Best binder for irregularly shaped bundles and the like

[erizo1]

I recently had to set up one of those 10' x 10' pop-up tents for an outdoor event, and it had two pieces of the frame that were broken (the frame had rectangular bars). I had some random pieces of PVC pipe lying around, so I used those to splint the broken pieces. I tied double constrictors at four points, two close to the ends, and two on either side of the break, with the half knot under the riding turn resting on the PVC pipe. It held fine, but I was reminded that in situations like this, where I have a constrictor on a convex spot but it could slide to a non-convex place in the binding, I have sometimes had the constrictor fail on me.

So here's the puzzle: what's the best binder for a situation where you're splinting or bundling irregularly shaped objects, such that you can't rely on having a nice convex spot for a constrictor or strangle knot? Parameters:

• For the moment, I don't care about untying it later, so a jamming knot is just as good as one that's easy to untie
• Assume that the application is such that the objects being tied are hard with no give, and that they need to be held as tightly as possible

The latter parameter is my objection to the Gelipnir: no matter how hard I pull on the thing, there's always a small retraction when the turNip (or whatever it's called) settles down to clamp the free ends, so I always lose a little tension. This is my reason for preferring the constrictor whenever I can use it. If the objects to be tied are hard and smooth, like metal poles, there's usually not much difference between a small loss of tension and a total loss if I don't want them wiggling and loosening the knot or sliding around.

As an aside, has anyone tried a Gleipnir with an additional wrap with each free end? That extra length would distribute the tension loss over four wraps instead of two. Is there some way to tie it that avoids this loss of tension?

[roo]

A Versatackle would work, and since you don't care about untying things, you could even employ simple overhand loops for simplicity or speed.

As a second choice, you can just make multiple turns while trying to keep each turn as tight as possible.  The the more turns you make, the more the clamping force accumulates.  Then, just finish with a reef knot or some variation thereof.  Stretchier line makes this force accumulation easier to accomplish.

Combining the two approaches is possible, and may yield more room for the loops of a Versatackle on smaller objects.

You could also do a web search on wrapping & frapping (lashing) as a side exploration.  Of course, if you have a stick or the like, a tourniquet-style binding can be made (cf. Ashley Book of Knots, p. 346).

[xarax]

  Double Cow hitch or TackleClamp hitch - if you really want the best binder, and not what the many knotting-parroting sites and the Wikipedia articles written by knotting-parrots will tell you.
  Sometimes, things are black and white.    So, have a look at the B&W attached pictures - and read the many relevant posts in this Forum.

[Dan_Lehman]

So here's the puzzle: what's the best binder for a situation where you're splinting or bundling irregularly shaped objects, such that you can't rely on having a nice convex spot for a constrictor or strangle knot? Parameters:

• For the moment, I don't care about untying it later, so a jamming knot is just as good as one that's easy to untie
• Assume that the application is such that the objects being tied are hard with no give, and that they need to be held as tightly as possible

The latter parameter is my objection to the Gelipnir:
no matter how hard I pull on the thing, there's always a small retraction
when the turNip (or whatever it's called) settles down to clamp the free ends,
so I always lose a little tension.

Roo is on the right track with advice to put on many
hard turns, and then whatever inefficiency occurs on
making the final securing lock, that slack must be
distributed over the many tight wraps in order for
it to loosen the binding --and that would require a
LOT of slackening of the finish!

Incidentally, you might use an old mistake for the
constrictor --something an author or illustrator
came up with in imagery in trying to instantiate the
variously echoed verbal illustration of "Tom Bowling":
tie a clove hitch and tie off its tails with a simple
overhand "throw" as though completing a square knot.
If there's decent friction in the material, the clove
might get tighter than a constrictor for the lack of
the overhand inner crossing's friction --but just
for that lack it might not hold such tightness.  But
I thought I'd note this option, which should be more
easily untied than the C. and also not vulnerable
to coming untied on losing surface contact --which
it needs, though, to be tied initially.

Your point about the Gleipnir resonates with me,
as force must build tension all the way around the
bound object(s) before it tightens that turNip to lock
--and that too often, in MY experience, doesn't work
very well, alas.  So, I sought a structure in which
the immediate pulling would bring locking (but now
I should wonder about then this structure's delivering
binding force, huh?!).  Here's what I've come up with.

Form a sufficiently large eye so that you can put a
round turn in its end (540 degrees) --this will be the
turNip-ing structure--; then take this eyeknot's
SPart around the object(s) and through the round turn
(this part's presence is to stabilize the turn qua circle)
and around again and now through again but in the
opposite direction to however you did it the
first time.  (Well, it makes sense to pass the tail
through the turn down-towards-object at first,
so that one brings it up-through-turn on the
finish, making for easier hauling on the tail.)

Now, as you pull on the tail --and this might take
some alteration of directions, so to draw different
sides of the binding (i.e., to pull the eye side, or
to pull material through the eye from the opposite
side --friction will affect what moves and what
stays put)--,
the eye's round turn will ever tighten immediately
on the tail.  And after getting sufficient tightness,
you can put in a slip-knot or some other means
of ensuring that the tail stays put.
(To picture this structure's nipping region : imagine
an X --these are the two passes through the nipping
turn-- and then the eye's reach to put a round turn
right around the crossing point from one side, gripping
the parts tightly, when the tail part of this "X" is
pulled either up away from the bound object or
more in opposition to the eye.)

