Club Obi Wan

I've got DM's whipmaking book, as well as several other braiding books, and I cannot for the life of me figure out which type of knot is used to cap off the handle of the Indy style bullwhip.

And am I reading some of these books right in that the butt-end knot is made separately on a mandrel and then glued or affixed somehow onto the handle's end?

Prop,

I'll have a go at this one first. (there will be others that will help also)

The butt knot on the Indy Style whips is most usually a 4 bight 5 part turk's head of three passes. That means once you tie the 4b-5p turk's head, follow the lead around twice and then tighten it in place.

The butt knot is not glued onto the handle, but rather a collar of leather and waxed thread is tied, nailed, glued, or a combination of them, and then shaped by trimming the leather and getting it as true to form as you can. Then tie the turk's head onto this collar, and if you tighten it down as tight as possible it should never slip or come off.

The handle/thong knot is usually a 4b-5p two-pass turk's head.

Grant's books has all of the turk's head knots you will ever need, and Ron Edward's book shows how to make multiple passes on a 4 bight knot.

There are many other knots that altho' they don't usually end up on Indy whips, they end up on many Aussie bullwhips, and stockwhip handles. Look closely at Janine's knots on those stockwhip handles. They are her knot of choice, and an identifier for whip buyers and crackers.

I normally use 8 bight 9 part pineapple knots on my Aussie bullwhips, and on my long handled target bullwhips I use an 8 bight 13 part turks' head and interweave it with an 8 bight 7 part turks head which makes a tight knot that closes at the top. I like this because I don't put hang straps on the Aussie and long handled bullwhips. (It is a balance and precision issue and the hang strap usually gets in the way.)

I have a few pictures of my "Knotty Stick" These knots are all found in Grant's book, and they help me when choosing a particular knot for my whips. They are in the photo section of the Whipmakers Yahoo group


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whipmakers/

Hope this helps a bit.

Jerry R[/url]

Jerry, that helps a LOT!! Thanks so much.

I have the Grant book (actually, I have it checked out) but wasn't sure which version of the Turkshead knot it was. This "bight" and "part" terminology is still new and confusing to me.

THANKS!!

I would really reccomend not to go to crazy with the knots. The 4 5 is quite hard for a starting braider. I have not been able to do one yet. Even though it is not all that indy esque i would reccomed staying to the simpler knots like a 3 2 or a 2 3 or a 3 4. Just dont get to carried away. A 3 2 looks really nice and more complicated then it is if you put 3 passes on it. Unless if you feel up to it, and if you want i have 2 scanin's that robert duke passed along to me that make the 4 5 much easier. Its a meathod on a piece of board with 8 tacks in it. O Wait.....i said that...ive done 3 of the 4 5 knots...oops. Well good luck, and practice the knots off the whip first.
mola

Turk's Heads can be really confusing until you look at them long enough to figure them out. As for the terminology think of it this way:

The Bight refers to the number of loops formed. If you look at the very end of your whip, where the wristloop is, you'll see the knot has a certain number of pieces that cross. So we are talking the same thing, if you look on the Western Stage Props Indy whip picture, where it shows the different colors you can get, you can see that the knot is made with six bights.

The Parts refer to the number of criss crosses that are made along the length of the knot. If you were to take a knife and cut along the length of the knot (parallel to the thong) this is how many times you would cut the lace in the knot.

I think the knot used in the WSP Indy whip picture is a 6 bight-7 part knot.

Confused yet. Another really good resource for learning Turk's Heads is by a guy named Brion Toss. Toss is a sailboat rigger up here in the NW and has written several books, one of which is called the Rigger's Apprentice. He goes over many of the ornamental knots and he is really good at explaining these things.

Keep trying. Eventually they start to make sense.

Thanks again! It's starting to clear up for me, now.

The nice thing about Turk's Heads is you only need to know a few foundations, then you can very simply expand them into the more complicated versions. Most of the books out there will cover the procedure better than I can explain it here, but if you start with a 4 bight-5 part, you can expand it to a 6 bight-7 part, then expand it to an 8 bight-9part, etc. etc. This way you don't have to remember as much.

I understand the bight/part references, but now I'm having a hard time understanding what exactly the "three pass" or "two pass" references are and envisioning how they look in the middle of the process. I mean, I can see how my whip's butt-end knot has three strands worked throughout, so it is a "three pass", but how loose should the knot look until you get through with the third pass? Seems like it would need to be pretty loose to work all of those passes in.

