Pull Through Tool with Ashley's Herringbone

This is a knotting tool my father gave me a few years ago. It is simply a piece of piano wire loop inserted into a wooden handle. It is useful every so often to pull a string through a tight opening when tying knots, and you could certainly fashion similar tool out of any reasonably stiff wire. A heavy guitar or bass string might also work, for example. Around the handle I tied a multi strand herringbone knot from the Ashley Book of Knots. This knot was tied using 8 individual strands and is started in a similar manner to a standing/multi strand turks head. Note that I did not use a mandrel to tie this covering. In tying it, I had little reference as to how long the final covering was going to be and it came up a bit short. I added a bit of straight whipping to each end and then tied 5 lead by 4 bight turks head over the whipping, using the turks heads as end coverings.

Floating Fender Style Key Fob

My most recent boat purchase came with a floating key chain which I decided to dress up with some knot work.  The polypropylene cord for this project also floats and should therefore not be a detrimental addition the the fob.  The bottom covering is an 8 strand covering knot which is shown in the Ashley Book of Knots.  This is a "boxed end" knot which wraps the bottom of the fob.  I used this knot previously in a glass jar covering post and also in my umbrella hand covering post. An excerpt from the Ashley Book of Knots showing how to tie this is included in the jar covering post. I then added a straight whip to the middle of the knot, and finally a 5 lead by 4 bight turks head to the top.

Letters from Gaucho

This is a hand carved letter opener a friend gave me a while back.  He picked it up on a trip to India.  It's sat in my drawer at work for a while, so I decide to bring it home and try tying something around it.  The knot is a two pass gaucho knot tied from a 5Lx4B turks head.  There are several tutorials for this knot on the web, including one prepared by the late Bud Brewer.  Mr. Brewer also has a tutorial for a three pass version.  Stormdrane did a recent video for this knot as well. It was difficult to photograph- This is the best I could do with the shinny nylon that I used to tie it.

Globe Turks Head Book Marker

This is a book page marker that I tied.  The knots are 5 lead by 4 bight turks heads into which I inserted a 20 millimeter wooden bead.  Since there are only 4 bights at the end of the turks head, when tightened around a round core the end closes to create a round knot.  Three and four bight turks heads can be adapted in this manner as a covering knot for many shapes.  After doubling and getting the knot relatively snug with the blue chord, I ran the black chord through.  Getting an appropriately sized round core is important for this knot.  And of course, you have to tie the knot twice at each end of the book marker.  I am currently reading the expanded version of Stephen King's "The Stand".  I hope that this book mark will be more reliable than that little scrap of paper that I kept losing.