Author Topic: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack  (Read 10987 times)

KC

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #15 on: July 03, 2021, 09:30:26 AM »
k, few days.
Have tried that Bowline-esque finish on ends too, just not what came to mind and this i did this previously and slid it in here.
Main topic when made was pointing out the 'flop' due to lack of stiffness allows lock of hitch to come out to 2 competing, barely misaligned crunchers, now with more force than at 90 degree angle and frictions, to even more so work it's way out.  This style ending pictured was to illustrate that fail..
« Last Edit: July 03, 2021, 09:34:46 AM by KC »
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -Sir Francis Bacon[/color]
East meets West: again and again, cos:sine is the value pair of yin/yang dimensions
>>of benchmark aspect and it's non(e), defining total sum of the whole.
We now return you to the safety of normal thinking peoples

fidian

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #16 on: July 04, 2021, 06:30:29 AM »
I wish you'd turn those BWLs around to show
the front side of the knot --not the same ol' wrong/back side
which has plagued BWL images forEVER (about all Google
Images delivers, but for Mark's "Detail View" ones, thankfully).

I am new here and would love to understand more about the bowline showing the back. To me, the knot doesn't have a front nor a back. It is also without a top and a bottom. It's merely my perspective that gives the knot these attributes. The concept of a knot being backwards is novel and I could use some education on the history and reasoning behind this topic.

Thanks for any guidance that could be provided!

KC

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #17 on: July 04, 2021, 09:42:37 AM »
    Reason for detail view is in thee PACI Bowline paper.
.
By design, the Sheepshank does not keep a firm lock that is usually carefully placed/but then lost;
perhaps better in stiffer, more friction bearing ropes that can help mediate, but not completely overcome this fail;
as seems noted in history, during usages of such materials, as not an optimum /lacking.
.

.

.



ABoK reflects on Sheepshank more ornamental than functional for the sailor
>> many have questioned it's continual including in collections
>> some have faulted BSA for teaching still as a hold out
Digging thru the way back machine tracked into lost Henry Bushby presentation for Mariner's Museum and his works quoting John Smith's of Jamestown book "A Sea Grammar" in 1627 then another author expounding on this "1644, Henry Manwayring published his Sea-Mans Dictionary, which provided more detailed descriptions of the knots first mentioned by Smith".  This page quotes that they depended on 3 knots at sea mostly: Sheepshank, Wall and Bowline.  But then in picturing 3 versions of Sheepshank 2 are locked against above fault:

Sheepshank dispenses/isolates more rope neatly than Alpine Butterfly (which is otherwise superior) and more trustworthy in the locked forms shown.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2021, 05:35:28 PM by KC »
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -Sir Francis Bacon[/color]
East meets West: again and again, cos:sine is the value pair of yin/yang dimensions
>>of benchmark aspect and it's non(e), defining total sum of the whole.
We now return you to the safety of normal thinking peoples

James Petersen

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #18 on: November 05, 2021, 01:39:54 PM »
Image of sheepshank with one loop wrapped into half hitch,  the other loop nearly wrapped.
... and if instead of wrapping it dives through the nipping
turn on itself it will form a sort of bowline, also pretty secure.
(It surprises me that this variation wasn't found ages ago;
but many of the surplus "sheepshanks" I think are done
purely for show --both of the tying & result!)

Thanks,
--dl*
====

One half of this "bowlinesque" sheepshank  would likely work brilliantly qua the loop/sheave part of a trucker's hitch.

JEP

Dan_Lehman

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #19 on: November 06, 2021, 07:10:06 PM »
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/06/lost-knowledge-ropes-and-knots.html
   Scroll down ... --Search for "knotting techniques"
   which string comes to me just below the page w/imaged background.
...
shows several sheepshanks, some of which stay tied well,
but aren't "NSUE" (knotable w/o using extremities).

The illustrator is clear enough on the bottom knot of the
leftmost structure, but the upper knot can be SEEN other
than was (surely) intended --to be an NSUE knotting!
See the top knot as a Slip-knot.  (The real structure,
which is given in some other places, has OH knots at each
end, with bights reeved through their spines.)

I recently realized that the two HH's version of the
sheepshank --which itself is a stability improvement--
can be altered by casting the 2nd HH back around the
first, and then snugging it into position there; where
it wraps around the bulk of the initial HH'd part w/o
the risk of capsizing, and w/some slack-security.
And this tactic I think produces a slightly better
result if the 2nd HH comes in larkshead orientation
(opp-handed).

Now, I learned the hard way that the stands in the span
between knotted ends matter :: that simply illustrating
the upper knot as seen to be NSUE and then rotating
a copy of this illustration to complete the whole ...
will result in, yes, end knots that can be untied w/o
ends, BUT ... --surprise-- the span's parts form a knot.
There IS a way to avoid this, but it's complex in needing
anticipation of the knotting spread out in the span and
... jumping through hoops of clever arrangement not
really worth it.

--esp. with better alternatives, anyway.
(Along the way in my adventure with this mis-seeing
I found that one could knot the EDK/OWK in each
end to make the structure --but that's also a PITA.)

 ;)
« Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 08:08:50 PM by Dan_Lehman »

Dan_Lehman

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #20 on: November 06, 2021, 07:21:07 PM »
I continue to be puzzled by the sheepshank --not sure of
how it was much ever used.

