Author Topic: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?  (Read 36802 times)

Sandra Snan

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #15 on: September 22, 2010, 09:54:51 AM »
Tying the two ends together with a surgeon's knot immediately slips with this brand of floss.
The other way of using it, bringing the ends together and tying a surgeon's knot as I would an overhand loop, slips too, just stretching the loop with my fingers (which is what I do to get it taut so I can floss). SS, I must be using a much slipprier and more prone to tearing brand of floss than you do.
Both surgeon's variants mentioned above seem significantly more fiddly to me than the twistydore loop roo suggested.

The blood knot? I might as well tear the filaments to make an eye splice, it's so fiddly. Had I three hands, the extra one to hold the section in the between the coils open, the blood knot could've been an option.

Tying one overhand loop and then another on the bight to slide up against the first doesn't hold either.
Doing the same with an overhand loop first and then an alpine butterfly with the other knot in the butterfly's eye does work fine.
That's a good idea, Dan. However, the twistydore is way easier for me. It's faster (half as many steps) and while both can tear if I mess up while dressing the knot, the butterfly version seems more likely to in my experiments so far. Another problem is that if the existing knot (from the overhand loop) doesn't align exactly in the middle of the alpine butterfly's eye, the loop available for flossing will be less than expected since the eye won't slip all the way and leave another, smaller loop. Another problem with all overhand loop derived variants is that slipping the loop into place stretches and deforms the floss, making it less useful to floss with.

I did come up with an easy way to tie the alpine knot for the situation Dan suggests:
Take the overhand loop holding the knot between your thumb and index finger. Wrap the string around your non-dominant index finger two times. Move the knot over and under.



I used the sheetbend secured with extra hitches on both sides which was the first knot I found which held, but it was so fiddly and I wanted something that I could tie fast and easy without having to be overly dexterious. Twistydore to the rescue!

« Last Edit: September 22, 2010, 11:42:34 AM by Sandra Snan »

Sweeney

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #16 on: September 22, 2010, 01:18:54 PM »
Sandra

Although the blood knot will not be as quick to tie as the solution you have it is not as difficult as most instructional videos etc make out.  The link below is to a video which shows a blood knot tied in the middle of a line but if you tie a simple overhand knot in your floss (which is then positioned at the bottom of the lower bight in the video) then the instructions will work. When finished the ends with the overhand knot can be left or if this is being tied in other line then simply trimmed off once the knot has been tightened. I have tied monofilament fishing line using this method and unlike dental floss half the time you can't see it because it's so fine! It also works in thin split film polypropylene.

Barry


http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2031988003

Dan_Lehman

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #17 on: September 22, 2010, 06:49:43 PM »
The blood knot? I might as well tear the filaments to make an eye splice, it's so fiddly. Had I three hands, the extra one to hold the section in the between the coils open, the blood knot could've been an option.

Tying one overhand loop and then another on the bight to slide up against the first doesn't hold either.

The Blood knot might tied more easily with a sort of clamp (binder clip?)
to hold one side's wrap of the other end in place for finishing the knot.

Your "... on the bight to slide up against ..." surprises me, but I don't
expect to see much sliding in that the knots should be set snug,
not left to slide -- how is it failing?  (The one taking tension first should
at most flype until the other one abuts it, and then lock, I'd think.)

And the Fisherman's Knot with tucked ends might work well, too,
and be easier to tie than the Blood knot : make the FK as usual,
but before sliding the opposed Overhands together, tuck each
end through the center between lines, to be nipped when tight,
a la Blood knot.


Btw, it sounds as though you're doing a lot of tying : are you making
a new loop each day?  -- how about a new toothbrush daily?!  I'm of
the opinion of re-using ... !

--dl*
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Sandra Snan

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #18 on: September 22, 2010, 07:50:47 PM »
The overhand knots are sliding and, while doing so, destroying the floss. Not good. That's why I don't want to do an overhand loop.

I'm sure the blood knot has plenty of use cases but why would I choose it over the zeppelin bend? Or, in this case where untying isn't needed, over the twistydore knot, which is way easier to tie quickly? I'm grateful and happy for the suggestions but I don't understand them, when they're clearly worse for this particular scenario. Use a binder clip to tie a blood knot, just for flossing? I was looking for something quicker/easier to tie than a zeppelin bend which I was using previously. Going the other way around, to a knot with more fiddly steps, just seems absurd. I have to interpret it as you trying to fool me.

I want to respect knots. I don't want to be one of those who use a granny knot for everything. That also means using the knot that's appropriate, not overkill, for the situation. I use a variant of a slipped surgeon's knot to tie my knee socks since that's just enough that they won't open by themselves, which they do with the regular shoelace knot. I use the zeppelin bend for various little things around the house. I do it because an appropriate knot that's not overkill is a beautiful thing. A thousand extra hitches and loops when they're not needed aren't.