Now, the structures that Xarax touts as (pure 42) solutions
are so ineffective as to be comical (and, yes, I can recognize
my contribution to the genesis of the 2nd).  They go
towards winning the Too Clever by Half prize, but can
be fun to play with.   My similar-to-2nd binder takes some
care in setting up, and can give some misleading indication
of tightening if one's not careful --parts can move, but
they are doing less tightening than one thinks!


Incidentally, I've had instances to try out some of these
binders in replacing lost screws/bolts in cycling pedals.
I bound them appropriately with nylon fishline.  In an
earlier instance, I recall simply laying a multi-coil/parts
loop/circle of the line against one side and completing
its reach around the parts to be bound by making the
several passes as though forming a versatackle,
hauling this multi-strand life-saver mass of fishline
hard around the foot plate and so on with the
locking tightening of the tail's wraps.  (I'm not sure
that I did anything to this circle of strands, but just
sized it to allow room for the tail's tightening wraps,
which flowed right off from one end of it?!)

In the more recent instance, I used the structure
described above.

--dl*
====

[xarax]

Now, the structures that Xarax touts as (pure 42) solutions are so ineffective as to be comical ...
They go towards winning the Too Clever by Half prize, but can be fun to play with. 

  A whole long post was written, full of empty blah blahing with empty thin air ( to use his terminology ), with such a Too Wise [devided] by Infinity suggestion as to :

Roo is on the right track with advice to put on many hard turns ...

...just to "frame" this supposedly most poisonous comment, that I feel I have to repeat, to underline it :

Now, the structures that Xarax touts as (pure 42) solutions are so ineffective as to be comical ...
They go towards winning the Too Clever by Half prize, but can be fun to play with. 

Regarding the :
 

(and, yes, I can recognize my contribution to the genesis of the 2nd).
My similar-to-2nd binder

   Of course ! How on Earth did I forgot THAT !    Dan Lehman has already tied everything that can be tied in the Univers - and beyond ! 
( I wonder, is this fact part of the 42 solution, or not ?   

   -------------------------------------------------------------------------

   To the author of this post, I just advise him to tie those two knots first, then laugh with them...
   To the rest of the members of this Forum, ( some have  been so nice to me and a few are, and will remain, good friends of me ), I call them to write to me whenever they wish about everything, in my e-mail.
   
   That s all folks !
   
 

[Dan_Lehman]

Now, the structures that Xarax touts as (pure 42) solutions are so ineffective as to be comical ...
They go towards winning the Too Clever by Half prize, but can be fun to play with. 

  A whole long post was written, full of empty blah blahing with empty thin air ( to use his terminology ), with such a Too Wise by Infinity suggestion  ...

Really, X., I was only matching you for dramatic flair
as you had begun, with your, um, confident assertion

if you really want the best binder, and not what the many knotting-parroting sites
 and the Wikipedia articles written by knotting-parrots will tell you.

--not "empty blah-blah"; one quick giant "BLAH!".

Now, the structures that Xarax touts as (pure 42) solutions are so ineffective as to be comical ...
They go towards winning the Too Clever by Half prize, but can be fun to play with. 

Regarding the :

(and, yes, I can recognize my contribution to the genesis of the 2nd).
My similar-to-2nd binder

   Of course ! How on Earth did I forgot THAT ! 
Dan Lehman has already tied everything that can be tied in the Univers - and beyond ! 
( I wonder, us this fact part of the 42 solution, or not ? 

That's your interpretation; my writing was only in
anticipation of your potential throwing it back at me
for having gone on that knotting path (which in turn
also puts me on the side of "too clever ..." charge, w/you).
You needn't see daemons at every turn.

The binders you offered --and offered as "best"!-- work
not all so well, and take considerable care in forming,
AND naturally want a balance of ends, not so easily
dressed up with a minimal tail to be left dangling.
In contrast, what I described above will form an eye
at one end, and then leave only the working tail
to wrap and be hauled upon and dealt with  upon
completion --possibly, say, to be cut off, for which
material efficiency is a good thing!

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

  The situation in the Forum has become almost unbearable to anybody with some amount left of common sense... I do not say that is comical, I say that it is tragic. I really feel sad about it...People with valuable knowledge about knots and abilities to contribute to a constructive dialog, as dan Lehman for example, sacrifice everything for reasons I, for one, will not try to understand any more...They are ready to tell everything against even some superb knots, as the two I have shown in the previous session - but we hould also remember that most of the "founding fathers" of this Forum did exactly the same thing with the superb Gleipnir, when it was first presented here.

The arguments pro/con can be presented and then
can be challenged.  I have both used the Gleipnir and
at times found it ineffective --at times adequate.

If Dan Lehman and roo wish to advocate that the knots I show are comical
and Too Clever by half, or that I have never tied ONE "practical knot",
and that all the knots presented by me in this Forum are random tangles
...

