21 ms·

Animated Knots

702 points by zingerlio 3y ago

algas 3y ago
I love this resource. So many useful knots. Particularly I like the lanyard / friendship knot [1] and the midshipman's hitch (adjustable slip hitch) [2], the latter of which is probably about 90% of the knots that I tie. Honorable mention to the constrictor knot for attaching to large cylinders [3]. [1] https://www.animatedknots.com/lanyard-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/lanyard-knot [2] https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot [3] https://www.animatedknots.com/constrictor-knot-twisting-method https://www.animatedknots.com/constrictor-knot-twisting-meth...
- lqr 3y ago
  Midshipman hitch is great, I used it to reinforce my tomato cages with some tension members.
  - atourgates 3y ago
    Well, you used it incorrectly. It's clearly for a very specific set of circumstances: > The Midshipman’s Hitch Knot is promoted by Ashley (ABOK # 1993, p 325) as the only knot to tie in the following unlikely but critical circumstance: you fall overboard and catch hold of the line which you have prudently left trailing astern and find yourself hanging on with difficulty. Before you tire, you manage to bring the bitter end of the rope around your back. You then have to tie a suitable knot to make a loop around you. A bowline cannot be tied under load. Two Half Hitches will slide and constrict you. The Rolling Hitch is the answer. Even as the second turn is tucked “up” into the correct place, the major strain is taken and the final Half Hitch can be tied with less urgency.
    - samcheng 3y ago
      Nope, that knot is useful surprisingly often! It's the only applicable knot in that contrived single-handed-sailing-overboard situation, but it's also an effective knot when pitching a tent or tarp, or when hanging a clothesline, or when securing e.g. a canopy against the wind. I learned it as the "Taut Line Hitch."
      - fenomas 3y ago
        Yes, it's a great default adjustable knot! The other one I think is worth knowing is the "adjustable grip hitch", which is like the midshipman's but the half-hitch goes on the other side of the turns. This latter one seems to hold a lot tighter once dressed, even in relatively slippy rope, but unlike the midshipman's it can't easily be tied under load. https://www.animatedknots.com/adjustable-grip-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/adjustable-grip-hitch-knot
        slv77 3y ago
        The adjustable grip hitch is great but the Blake’s hitch is almost magic and my favorite knot right now. https://www.animatedknots.com/blakes-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/blakes-hitch-knot
      - EL_Loco 3y ago
        Taut Line Hitch is a little different from Midshipman's Hitch. Midshipman's grips a little better and is recommended. However, Like the other reply to your answer, for me the best of them is the Adjustable Grip Hitch. I teach knots to boy scouts, and know lots of them. After using the Adjustable, I don't use the Taut Line or Midshipman's anymore.
    - TOMDM 3y ago
      Your quote only states what the knot is suitable for, not what it isn't suitable for.
chadd 3y ago
One of the things I've learned from teaching knots to Boy & Girl Scouts in the BSA is that you must constantly re-learn them or your skills will founder. It's not like riding a bike for me. That could be a visual-spacial memory thing, but many of my co-knot-tieing scouting teachers seem to have the same experience... so this site is perennially useful. Favorite knot (involving a Rabbit going "through the hole, around the tree, and back down the hole"): Bowline Knot
- jweir 3y ago
  The bowline, because of the rabbit, is one of the only knots I have not forgotten from my scouting days.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  My memory of them often vanishes within hours or days... Except for tying shoes (A doubly slipped reef knot, where a reef knot is left over right and right over left which makes a knot tidy and tight) And the Uni-knot, even though I've never fished: A jester offends the king and fears he will executed, and so decides to kill an evil beholder, also called an eye-tyrant, to win back favor. He charges into the cave and stabs it through the eye, but gets scared and runs away. Coming out he remembers if he doesn't do something, he's dead anyway. Going back, he finds it dead, and he has time to take a long and winding road back, going around his journeys on the inside of his mind. Having learned from this he decides neither the rashness that got him in the mess nor the cowardice that made him run was any way to live, and this is why the uni-knot can use its power wisely and will not cut itself when tied in Spectra. And the highwayman's hitch which tells the story of two outlaws and a failed robbery. They're going to tunnel under the bank wall, but they see a hole in the plan. One(Representing one side of the rope) sticks his head up and he had an idea to fix it. The other one sees yet another flaw, and sticks his head in. Unfortunately, they overlooked one small thing, the cops are waiting, and all it takes is one pull to unravel this complicated scheme and they go to jail. It takes a long time to find the story hidden in the knots, but once you do, you are relying a lot less on spatial intelligence or muscle memory, and it becomes something you can actually learn and teach without needing access to an entirely new mode of thought and learning that doesn't make any sense to people who don't really have it and probably takes a long time to develop before you can even start learning the knots themselves.
joelcollinsdc 3y ago
There is an app called grog knots which I think is made by the same people. Best few bucks I’ve ever spent for an app. Love having a bunch of knot diagrams handy when I’m out trying to do something.
- atourgates 3y ago
  I came here to recommend this. Absolutely worth the 1-time $4.99-no-subscription-or-account-or-any-BS payment. They made a cool thing. It is valuable to me. I paid for it, and we're done. The app downloads once and doesn't need an internet connection. If you drew a Venn diagram of "Times I want to Know How to Tie a Specific Type of Knot" and "Times When I Am Out of Cellphone Range", there would be significant overlap between the two circles. I'm not a particularly good follower of technical diagrams, but I find the instructions to be very clear and easy to follow. It's rare that I don't get a knot right the first time. I've secured tarps, tents, clothes lines, gear onto vehicles and (most recently) a mountain bike that was missing its rear suspension, all thanks to this app. Here's the link to the app available for various devices: https://www.animatedknots.com/shop https://www.animatedknots.com/shop EDIT: I forgot about the fishing knots. No matter how good the app is as a resource, I always get confused and frustrated by fishing knots. But I also get confused and frustrated by fishing, so I can't really blame the app for this.
