There has been a reasonable volume of forum discussion about knot testing and indeed, criticism of existing knot test reports.
I'd say that the volume is more hot air than substance,
which was my point to urging precise comments in the
recent/current thread about a Yachting Monthly article
reporting some rather lame testing.
.:. We need to keep generating such pointed criticisms,
trimmed by internal debate & Occam's razor, to become
a set of guidelines for future testing (and for appraising
extant test reports!).
It seems that, more often than not, knot testers seem
to repeat the same old tired mistakes and report data that is
either misleading or somewhat irrelevant.
One has to ask the question; "Why?"
The same question is raised by knots books parroting
the same old nonsense over & over & over, often in
incredible cases --
The Encyclopedia of Knots & Fancy Ropeworkby "Hensel & Gretel" being maybe the king of crap!
I am saying that we, as a knot tying community,
should have addressed this issue long ago.
Sometimes it seems to me that this imaginary
community is ascribed to those of more *real*,
active communities (angling, caving, e.g.) who
happen to focus on knots --but often rather
parochially vs. broadly. And the *broad*-minded
interested parties haven't been good at collecting
the widespread/disparate information and trying
to make sense of it all.
E.g., I am abashed to say that I've not built a list
of extant test reports --an easy thing to refer to.
... lazy ..., "do it sometime (later) ... " ?!
Well, SOMEone has done a bit of this --to wit
(news to me, which I captured w/these remarks) ::
Finding a rich lode ?!
Here's the overview, which has citations of so many others!
http://itrsonline.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Evans_Truebe.A-Review-of-Knot-Strength-Testing_2016.pdf there is a remarkable body of knowledge and
advancement of the science of knotting - all due to the IGKT.
What advancement do you see?
(I see that in the pre-latest (#138?) Knotting Matters there is
still parroting of the obviously overinflated "knots" count
for our "bible",
The Ashley Book of Knots !)
"What can we do about it?" --see above.
(And maybe a thread for it, perhaps awaiting first
a good set of things to capture in the thread's OP
--so let's run a bit on the comment-&-critique bit
prior to establishing a thread on testing.)
Here's my reaction to the above-linked collection
of test reports.
> He commented that we do not need more <knots> testing,
> but a synopsis of the data already available.
It's great to be looking over the seemingly vast
knots-testing-literature field and trying to make
some sense of it. But this survey overlooked a
couple of key criticisms of this vastness :
1) test reports seldom show the exact knot/geometry tested
(and common literature is usually pretty vague on such detail
--e.g., in MANY instances, the fig.8 eye knot (nevermind the
pretended distinction of "on a bight"/"rewoven") is shown
only with both ends going out of view, and so no indication
of which should be loaded, which the tail (!).
2) testers don't all have very good knotting skills and tie
things haphazardly.
(A shockingly bad case just came to light for me,
www.yachtingmonthly.com/sailing-skills/strongest-sailing-knot-30247
! --i.p., note their fig.8s ! Egadz, ...)
So, sadly, a survey of much knots testing is a dive into
muddy waters; much of the stuff is pretty worthless, IMO.
And it would be nice to get some better ideas of WHERE
--which should lead to theories of Why-- knots break.
(In the aforementioned Yachting Monthly report, it is
MOST peculiar to see a fig.8 eye knot breaking in one
of the eye LEGS --I can't raise a theory to figure this! ??
Cheers,
--dl*
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