Should we say "turnabout is fair play"?!
You have presented (quite) a variety of knots and had
a variety of reactions.  Often you toss out some structure
and demand that others go test it.  But often at least on
prima facie familiarity the knots simply do not appear to
be practical, for their complexity of forming, setting.  You
can't expect others to take up your fancy for them and
become their advocates.

The OP here looks for solving a task that has met with
solution in rather conventional ways, and these ways
are articulated.  To this, I offered what can be seen as
an adaptation of the Gleipnir for consideration, as
well as an extension to make two other known knots
less vulnerable to failure.

--dl*
====

[xarax]

Removed off topic submission.

   To the author of this thread, I would like to add that it is probably a good option to tie the "TackleClamp" hitch / binder with one more (central) wrap, so the distance(s) between the tips of each of the two bights and its anchor points in the knot are about equal. ( There are pictures of such a knot in one of the firsts posts I had presented the TackleClamp hitch ).That is probabl beneficial to the overall balance of the knot, so all the round turns remain equally tensioned. Also, I would like to repeat that nylon is always a better material to tie all the "tight hitches", because it stretches more, and the knot is more capable to accumulate and "lock" the inserted tensile forces inside it.

[Dan_Lehman]

Removed off topic submission.

Thank you; & not generating OT text myself.

   To the author of this thread, I would like to add that it is probably a good option to tie the "TackleClamp" hitch / binder with one more (central) wrap, so the distance(s) between the tips of each of the two bights and its anchor points in the knot are about equal. ( There are pictures of such a knot in one of the firsts posts I had presented the TackleClamp hitch ).That is probably beneficial to the overall balance of the knot, so all the round turns remain equally tensioned.

To be clear, the point made is that of the opposed
bights that face outwards (away from one another),
against which one will haul the ends,
one leg of each --in fact, their shared leg--
is a short span, and much shorter than the bights'
other legs, which run around the object.  So, in hauling
the bights there will want to be some movement
of the bights' material around the bights' tips in an
effort to equalize tension (where the short and
from-both-ends-loaded shared strand quickly
exhausts whatever elasticity it has in material!).

This is a point I slowly learned in playing with an earlier
like structure, which ran around the object in just three
reaches --the center one being over-stressed.  I thought
that the tackleclamp had avoided the problem when I just
counted its wraps, but as X. notes, there is the shared part
being short.

Making this a full wrap as he advises above redresses
the problem and also gives another binding part to the
structure for strength & security.


--dl*
====

[knot4u]

I'd probably tie a Gleipnir X and be done with it.  I could end with a shoelace knot (slipped Reef), either directly on the Gleipnir X or with one more wrap around the object after tying the Gleipnir X.

In the unlikely event that doesn't work, I might go hog wild and tie a Versatackle.  I think people like to suggest exotic solutions sometimes because they're bored.  In the good ol' days (like a few years ago), a Gleipnir was an exotic solution.

[Festy]

I'd probably tie a Gleipnir X and be done with it.  I could end with a shoelace knot (slipped Reef), either directly on the Gleipnir X or with one more wrap around the object after tying the Gleipnir X.

In the unlikely event that doesn't work, I might go hog wild and tie a Versatackle.  I think people like to suggest exotic solutions sometimes because they're bored.  In the good ol' days (like a few years ago), a Gleipnir was an exotic solution.

Hi knot4u,

Could you post a pic of the Gleipnir X if you have a few minutes to spare please? I've tried to search for it but no joy I'm afraid.

Cheers,
F

[knot4u]

Hi knot4u,

Could you post a pic of the Gleipnir X if you have a few minutes to spare please? I've tried to search for it but no joy I'm afraid.

http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4528.msg29123#msg29123

[Festy]

Hi knot4u,

Could you post a pic of the Gleipnir X if you have a few minutes to spare please? I've tried to search for it but no joy I'm afraid.

http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4528.msg29123#msg29123

Thanks for that man. Much appreciated.

(and in my own thread as well)  

[erizo1]

I'd probably tie a Gleipnir X and be done with it.

That's a new one for me, and seems like a terrific improvement. I get much less loss of tension with the Gelipnir X; it would have been a good solution for the problem that prompted the question. Thanks!

[Dan_Lehman]

I'd probably tie a Gleipnir X and be done with it.

That's a new one for me, and seems like a terrific improvement.
I get much less loss of tension with the Gelipnir X; ...

And yet I wonder why : on relatively *small* (surface
contacted) areas, and i.p. smaller diameter round objects,
the *clearance* of the turNip's ends off of the object
is relatively significant; but I'd think that where this
isn't the case, there should be little difference (say,
no difference in mid-air) --what could account for it?
(In the making-contact-with-surface case, possibly
pressure against the object, along with the nip?)

--dl*
====

[Tangled]

There's a knot I've had a lot of success with for binding odd stuff under heavy tension.  It's a variation on a truckers hitch; a length of cord with a loop on one end.  Bind stuff as you need it, run the bitter a half turn through the loop, pull it tight, and run a clove hitch with a bight around the bitter below the loop.  It works well arond extension cords, matresses, bear cans, etc.