  - dumbfounder 3y ago
    From the animatedknots.com website on their apps page: "Do you love advertising? We need to apologize in advance, because our apps are nothing but knots. We are sure that there are other apps that will suit your needs."
  - msrenee 3y ago
    It says it's not available for my device. I've got a 3 year old android phone. Has it maybe not been updated recently enough? I used to have the app when it was free way back when. On an Ipod touch because I didn't have a smartphone back then.
AlbertCory 3y ago
There are several apps for your phone that teach knots.
- DanAtC 3y ago
  Web > proprietary apps
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Silly comment. They both have their uses.
    - master-lincoln 3y ago
      why do you think it's silly? The offline functionality could have been implemented with the website too. I don't see any benefit in this use case for an app. But it has the downside that an app has possibilities to screw my system or track me unnoticed. So if you do not need special native features and you are not a computationally expensive product, please built a good offline capable website and not an app. Please tell me where the app has "it's uses" here?
      - KomoD 3y ago
        > But it has the downside that an app has possibilities to screw my system or track me unnoticed How is it going to screw your system? And just disallow running in background, disallow internet access if you are on mobile. I don't want to fiddle around with my browser when I can install a light-weight app. Not everyone is a "wow all apps very scary" person
        AlbertCory 3y ago
        and note the comment above by someone else about camping without Internet access. If I were installing a knot app and it required enrolling me in their Knot Tying Social Network, I'd uninstall. In fact, if it couldn't run in Airplane Mode, I'd uninstall it.
gabereiser 3y ago
I learned to sail thanks to this resource.
- Throw10987 3y ago
  I am chartering a yacht in two weeks and have been busy re-learning how to tie a core set of knots. This is easily the best resource that I have been using with the rest of the crew(aka family)!
bigmattystyles 3y ago
I know the linked site in the submission is more about practical knots, everyday knots, but this Tom Scott guest video from Up and Atom on mathematical knots blew my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVd2Ugk9BU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVd2Ugk9BU So awesome that it's able to mathematically quantify knots.
- sbt567 3y ago
  Uh wow. That video is awesome. Thanks for sharing
- jeroenvlek 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing, I have been passively wondering about how mathematical knot theory works for quite some time. Awesome :)
MostlyStable 3y ago
This app is one of the first I always install on a new phone. Perennially useful.
ChuckMcM 3y ago
My favorite animated knot video is the Ylvis one on the Trucker's Hitch[1] but for the iPhone, Grogg Knots is my go to app if I forget a knot. Of course I find out this web site is the "web" version of that App :-) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUHgGK-tImY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUHgGK-tImY
- echelon 3y ago
  Are these the "What Does the Fox Say?" folks? That song both slaps and subverts all expectations. I had always assumed they were a one-hit wonder and simply disappeared. Very creative bunch. Now I can't get it out of my head.
  - bjornasm 3y ago
    Its the same people. They have quite a few videos in the same genre, if you like the humour: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfNe3nGQENtP3VCn1t1pybju9ffSPBohU&si=K25LjUK5l6qp-V-R https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfNe3nGQENtP3VCn1t1pybju9...
Brajeshwar 3y ago
My pastime on the phone, besides playing chess, is to browse through Knots 3D - https://knots3d.com https://knots3d.com
stbtrax 3y ago
I personally found the low frame rate stop motion-esque animations on this hard to follow when learning knots a few months back. Simple close-up videos on YouTube served me better.
sails 3y ago
Great resource, especially that they take a stance on versions [] and include some history [] https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot
andrewl 3y ago
This looks quite useful! I’ve also gotten good information from Ian’s Shoelace Site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Cool website. When I was a teenager, I spent a week every summer learning to sail at a sailing course. So, I learned quite a few of those knots. This brings back good memories. As, I'm Dutch, the names for these knots in English are a bit challenging for me. And honestly, after 35 years, I struggle to name a lot of these knots in Dutch now. But I still know and use a few occasionally. A lot of that becomes muscle memory. If you do use them often enough, it kind of sticks. They are like nice little 3D puzzles and there's something satisfying when you figure out how they work. It can be fun to figure a few out while fiddling with a bit of rope. The practicality of knots and their traits is what drives their use. When you deal with boats, you need these knots to perform and not come undone when you are not expecting them to (which could be dangerous). And you also need them come apart when you need them to. Properties like that are what makes a lot of these knots so useful. Technically, you can get by with knowing only a handful. But there are a lot of specialized one with niche usages.
- BoxOfRain 3y ago
  > This brings back good memories. As, I'm Dutch, the names for these knots in English are a bit challenging for me. I finally got around to doing my day skipper last year and on the course was a Russian who spoke English perfectly fluently but struggled with the technical terms that the rest of us took for granted. It probably doesn't help that sailing is one of those sports where the difference in terminology between British and American English is sometimes significant, for example I don't think the term 'kicking strap' is used in the US. The knots I use most often even outside of sailing are the bowline and the round turn and two half hitches.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  As a younger I became obsessed with trying to make a Monkey's Fist from having heard about one from a Leave it to Beaver episode (a rerun on TV, please, I'm not that old). I had to figure it out myself though. There is a very nice animation on the site for the Monkey's Fist (where I just now learned the finishing touch to deal with the loose end of the line). https://www.animatedknots.com/monkeys-fist-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/monkeys-fist-knot
