more in the next case, the next knot that is presently unknown !
 Things are as simple as they are, but not simpler...What you think is a mental burden, for me is a mental tool that is appropriate with the given specific problem. I do not like to use a tool discovered and used for something else on whatever I see in front of me, as a man carrying a hammer that sees everything as nails...Abstract mental images and general methods are welcomed of course, when they address the identical situations that are hidden behind appearances, but we have not such a case here.
I simply try to tie this end of the line loop as a loop, without using the accidental historical fact that it is discovered after a similar, but not identical, knot that is a two lines bend.

Goodness!  I think you are confusing analyzing a knot with constructing a knot.  They can be divided quite effectively.  I can understand the differences in a Sheet Bend and a Bowline through various tests while tying them the same quick way that prevents errors.

It's funny you should mention pretending that the Zeppelin Loop is not yet invented (with regard to a tying method).  I did just that long ago, and came up with a method that seems to be preferred only by a minority of tyers when given the alternative visualization that replicates the "b" & "q" method of the bend.

[knot4u]

Here's an interesting way to tie the bend.  I haven't analyzed it yet to say if it's a new way to think about the procedure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O7PgfkqskA

[roo]

Here's an interesting way to tie the bend.  I haven't analyzed it yet to say if it's a new way to think about the procedure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O7PgfkqskA

It's not new.  It's the dreadful Thompson method.  I've tried to figure out what some see in this method, and I just don't get it.  If I wanted to put people off of the Zeppelin Bend, I would present this method.  

There are about a dozen easy ways to go wrong with it.

By the way, despite the caption on the presentation, the Zeppelin Bend may be used with dissimilar ropes.  It does far better with dissimilar ropes than the Sheet Bend, for example, which used to be often touted for being used with dissimilar ropes.