While I can see that putting one in on a ship's stay
when an upper mast is brought down might be needed,
so to keep terminals the same,
I get the impression that a lot of larger ships must have
had stays well beyond the size that would be knotted,
even so simply as the SS (just a loop around an otherwise
uninvolved-in-*knotting* bight!)  !?

And the rumored use for capturing & holding excess line
in some crane/derrick/whip strikes me as rather awkward
--esp. if the structure was to be seized for stability, as is
claimed (both ends and the center of the span)?!  That,
after loading/unloading top of ship, bights are let out
so that the hook can now reach lower --and so the take-up
mechanism is again starting at the end of the rope, though
it will now be taking in more & more as the work descends!?

In any case, were this so, I'd think we'd find examples of
it in some old images, and --why not-- in some not-so-old ones!?

(I have similar doubts about the "jury mast knot"!)


--dl*
====

James Petersen

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #21 on: November 07, 2021, 04:52:04 AM »
(I have similar doubts about the "jury mast knot"!)
--dl*
====

Makes one wonder if such reported usages were more along the lines of modern day urban legends. (I know someone who knows someone who used it in this way...)

JP

Dan_Lehman

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #22 on: November 07, 2021, 08:18:49 PM »
(I have similar doubts about the "jury mast knot"!)
--dl*
====

Makes one wonder if such reported usages were more along the lines of modern day urban legends. (I know someone who knows someone who used it in this way...)

JP
It's much that knotting literature seems to take prior
literature as its reference, not a new (maybe first!)
LOOK at the actual-factual.  The Hensel & Gretel
makebelieve world now several editions & many printings
of their huge Encyclopedia of Knots & Fancy Ropework
is a grand, in-your-face testimony to the publication
of pure rubbish (with some actual things in the mixture)!
(E.g., I challenge everyone to tie that book's "Cape Horn Hitch"
--"an old-style hitch now seldom seen."
,
a #255 maybe p. or pl. 91 (memory) !?

Re the sheepshank, it's use for a stay would be one
that shouldn't be concerned about lacking tension
--it would be set up with at least some tension and
hold.  It's reputed use in holding extra rope of a
"whip" /crane, well, leaves me trying to understand;
and I'd think we could see better evidence of such
usage, had it occurred!?

Re the jury mast knot, that strikes me as having
dubious purchase on a mast to take much force
--Ashely as much concurs in this, in suggesting
the putting in of supporting wood.  But, really,
would why would one rely on some clever pulling
out of eyes --which are compromised in their
ability to grip the mast, by having to get around
into each other-- vs. a direct attachment of each
stay; or of making a multi-eye provision in a
dedicated piece of cordage!?

And for supposed use on derricks,
wouldn't the maker of said device anticipate its
need for guy lines with attachment points, and
not require the too-clever-by-half knotting?!
After all, while jury rigging of mast one must
hope is an INfrequent occurrence,
use of a derrick is of the expected, frequent sort!

--dl*
====

KC

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #23 on: November 10, 2021, 02:35:18 PM »
i have always taken the iffy Sheephshank as more decorative than serving utility as i came to know the ropes.
To me has classic fails that would not allow in a Bowline, as loses/rolls out of the Half Hitch that gives lock.
i like close toggled, if tension maintained.  Have used sticks, rods, prefer a keeper of rubberband over each end trapping into service.  Have used carabiner spine clipped into place as keeper, but consider this 'unsanitary'/errant use in the purist sense.  Old garage door rollers give nice small tempered toggle, mushroom cap on roller end as pull handle, that also can protect hand if using hammer on that end.
.
The opposing, counter-torquing rather than continuous direction 'list' of HHs does make sense here for Sheepshank.
.
solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/06/lost-knowledge-ropes-and-knots looks sharper now but a fave reference ty. 
i too think that knotting is THEE 1st technology where outside of self had to do a list of steps IN ORDER to reach proper result or fail(just like computer steps must be correct and in correct order as a later technology).
There was about no other way to take more than one and make it larger or hybrid mix with other utilities to make tools, clothes, shelter, extend force reach/bridge etc.  And these understandings are root to our intellect.  Tying knots has us following and L-earning same unwritten lessons and understandings; as fumble thru the same steps and paths as the Ancients; catching same glimpses and aha moments, that became root to evolvements of mechanics etc.
.
And all done with a light, formable, pocketable substance, that did not have to carve even before knew to try to heat to reform some materials much later.
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -Sir Francis Bacon[/color]
East meets West: again and again, cos:sine is the value pair of yin/yang dimensions
>>of benchmark aspect and it's non(e), defining total sum of the whole.
We now return you to the safety of normal thinking peoples

James Petersen

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Re: Sheepshank alternative that remains tied while slack
« Reply #24 on: November 11, 2021, 10:01:03 AM »
(I have similar doubts about the "jury mast knot"!)
--dl*
====

Makes one wonder if such reported usages were more along the lines of modern day urban legends. (I know someone who knows someone who used it in this way...)

JP

The above being said, and at the risk of contradicting what I said above, I have no reason do doubt Ashley's veracity when he wrote about what he himself had seen:

1161. If there is a considerable length of material to be expended
in the Sheepshank, a number of turns may be taken. To make this
coil doubly secure, place a Clove Hitch at each end. I have seen this
knot used in color halyards that are to be hung well above deck.


This particular usage also seems very believable to me since this is how I usually tie hanks of smaller cordage (paracord and the like), and can verify that this version stays tied while slack.

-JP
« Last Edit: November 11, 2021, 10:17:47 AM by James Petersen »

 

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