- TheCondor 3y ago
Terr_ 3y ago
There's a certain kind of sci-fi premise of "what if every intelligent species has something they're particularly good at." Naturally, most stories revolve around something impressive (or damning) for humanity like "war" or "kindness", but in the past I've wondered what kind of story one could make if the answer was "knots". Perhaps that's a question for mathematicians, and whether some facility for topological knot-thinking might be very handy in some kind of physics or engineering.
- XorNot 3y ago
  I love this idea by the way.
- Tao3300 3y ago
  I love the idea of technologically superior aliens showing up and kicking themselves for never having discovered rope. Here, have the ftl drive, we need this rope. Maybe their native habitat didn't have fibrous plants.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    Maybe some are like spiders, and they've always used solvents and glues in order to join or secure the lengths.
fragmede 3y ago
Despite the claim of "knots of any kind" the shibari category of knots is missing.
laserlight 3y ago
First Class Amateur [0] is a great YouTube channel demonstrating how to solve real-world problems using knots. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@First_Class_Amateur https://www.youtube.com/@First_Class_Amateur
xulres 3y ago
It's been a decade or more but every time someone posts this website I swear to learn to make some basic knots and I never do. I should buy some rope.
josenyc 3y ago
Was expecting fluid animations. These are animated stills, not hating though.
wiz21c 3y ago
I thought for a second that I'd see 3D animation of knots and thought "that'd be a cool math program to do: one that can animate a knot construction"...
Raed667 3y ago
Something about knots makes me feel stupid/slow. That's a shame for someone who does climbing and boating... Now I just rely on muscle memory, as trying to "understand" knots always leaves me frustrated...
nidnogg 3y ago
This was quite helpful during my early climbing days. It's a shame that sometimes you just can't beat a YouTube video with someone tying the knot you're trying to learn.
cton 3y ago
I must have saved upwards of 10 minutes so far by tying my laces with the Ian Knot [1]. If anyone knows of a faster knot I’m all ears, otherwise, cheers to Ian and his innovation in the shoe lace knot space. [1] https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  In case you don't realise, you're tying a regular shoe-lace knot, a square knot, it's just a different technique.
- aftoprokrustes 3y ago
  Not just time saving, but since I use it I did not have to re-tie my laces during the day, it looks very symmetrical, and I regularly have the silly but satisfying experience of people seeing me tie my shoes and say "how did you do that?". This is the knot I am teaching my kids (my wife can take care of the "standard" one).
  - daviziko9 3y ago
    My kids only know this way of tying it, I was surprised how easy they learnt it vs what other parents refer to me for more traditional ways
- jimbob45 3y ago
  How do you keep the tension when tying that? With a regular shoelace knot, I have a spare thumb to place on the base knot so that it maintains the tension I initially selected with the base knot. With the Ian knot, it feels like I just get whatever it feels like giving me.
  - daviziko9 3y ago
    I use my pinky or ring finger to apply pressure on the base knot
thrownaway561 3y ago
we all know what category they are missing ;)
- psychoslave 3y ago
  From the elusive message, I guess you mean BDSM or something like that. Are they really specific knots used by people that like to tie each other though?
  - hooverd 3y ago
    Your basic single and double column ties, stuff like the Burlington bowline, aside from that no, not really.
- msrenee 3y ago
  There's a guy who does youtube videos on Paracord braids and the like. Excellent instructions, but I got kind of a sexual vibe off of it between the music and the way he handled the paracord. All the videos show are his hands and the cord, nothing weird at all. Always thought something was off about it and then found out he's big into restraint or whatever you call the bdsm stuff where people get tied up. Made a lot of sense after that. Still love his videos.
klausjensen 3y ago
I am not interested in knots. Yet, I just spent 20 minutes watching these animations and being fascinated. Good work.
taosx 3y ago
Most adblocker lists I have have permanently blocked this domain.
mikekorostelev 3y ago
It's how I hung my hammock
noufalibrahim 3y ago
This is a beautifully done website. I found a book on knots at a used bookstore and bought it. I got a few lengths of paracord and tried them all out. It's a great way to spend an evening. Quite relaxing and doing something physical with my hands was a great stress buster too.
- DoingSomeThings 3y ago
  Any specific suggestions for rope to buy? I love the idea of practicing at home in my living room.
  - mthoms 3y ago
    You can buy kits from proknot.com The one I have comes with two small lengths of cord and two small carabiners (I'm a climber). My only complaint is that the cord tends to be a bit stiff but that's unavoidable if you're using real cord. https://proknot.com/products/pro-knot-knot-tying-kit https://proknot.com/products/pro-knot-knot-tying-kit
  - dahart 3y ago
    Get a variety! At least if you hope to use knots away from home, like boating, climbing or camping. I’ve definitely found it useful to practice knots on different sizes, materials, tensions, etc., just because the ropes I get in the wild vary… for camping you might be using 1/4 inch or smaller, for a small sailboat maybe 1/2 or 3/4-inch, when I go on a houseboat every once in a while, it’s like maybe 1.5 or 2-inches diameter, sometimes old and fraying, sometimes nylon and relatively slippery, or sometimes a natural fiber rope that’s much grabbier especially when wet… Knots really seem to behave differently on different sizes & kinds of ropes, and it can be hard to remember (for me at least) how to tie a knot you learned with twine on a bigger boat line. How easily they bind, how well they hold, and how easily they release also starts to get way more important when you’re outside and depending on the lines.