Now you're getting into the hard stuff. When it's complete and tight, there shouldn't be any spaces or bunching anywhere. How, you ask? Good question. I asked David Morgan that one time, and he said that for the most part, your knots are done on the same size base, so over time you work out your lace width for that standard base and turks head.

I tie the knot around my two fingers until I get a single pass that is the combination I want (usually 6 bight-7 part). Then I put this on the knob at the end of the whip, and tighten it down so its not flopping, but not too tight (I can still rotate it around, but it won't move on its own). Then I smooth it out, even out and straighten the lines. It should be tight enough that you need the fid to open a hole for the next pass.

Now I start the second pass. A lacing needle really speeds things up here. Jim Hurlbut at whipcracker.com sells a fid and needle combination that works well. He's also a great reference. The second pass will tighten everything up a bit more, but you still want to be able to push the strands around just a little to get them to lie straight. At this point, when you've done the number of passes you want, it should look complete with no gaps. By the way, work the knots on dry, without any plaitting soap.

Once everything is where I like it, then I work from one end of the lace to the other, pulling each piece with my fid until the knot is really tight. The lace will stretch just a little and will sit down nicely with the other strands. After it's done, roll it to smooth it out, just like you do with the thong. I use the corner of the kitchen counter and work each part of it. If you find its really off from round, gently squeeze it with a vice and shape it.

If you get to where you have everything snug before the final tightening and still have gaps, there are a couple of choices. You can cut another strand that is a different width and weave it through as you pull out the original. This is a good way to experiment. Another way is to cut your strand extra long and with a slight taper, so you would work the lace to a wider or thinner section.

Another way to hide the gaps that form in the center is using an interweave. The knot bunches up on each end where the diameter is the least, and leaves gaps in the middle where the knob is the widest. Ron Edward's book explains how to do this, and while the explaination is tricky, once you see what he's doing, it makes a lot of sense. This is where you often see different colors used to make a zig-zag pattern. When done in one color, it makes the knot look even without a lot of overlap where it meets the handle.

Whoa, I think I'm getting a little overboard on this answer, but you touched on one of my favorite subjects. Another option you can do is to re-tie the turks head using a different turks head. For instance, if you were tying 4 bight-5 part knot with two passes, and you still had gaps when you finished, you could try the same width lace but re-tie it as a 6 bight-7 part.

I hope I answered the question and didn't get too carried away. You can really have a lot of variation with turks heads, but I have yet to see anyone come up with the formula that for a given turks head and knob size, you use XX width lace. As you practice them, they begin to behave more and more....

Mike, now THAT's getting me closer. I guess at some point, I'll really just need to sit down with someone and have them show me how it's done. But that bit helped TONS!!

Thanks to all fo you for taking the time to give some lengthy and helpful answers to me question. I appreciate it!

Nice response Mike. From the last time we talked, you have really jumped in.

-Sergei

Excellent post Mike. Like you I have a very keen interest in seeing a well tied knot. There is nothing that detracts from a finished product quicker than a shoddy knot.

Like you, I haven't found an explaination or formula on how wide to make the lace for a certain diameter knot. I generally start out with what looks reasonable, usually about 6 mm wide. Then I tie the 4b-5p turk's. If that looks like it might be too small even with three passes, I will raise it to a 6b-7p and do three passes. Sometimes I just have to take it off and cut a bit wider lace.

On the interweave, for clarification, if done with another color lace following the original lace on the right side of the lace, your zigzag pattern will run up and down the knot. This is not really an interweave, but rather another pass on a turk's head. A pineapple knot is actually one turks' head woven inside of a foundation turk's head, and when the interweave is done in a contrasting color, the zigzag pattern will run aound the knot. For a 4 bight pineapple, you will have one zigzag, for a 6 bight, you will have two, and for an 8 bight, you will have three.

Another knot that makes a nice butt knot, but not historically Indy correct is the herringbone knot. Unlike the pineapple knot which has two different turk's heads woven together, the herringbone knot has two turk's heads that are identical one woven into the other. The pattern is nearly the same but the herringbone nearly closes at the top.

Just a few thoughts that might help muddy the water.

Jerry R

Sergei,

In attempting to test the water with my toe, I fell right out of the boat.

Mike