A Turk's Head knot video tutorial 16L3B

I made a video of the 16 lead 3 bight Turk's Head knot. It's just the first pass of the knot and takes about 10 minutes to watch(which is also the limit for a single YouTube video and I didn't want to do a multi-part set of videos on it). A completed project can take more than an hour, so I've just shown enough to get started.

Here's the over/under sequence separately in text:

Make 3 turns and follow this sequence: u-o-u-o-u, then around to the right of the standing end, o-u-o-u-o, then back o-uu-oo-uu-oo-u, then to the right of the standing end u-oo-uu-oo-uu, and from there you do an under and over working your way all the way back to the standing end.

From there you straighten everything out, then double/triple or however many passes you want to make(the 20 feet of 550 paracord I used would be enough for 3 passes on a 2C Maglite).

I used the PVC pipe as a base to tie the knot, since it's easier to use something like that for making the knot first and then sliding it off the pipe and onto the object where you want to finish it. For example, it's easier to tie the knot onto a short section of PVC pipe and slide it off, than to work it on a 5 foot long walking stick. But, you may have to tie the knot directly onto an object if there's no way to slide it on, like on a lamp post.

After making three passes for the knot on the PVC pipe, I slid the knot off and onto my wrecking bar, for use as a grip. Then gradually tightened the knot, working the slack out from the start(standing end) all the way thru to the end. It's important to do this gradually, working a little slack thru the knot at least a couple of times. This helps keep everything straight, neat, and getting the twist, that can develop when tying, out of the line as you go. The finished amount of paracord I used after tightening was about 12 feet.

Making a project like the previous post of the Maglite Grip can easily take a couple of hours, from start to finish. But, the more of these knots that you make, the easier they get, and you can cut that work time down.

As shown in the video, I learned this knot from 'The Complete Book of Decorative Knots' by Geoffrey Budworth.

If this one seems too complicated, you might visit the Knot Heads World Wide website and look thru the tutorials and videos there for something to try. Or maybe even ask a knotty question in the forums and get an answer from some good folks that know a lot more about knots than I do.