KomoD 3y ago
It's like Ian's shoelace site but for knots :D
koolba 3y ago
The animations are nice, but I don’t know if I can trust a site that lost fishing knots that does not include a Palomar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_knot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_knot
- kuhewa 3y ago
  Unless it was added in the past 9 minutes, you may simply not have scanned long enough.
- mattmoose21 3y ago
  https://www.animatedknots.com/palomar-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/palomar-knot
jrh3 3y ago
Great site. The goto place for learning or studying a knot. Place where I first heard about the Ashley Book of Knots (ABOK). The book is a historical gem, as well as the official reference for knots. Great stories about knots. Trucker's Knot, with cool reference to Ylvis, of What Did the Fox Say? https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot
kelahcim 3y ago
+100 for neckties :)
samjohnation111 3y ago
[flagged]
drewchew 3y ago
The one app I've ever bought besides games.
drewchew 3y ago
"Eighteen inches of paracord is an infinitely better object to fidget with than any 10$ trinket you'll ever get at a store..." the old man shouted, angrily shaking his fist at modernity in general.
javier_e06 3y ago
This is a great website. I think it would be a great idea to extend it to "knots in action" with a video showing how the forces (expected magnitude and direction) act upon each given knot. Specially the climbing ones. I few months ago I learned the knot that ties my shoes for good : https://youtu.be/aQ66r5vMqo8?feature=shared https://youtu.be/aQ66r5vMqo8?feature=shared The problem with teaching knots is the hand action. Making a good knot involves good hand action. Surgeons spend months practicing sutures. There was an episode of the crime tv series Columbo where finds out it was not a suicide because the dead guys shoes where knotted backwards as someone else knotted the shoes when the guy was already dead (backwards). Very interesting.
- etra0 3y ago
  The YouTube channel HowNOT2 [1] has a great collection of videos testing various ropes (mostly for climbing). Among these videos, there are a couple that test specific knots (like [2]). It's overall a very fun channel, even though I don't even do any sort of climbing. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@HowNOT2 https://www.youtube.com/@HowNOT2 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagg2-If4h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagg2-If4h8
jmuguy 3y ago
Seems to be missing the most animated knott. https://www.animatedknots.com/?s=don https://www.animatedknots.com/?s=don
karaterobot 3y ago
I probably check this site every couple weeks, it's the best knot website out there. I tie knots while watching movies. I used to pick locks. Maybe knitting eventually.
umvi 3y ago
For those who don't know many knots, I recommend learning the bowline if you could only choose one. It's called the "king of knots" for a reason - it's highly reliable and won't fail under load when lesser knots would. https://www.animatedknots.com/bowline-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/bowline-knot There's a way of tying it one-handed as well, which can be useful in rescue scenarios (i.e. you are a hiker who fell into a ravine, and someone lowers a rope to you. Even if one arm is broken/disabled you could tie a bowline around your waist with your other arm) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XIUiUOzq7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XIUiUOzq7Q
- vanderZwan 3y ago
  Interesting. I used to go to a Dutch sailing camp in summer as a teenager. My sailing instructors would have disapproved of the bowline shown here - they were always insisting that we use what this site calls a "left-handed bowline" variation. The reasoning is that otherwise the end would be wedged between the created loop and mooring. That has a number of downsides: - it can be dangerous when (say) undoing the knot in stormy weather because you end up having to wedge your fingers between loop and post to undo the knot. - theoretically if the boat rocks a lot and the loop is too tight, the mooring post could end up pushing into the end bit of rope, eventually undoing the knot. So it was just considered better to make the lefthanded version the one you pick by habit. Now I haven't sailed in (effectively) a quarter century since so the fact that I remember this says something about how serious they were about drilling this into our heads. When I think about it know the difference in risk is probably not significant for individuals, but I imagine that if you are a sailing camp responsible for hundreds of teens each summer it reduces the chance of accidents for them.
mclanett 3y ago
This has been the best app for years.
DarkSucker 3y ago
While neither animated nor as large as animatedknots, the Notable Knot Index https://notableknotindex.webs.com/ https://notableknotindex.webs.com/ contains a short list of knots along with insightful comments on their use. Some, like the Slipped Buntline Hitch, show alternative forms to alleviate deficiencies (jamming in this case) or for different use cases. One of my favorites is the Versatacle, which provides a pulley like mechanical advantage. It's been my go-to tensioning knot since learning about it. Animated Knots is great for understanding the form of knots like the Zepplin Bend, and I use both sites when learning a new knot or brushing up on an old one.
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  Notable Knot Index is interesting, a short list, but a good one! The Buntline Hitch is a personal favorite of mine, and though I am often fine with it jamming (for things I don't want to untie any time soon), I will have to tie a few slipped to get a feel for it.
CaesarA 3y ago
To be honest, outside of Wikipedia, this is probably one of the most useful websites on the internet.
jamaicahest 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=animatedknots.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=animatedknots.com this has been posted many times now.
cacois 3y ago
I've recently been learning how to tie some decorative knots. This site is fantastic, but suffers from the same frustration point all resources seem to: not explaining how to calculate the length of rope you will need for a given knot so you can cut it before starting. I can't believe so many beginner tutorials seem to forget this very basic first question of "how do I prepare my materials?".

