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038 – Square Knot or Not?

Home » Blog » 038 – Square Knot or Not?

September 16, 2019 by Nick 9 Comments

The Square Knot was one of the first that I learned as a young Scout and one that I still hold dear today. But he has a cousin, the Sheet Bend, that has a superpower of his own and I think you should know about both.
First up we have the Square Knot, or as it’s technically called the Reef Knot, which is a pretty strong type of joining knot. Joining knots, or binding knots, combine two ropes together or two ends of the same rope. We commonly know the Square knot from when we tie packages and we are combining two overhand knots.
As kids, we remember repeating the old saying “Right over left, left over right” to remember how we make sure we end up with the knot we want. If you tie the same overhand knot twice, you will end up with a Granny Knot instead. It is not easily done with two ends of the same rope, but you can tie it in a way that you can have one long end and one short end opposing each other and this would be called a Theif Knot which is not as strong as the Reef Knot because of how the friction works then the ropes bind.
Now if you’re tying together ropes of two varying sizes, I would lead you to use the Sheet Bend. This knot puts an extra bend in that will create a secondary binding point. In the video below I’ll show you more on this, but if you get to a point where you are combining drastically different sized ropes, I would look at some even stronger bends like the Racking Bend or Seizing Bend.

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Filed Under: Blog, Outdoor & Explore

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. James Mineo says

    September 18, 2019 at 1:32 pm

    That was awesome to learn I like it very much you need to put more of them out there those knots can come in very handy with building a shelter or anyting and that was pretty easy to thanks a lot

    Reply
    • Don Forbes George says

      September 19, 2019 at 11:37 pm

      I MIRROR JAMES’ SENTIMENT ABOVE – GREAT AND EASY TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND IT DOES HAVE MANY USES.

      Reply
  2. Paula Perdue says

    October 9, 2019 at 1:43 pm

    Please show other knots. In a video.

    Reply
    • [email protected] says

      October 9, 2019 at 6:03 pm

      Thank you all for the feedback. I have added a link to a course on knots. I’ll continue to add more on a regular basis. We have dozens we would love to share!

      Reply
  3. Patrick Latunski says

    October 9, 2019 at 5:27 pm

    Enjoyed watching the video, was already aware of the square knot but the other was a good to learn one

    Reply
  4. Robert Ross says

    October 9, 2019 at 5:36 pm

    The Square Knot is definitely my favorite. Super versatile, and very secure!

    Reply
  5. Matthew Sean Williams says

    October 9, 2019 at 9:53 pm

    well done, but the videos should show the knots being tied with a tighter close up, using ropes of different colors: the shot should show only the hands and the ropes: I don’t care diddly about the instructor’s t- shirt.

    Reply
    • [email protected] says

      October 10, 2019 at 1:19 pm

      Thanks Matt! We will keep that in mind as we tape more of these.

      Reply
  6. Frank Zumpf says

    October 9, 2019 at 10:20 pm

    I liked the sheep bend best

    Reply

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