Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Six Lead Five Bight Turk's Head Knot



I made this six lead five bight Turk's Head knot with paracord, over a 3/4" ball bearing. I first made it around the body of an AA Maglite flashlight, and it looked ok, but I'd prefer a more elongated Turk's Head to go over the flashlight body and will try that at another time, eventually. I followed the directions from 'Creative Ropecraft' by Stuart Grainger. Here's an online link with a preview of the book and it just happens to have the directions for this knot if you scroll down on that page for them.










I tried another one with black and neon green paracord with a 1.125" ball bearing for the core.

14 comments:

DimHelmet said...

I love the shape of that knot! How did you end the green/black knot?

Stormdrane said...

The Turk's Head knots are usually started on a cylinder shaped object(I used a flashlight). Then I slid the knot off, inserted the ball bearing, and tightened it up. It came out oblong because of the number of leads. There were two cords to work with in the black and neon green, so I trimmed and tucked two of the four ends into the bottom, and the other two ends were looped over the key ring, did a half knot(like starting a cobra stitch), and made two lanyard knots around the cords coming from the Turk's Head.

Unknown said...

hi
i love the shape of the knot that you have done but I've tried and tried to copy the instructions from various people but i cant do it do you have any instructions that are easy to follow? or do u recomend any.

Stormdrane said...

The easiest diagrams I've found to follow this knot are from Stuart Grainger's 'Creative Ropecraft', as linked to in the blog post.

If it's too hard to follow, try smaller knots until you get the hang of them, then move up to the larger turks heads and you'll better understand what's being done as you tie them. They definitely take patience.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering....is this also called a globe knot?

Stormdrane said...

I believe globe knots are turks head variations. You can see some examples here.

Anonymous said...

Arrggghh!! Every time I make one of these, you can totally see the marble I put in the middle. While on the one hand, it looks kinda neat, but I really want a solid looking knot. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Stormdrane said...

If you can still see the marble core, you probably need to add another pass to the knot.

Anonymous said...

So how much cord did you use?

Stormdrane said...

The amount of cord needed depends on several factors like the diameter of the cord, the size of the object(ball bearing/marble) it's being tied over, and how many passes made on the Turk's Head knot.

I think I started with something like a 10 foot long piece of 550 paracord, for the green one over the 3/4" ball bearing, but trimmed some of that off when finished.

With so many variables, it's better to over estimate what you'll need. With tying many of the same things, you can narrow down the amount of cord needed to eliminate wasted cord.

I usually just cut a long length and whatever excess is left, I use for smaller projects like zipper pulls.

Alternatively, you can tie directly from a long hank or spool of cord without cutting it, by measuring out a long length and start tying from there. If you need more, you just feed extra slack from the supply of cord, or if you've got too much, feed the excess cord back through to the supply side.

Anonymous said...

For beginners wanting a weighted key fob; what would be an easier start? TH or monkey's fist?

Stormdrane said...

I'd say for a beginner, that the monkey's fist is easier to learn.

Anonymous said...

I am trying to tie a two color turk's head like your black and green to replicate silk not cufflinks, but your six lead seems like two many, and I am still a little fuzzy on the leade and bight concept. The video of one being made is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8H2cUjffXU, any direction you could give would be helpful

Stormdrane said...

You might try a smaller turks head for cuff links. Here's a link with a few examples to try.

The khww.net website has some tutorials and good explanations on knots too.