702 points by zingerlio 3y ago

I love this resource. So many useful knots. Particularly I like the lanyard / friendship knot [1] and the midshipman's hitch (adjustable slip hitch) [2], the latter of which is probably about 90% of the knots that I tie. Honorable mention to the constrictor knot for attaching to large cylinders [3]. [1] https://www.animatedknots.com/lanyard-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/lanyard-knot [2] https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot [3] https://www.animatedknots.com/constrictor-knot-twisting-method https://www.animatedknots.com/constrictor-knot-twisting-meth...

lqr 3y ago
Midshipman hitch is great, I used it to reinforce my tomato cages with some tension members.
- atourgates 3y ago
  Well, you used it incorrectly. It's clearly for a very specific set of circumstances: > The Midshipman’s Hitch Knot is promoted by Ashley (ABOK # 1993, p 325) as the only knot to tie in the following unlikely but critical circumstance: you fall overboard and catch hold of the line which you have prudently left trailing astern and find yourself hanging on with difficulty. Before you tire, you manage to bring the bitter end of the rope around your back. You then have to tie a suitable knot to make a loop around you. A bowline cannot be tied under load. Two Half Hitches will slide and constrict you. The Rolling Hitch is the answer. Even as the second turn is tucked “up” into the correct place, the major strain is taken and the final Half Hitch can be tied with less urgency.
  - samcheng 3y ago
    Nope, that knot is useful surprisingly often! It's the only applicable knot in that contrived single-handed-sailing-overboard situation, but it's also an effective knot when pitching a tent or tarp, or when hanging a clothesline, or when securing e.g. a canopy against the wind. I learned it as the "Taut Line Hitch."
    - fenomas 3y ago
      Yes, it's a great default adjustable knot! The other one I think is worth knowing is the "adjustable grip hitch", which is like the midshipman's but the half-hitch goes on the other side of the turns. This latter one seems to hold a lot tighter once dressed, even in relatively slippy rope, but unlike the midshipman's it can't easily be tied under load. https://www.animatedknots.com/adjustable-grip-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/adjustable-grip-hitch-knot
      - slv77 3y ago
        The adjustable grip hitch is great but the Blake’s hitch is almost magic and my favorite knot right now. https://www.animatedknots.com/blakes-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/blakes-hitch-knot
    - EL_Loco 3y ago
      Taut Line Hitch is a little different from Midshipman's Hitch. Midshipman's grips a little better and is recommended. However, Like the other reply to your answer, for me the best of them is the Adjustable Grip Hitch. I teach knots to boy scouts, and know lots of them. After using the Adjustable, I don't use the Taut Line or Midshipman's anymore.
  - TOMDM 3y ago
    Your quote only states what the knot is suitable for, not what it isn't suitable for.

chadd 3y ago

One of the things I've learned from teaching knots to Boy & Girl Scouts in the BSA is that you must constantly re-learn them or your skills will founder. It's not like riding a bike for me. That could be a visual-spacial memory thing, but many of my co-knot-tieing scouting teachers seem to have the same experience... so this site is perennially useful. Favorite knot (involving a Rabbit going "through the hole, around the tree, and back down the hole"): Bowline Knot

jweir 3y ago
The bowline, because of the rabbit, is one of the only knots I have not forgotten from my scouting days.
eternityforest 3y ago
My memory of them often vanishes within hours or days... Except for tying shoes (A doubly slipped reef knot, where a reef knot is left over right and right over left which makes a knot tidy and tight) And the Uni-knot, even though I've never fished: A jester offends the king and fears he will executed, and so decides to kill an evil beholder, also called an eye-tyrant, to win back favor. He charges into the cave and stabs it through the eye, but gets scared and runs away. Coming out he remembers if he doesn't do something, he's dead anyway. Going back, he finds it dead, and he has time to take a long and winding road back, going around his journeys on the inside of his mind. Having learned from this he decides neither the rashness that got him in the mess nor the cowardice that made him run was any way to live, and this is why the uni-knot can use its power wisely and will not cut itself when tied in Spectra. And the highwayman's hitch which tells the story of two outlaws and a failed robbery. They're going to tunnel under the bank wall, but they see a hole in the plan. One(Representing one side of the rope) sticks his head up and he had an idea to fix it. The other one sees yet another flaw, and sticks his head in. Unfortunately, they overlooked one small thing, the cops are waiting, and all it takes is one pull to unravel this complicated scheme and they go to jail. It takes a long time to find the story hidden in the knots, but once you do, you are relying a lot less on spatial intelligence or muscle memory, and it becomes something you can actually learn and teach without needing access to an entirely new mode of thought and learning that doesn't make any sense to people who don't really have it and probably takes a long time to develop before you can even start learning the knots themselves.

joelcollinsdc 3y ago

There is an app called grog knots which I think is made by the same people. Best few bucks I’ve ever spent for an app. Love having a bunch of knot diagrams handy when I’m out trying to do something.

atourgates 3y ago
I came here to recommend this. Absolutely worth the 1-time $4.99-no-subscription-or-account-or-any-BS payment. They made a cool thing. It is valuable to me. I paid for it, and we're done. The app downloads once and doesn't need an internet connection. If you drew a Venn diagram of "Times I want to Know How to Tie a Specific Type of Knot" and "Times When I Am Out of Cellphone Range", there would be significant overlap between the two circles. I'm not a particularly good follower of technical diagrams, but I find the instructions to be very clear and easy to follow. It's rare that I don't get a knot right the first time. I've secured tarps, tents, clothes lines, gear onto vehicles and (most recently) a mountain bike that was missing its rear suspension, all thanks to this app. Here's the link to the app available for various devices: https://www.animatedknots.com/shop https://www.animatedknots.com/shop EDIT: I forgot about the fishing knots. No matter how good the app is as a resource, I always get confused and frustrated by fishing knots. But I also get confused and frustrated by fishing, so I can't really blame the app for this.
- dumbfounder 3y ago
  From the animatedknots.com website on their apps page: "Do you love advertising? We need to apologize in advance, because our apps are nothing but knots. We are sure that there are other apps that will suit your needs."
- msrenee 3y ago
  It says it's not available for my device. I've got a 3 year old android phone. Has it maybe not been updated recently enough? I used to have the app when it was free way back when. On an Ipod touch because I didn't have a smartphone back then.

AlbertCory 3y ago

There are several apps for your phone that teach knots.

DanAtC 3y ago
Web > proprietary apps
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Silly comment. They both have their uses.
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    why do you think it's silly? The offline functionality could have been implemented with the website too. I don't see any benefit in this use case for an app. But it has the downside that an app has possibilities to screw my system or track me unnoticed. So if you do not need special native features and you are not a computationally expensive product, please built a good offline capable website and not an app. Please tell me where the app has "it's uses" here?
    - KomoD 3y ago
      > But it has the downside that an app has possibilities to screw my system or track me unnoticed How is it going to screw your system? And just disallow running in background, disallow internet access if you are on mobile. I don't want to fiddle around with my browser when I can install a light-weight app. Not everyone is a "wow all apps very scary" person
      - AlbertCory 3y ago
        and note the comment above by someone else about camping without Internet access. If I were installing a knot app and it required enrolling me in their Knot Tying Social Network, I'd uninstall. In fact, if it couldn't run in Airplane Mode, I'd uninstall it.

gabereiser 3y ago

I learned to sail thanks to this resource.

Throw10987 3y ago
I am chartering a yacht in two weeks and have been busy re-learning how to tie a core set of knots. This is easily the best resource that I have been using with the rest of the crew(aka family)!

bigmattystyles 3y ago

I know the linked site in the submission is more about practical knots, everyday knots, but this Tom Scott guest video from Up and Atom on mathematical knots blew my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVd2Ugk9BU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVd2Ugk9BU So awesome that it's able to mathematically quantify knots.

sbt567 3y ago
Uh wow. That video is awesome. Thanks for sharing
jeroenvlek 3y ago
Thanks for sharing, I have been passively wondering about how mathematical knot theory works for quite some time. Awesome :)

MostlyStable 3y ago

This app is one of the first I always install on a new phone. Perennially useful.

ChuckMcM 3y ago

My favorite animated knot video is the Ylvis one on the Trucker's Hitch[1] but for the iPhone, Grogg Knots is my go to app if I forget a knot. Of course I find out this web site is the "web" version of that App :-) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUHgGK-tImY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUHgGK-tImY

echelon 3y ago
Are these the "What Does the Fox Say?" folks? That song both slaps and subverts all expectations. I had always assumed they were a one-hit wonder and simply disappeared. Very creative bunch. Now I can't get it out of my head.
- bjornasm 3y ago
  Its the same people. They have quite a few videos in the same genre, if you like the humour: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfNe3nGQENtP3VCn1t1pybju9ffSPBohU&si=K25LjUK5l6qp-V-R https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfNe3nGQENtP3VCn1t1pybju9...

Brajeshwar 3y ago

My pastime on the phone, besides playing chess, is to browse through Knots 3D - https://knots3d.com https://knots3d.com

stbtrax 3y ago

I personally found the low frame rate stop motion-esque animations on this hard to follow when learning knots a few months back. Simple close-up videos on YouTube served me better.

sails 3y ago

Great resource, especially that they take a stance on versions [] and include some history [] https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/midshipmans-hitch-knot

andrewl 3y ago

This looks quite useful! I’ve also gotten good information from Ian’s Shoelace Site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Cool website. When I was a teenager, I spent a week every summer learning to sail at a sailing course. So, I learned quite a few of those knots. This brings back good memories. As, I'm Dutch, the names for these knots in English are a bit challenging for me. And honestly, after 35 years, I struggle to name a lot of these knots in Dutch now. But I still know and use a few occasionally. A lot of that becomes muscle memory. If you do use them often enough, it kind of sticks. They are like nice little 3D puzzles and there's something satisfying when you figure out how they work. It can be fun to figure a few out while fiddling with a bit of rope. The practicality of knots and their traits is what drives their use. When you deal with boats, you need these knots to perform and not come undone when you are not expecting them to (which could be dangerous). And you also need them come apart when you need them to. Properties like that are what makes a lot of these knots so useful. Technically, you can get by with knowing only a handful. But there are a lot of specialized one with niche usages.

BoxOfRain 3y ago
> This brings back good memories. As, I'm Dutch, the names for these knots in English are a bit challenging for me. I finally got around to doing my day skipper last year and on the course was a Russian who spoke English perfectly fluently but struggled with the technical terms that the rest of us took for granted. It probably doesn't help that sailing is one of those sports where the difference in terminology between British and American English is sometimes significant, for example I don't think the term 'kicking strap' is used in the US. The knots I use most often even outside of sailing are the bowline and the round turn and two half hitches.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
As a younger I became obsessed with trying to make a Monkey's Fist from having heard about one from a Leave it to Beaver episode (a rerun on TV, please, I'm not that old). I had to figure it out myself though. There is a very nice animation on the site for the Monkey's Fist (where I just now learned the finishing touch to deal with the loose end of the line). https://www.animatedknots.com/monkeys-fist-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/monkeys-fist-knot
TheCondor 3y ago

Terr_ 3y ago

There's a certain kind of sci-fi premise of "what if every intelligent species has something they're particularly good at." Naturally, most stories revolve around something impressive (or damning) for humanity like "war" or "kindness", but in the past I've wondered what kind of story one could make if the answer was "knots". Perhaps that's a question for mathematicians, and whether some facility for topological knot-thinking might be very handy in some kind of physics or engineering.

XorNot 3y ago
I love this idea by the way.
Tao3300 3y ago
I love the idea of technologically superior aliens showing up and kicking themselves for never having discovered rope. Here, have the ftl drive, we need this rope. Maybe their native habitat didn't have fibrous plants.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Maybe some are like spiders, and they've always used solvents and glues in order to join or secure the lengths.

fragmede 3y ago

Despite the claim of "knots of any kind" the shibari category of knots is missing.

laserlight 3y ago

First Class Amateur [0] is a great YouTube channel demonstrating how to solve real-world problems using knots. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@First_Class_Amateur https://www.youtube.com/@First_Class_Amateur

xulres 3y ago

It's been a decade or more but every time someone posts this website I swear to learn to make some basic knots and I never do. I should buy some rope.

josenyc 3y ago

Was expecting fluid animations. These are animated stills, not hating though.

wiz21c 3y ago

I thought for a second that I'd see 3D animation of knots and thought "that'd be a cool math program to do: one that can animate a knot construction"...

Raed667 3y ago

Something about knots makes me feel stupid/slow. That's a shame for someone who does climbing and boating... Now I just rely on muscle memory, as trying to "understand" knots always leaves me frustrated...

nidnogg 3y ago

This was quite helpful during my early climbing days. It's a shame that sometimes you just can't beat a YouTube video with someone tying the knot you're trying to learn.

cton 3y ago

I must have saved upwards of 10 minutes so far by tying my laces with the Ian Knot [1]. If anyone knows of a faster knot I’m all ears, otherwise, cheers to Ian and his innovation in the shoe lace knot space. [1] https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

pbhjpbhj 3y ago
In case you don't realise, you're tying a regular shoe-lace knot, a square knot, it's just a different technique.
aftoprokrustes 3y ago
Not just time saving, but since I use it I did not have to re-tie my laces during the day, it looks very symmetrical, and I regularly have the silly but satisfying experience of people seeing me tie my shoes and say "how did you do that?". This is the knot I am teaching my kids (my wife can take care of the "standard" one).
- daviziko9 3y ago
  My kids only know this way of tying it, I was surprised how easy they learnt it vs what other parents refer to me for more traditional ways
jimbob45 3y ago
How do you keep the tension when tying that? With a regular shoelace knot, I have a spare thumb to place on the base knot so that it maintains the tension I initially selected with the base knot. With the Ian knot, it feels like I just get whatever it feels like giving me.
- daviziko9 3y ago
  I use my pinky or ring finger to apply pressure on the base knot

thrownaway561 3y ago

we all know what category they are missing ;)

psychoslave 3y ago
From the elusive message, I guess you mean BDSM or something like that. Are they really specific knots used by people that like to tie each other though?
- hooverd 3y ago
  Your basic single and double column ties, stuff like the Burlington bowline, aside from that no, not really.
msrenee 3y ago
There's a guy who does youtube videos on Paracord braids and the like. Excellent instructions, but I got kind of a sexual vibe off of it between the music and the way he handled the paracord. All the videos show are his hands and the cord, nothing weird at all. Always thought something was off about it and then found out he's big into restraint or whatever you call the bdsm stuff where people get tied up. Made a lot of sense after that. Still love his videos.

klausjensen 3y ago

I am not interested in knots. Yet, I just spent 20 minutes watching these animations and being fascinated. Good work.

taosx 3y ago

Most adblocker lists I have have permanently blocked this domain.

mikekorostelev 3y ago

It's how I hung my hammock

noufalibrahim 3y ago

This is a beautifully done website. I found a book on knots at a used bookstore and bought it. I got a few lengths of paracord and tried them all out. It's a great way to spend an evening. Quite relaxing and doing something physical with my hands was a great stress buster too.

DoingSomeThings 3y ago
Any specific suggestions for rope to buy? I love the idea of practicing at home in my living room.
- mthoms 3y ago
  You can buy kits from proknot.com The one I have comes with two small lengths of cord and two small carabiners (I'm a climber). My only complaint is that the cord tends to be a bit stiff but that's unavoidable if you're using real cord. https://proknot.com/products/pro-knot-knot-tying-kit https://proknot.com/products/pro-knot-knot-tying-kit
- dahart 3y ago
  Get a variety! At least if you hope to use knots away from home, like boating, climbing or camping. I’ve definitely found it useful to practice knots on different sizes, materials, tensions, etc., just because the ropes I get in the wild vary… for camping you might be using 1/4 inch or smaller, for a small sailboat maybe 1/2 or 3/4-inch, when I go on a houseboat every once in a while, it’s like maybe 1.5 or 2-inches diameter, sometimes old and fraying, sometimes nylon and relatively slippery, or sometimes a natural fiber rope that’s much grabbier especially when wet… Knots really seem to behave differently on different sizes & kinds of ropes, and it can be hard to remember (for me at least) how to tie a knot you learned with twine on a bigger boat line. How easily they bind, how well they hold, and how easily they release also starts to get way more important when you’re outside and depending on the lines.

KomoD 3y ago

It's like Ian's shoelace site but for knots :D

koolba 3y ago

The animations are nice, but I don’t know if I can trust a site that lost fishing knots that does not include a Palomar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_knot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_knot

kuhewa 3y ago
Unless it was added in the past 9 minutes, you may simply not have scanned long enough.
mattmoose21 3y ago
https://www.animatedknots.com/palomar-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/palomar-knot

jrh3 3y ago

Great site. The goto place for learning or studying a knot. Place where I first heard about the Ashley Book of Knots (ABOK). The book is a historical gem, as well as the official reference for knots. Great stories about knots. Trucker's Knot, with cool reference to Ylvis, of What Did the Fox Say? https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot

kelahcim 3y ago

+100 for neckties :)

samjohnation111 3y ago

[flagged]

drewchew 3y ago

The one app I've ever bought besides games.

drewchew 3y ago

"Eighteen inches of paracord is an infinitely better object to fidget with than any 10$ trinket you'll ever get at a store..." the old man shouted, angrily shaking his fist at modernity in general.

javier_e06 3y ago

This is a great website. I think it would be a great idea to extend it to "knots in action" with a video showing how the forces (expected magnitude and direction) act upon each given knot. Specially the climbing ones. I few months ago I learned the knot that ties my shoes for good : https://youtu.be/aQ66r5vMqo8?feature=shared https://youtu.be/aQ66r5vMqo8?feature=shared The problem with teaching knots is the hand action. Making a good knot involves good hand action. Surgeons spend months practicing sutures. There was an episode of the crime tv series Columbo where finds out it was not a suicide because the dead guys shoes where knotted backwards as someone else knotted the shoes when the guy was already dead (backwards). Very interesting.

etra0 3y ago
The YouTube channel HowNOT2 [1] has a great collection of videos testing various ropes (mostly for climbing). Among these videos, there are a couple that test specific knots (like [2]). It's overall a very fun channel, even though I don't even do any sort of climbing. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@HowNOT2 https://www.youtube.com/@HowNOT2 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagg2-If4h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagg2-If4h8

jmuguy 3y ago

Seems to be missing the most animated knott. https://www.animatedknots.com/?s=don https://www.animatedknots.com/?s=don

karaterobot 3y ago

I probably check this site every couple weeks, it's the best knot website out there. I tie knots while watching movies. I used to pick locks. Maybe knitting eventually.

umvi 3y ago

For those who don't know many knots, I recommend learning the bowline if you could only choose one. It's called the "king of knots" for a reason - it's highly reliable and won't fail under load when lesser knots would. https://www.animatedknots.com/bowline-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/bowline-knot There's a way of tying it one-handed as well, which can be useful in rescue scenarios (i.e. you are a hiker who fell into a ravine, and someone lowers a rope to you. Even if one arm is broken/disabled you could tie a bowline around your waist with your other arm) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XIUiUOzq7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XIUiUOzq7Q

vanderZwan 3y ago
Interesting. I used to go to a Dutch sailing camp in summer as a teenager. My sailing instructors would have disapproved of the bowline shown here - they were always insisting that we use what this site calls a "left-handed bowline" variation. The reasoning is that otherwise the end would be wedged between the created loop and mooring. That has a number of downsides: - it can be dangerous when (say) undoing the knot in stormy weather because you end up having to wedge your fingers between loop and post to undo the knot. - theoretically if the boat rocks a lot and the loop is too tight, the mooring post could end up pushing into the end bit of rope, eventually undoing the knot. So it was just considered better to make the lefthanded version the one you pick by habit. Now I haven't sailed in (effectively) a quarter century since so the fact that I remember this says something about how serious they were about drilling this into our heads. When I think about it know the difference in risk is probably not significant for individuals, but I imagine that if you are a sailing camp responsible for hundreds of teens each summer it reduces the chance of accidents for them.

mclanett 3y ago

This has been the best app for years.

DarkSucker 3y ago

While neither animated nor as large as animatedknots, the Notable Knot Index https://notableknotindex.webs.com/ https://notableknotindex.webs.com/ contains a short list of knots along with insightful comments on their use. Some, like the Slipped Buntline Hitch, show alternative forms to alleviate deficiencies (jamming in this case) or for different use cases. One of my favorites is the Versatacle, which provides a pulley like mechanical advantage. It's been my go-to tensioning knot since learning about it. Animated Knots is great for understanding the form of knots like the Zepplin Bend, and I use both sites when learning a new knot or brushing up on an old one.

blacksmith_tb 3y ago
Notable Knot Index is interesting, a short list, but a good one! The Buntline Hitch is a personal favorite of mine, and though I am often fine with it jamming (for things I don't want to untie any time soon), I will have to tie a few slipped to get a feel for it.

CaesarA 3y ago

To be honest, outside of Wikipedia, this is probably one of the most useful websites on the internet.

jamaicahest 3y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=animatedknots.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=animatedknots.com this has been posted many times now.

cacois 3y ago

I've recently been learning how to tie some decorative knots. This site is fantastic, but suffers from the same frustration point all resources seem to: not explaining how to calculate the length of rope you will need for a given knot so you can cut it before starting. I can't believe so many beginner tutorials seem to forget this very basic first question of "how do I prepare my materials?".