I have never ever, until today, heard of reusing floss.

I searched for it and found this page:
Is it okay to reuse floss previously used?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090305181304AAxcUAN

Maybe there is some special kind of floss that can be reused. I haven't seen it.

It's weird, I haven't thought so much about it, maybe because it's guilt vs guilt - guilt over global warming vs guilt over not flossing.
I'll think about it, but I mean, I don't reuse tooth paste, either, right?
« Last Edit: September 22, 2010, 07:54:02 PM by Sandra Snan »

knot4u

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #19 on: September 22, 2010, 08:08:17 PM »
This exercise proves that a knot's propensity to jam is not proportional to security level.  It looks like the Stevedore (or "Twistedore") is one of the best solutions here.  In rope, I enjoy the Stevedore for being a stopper knot that's secure but not jam-prone.  I would not have guessed a Stevedore loop would be highly desirable in this application with slick floss.

Sandra Snan

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #20 on: September 22, 2010, 08:23:00 PM »
It looks like the Stevedore (or "Twistedore") is one of the best solutions here.
I've tried the suggestions and it is easily the very best posted so far.

I called it a "twistydore" or "twistedore" because a stevedore is sometimes called a double figure eight, right? And if so, this is a quadruple figure eight (I use four twists). Or a double stevedore. If that's a bad coinage I'll drop it and refer to it as a stevedore loop. I just figured the "twisty" was appropriate for the variable amount of twists available.

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I would not have guessed a Stevedore loop would be highly desirable in this application with slick floss.

Me neither.

Dan_Lehman

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #21 on: September 23, 2010, 01:34:25 AM »
The overhand knots are sliding and, while doing so, destroying the floss. Not good. That's why I don't want to do an overhand loop.

I asked how the knots were able to slide, if snug together?

Quote
I'm sure the blood knot has plenty of use cases but why would I choose it over the zeppelin bend? Or, in this case where untying isn't needed, over the twistydore knot, which is way easier to tie quickly?

Because it is stronger and has a slim profile.

Quote
I have never ever, until today, heard of reusing floss.  I searched for it and found this page:
Is it okay to reuse floss previously used?
/answers.yahoo.com/question/

If this is what you count as advice, good luck to you.
"ewwww".
Then again, you never heard of using an Offset Stevedore+/Fig.10+ , either.
The Western world --and esp. The States (USA)-- is a throwaway world;
and now there are wars in the land of petroleum, and continual threats
to nature so that we can "just throw it away" -- these many petroleum
products, and others.  (Actually, water is perhaps soon enough the
bigger problem.)

Can you wash or rinse, dabble in alcohol or hyd.peroxide?
Do you throw out your toothbrush each time (or do you steer
around those nasty bacteria of the mouth with it so it remains
pristine)?  You might even floss with some toothpastey mouth.

(And will you brush/sterilize a lover's mouth before kissing?!)

Hey, you could make a 1-/2-week set of (variously tied) flossing loops,
to give a long drying de-germing time, if it bothers you.

--dl*
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Sandra Snan

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #22 on: September 24, 2010, 05:05:36 PM »
I asked how the knots were able to slide, if snug together?
They slide before they get together.

Quote
If this is what you count as advice, good luck to you.
Thank you to all who made suggestions.
Some of it was very useful and that way of tying the Stevedore sincerely improved my life. I'll use it with a single twist to make my figure eights faster, too.

Quote
Then again, you never heard of using an Offset Stevedore+/Fig.10+ , either.
That's right. My knotting vocabulary was very small. I've never seen that kind of "plus" orthography before.

As for reusing floss, I'll keep thinking about this important issue. Perhaps I can make a greater effort than I have in the past to make sure that the floss I buy isn't made from non-renewable sources, like fossils.

knot4u

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #23 on: September 24, 2010, 08:49:30 PM »
I tied the Stevedore ("Twistedore") in dental floss.  It worked flosslessly, I mean, flawlessly.  It was quite easy to tie too.  If I'm bored one day, then I'll try the other methods mentioned here.

squarerigger

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #24 on: September 30, 2010, 05:22:41 AM »
Hi Sandra,

Trying to tag on to the list of useful knots, bends, hitches and the like here so far - have you tried the Timber Hitch as a pair of loops one to the other?  Just a thought because it is about as fiddly as the twice-around Stevedore and does not involve poking and end through a loop more than once (three times with the twistydore?) to join the two loops.  I'll go try it - as I said, just tryin' to be helpful....

SR

Raterus

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #25 on: October 04, 2010, 03:20:49 PM »
I found probably the easiest method to do this.  Try the surgeon's knot, but add a few more turns to the loop, as many as it takes really for your brand of floss.  In my tests on the Oral-B Satin floss, it didn't even come close to slipping before the floss broke.

--Michael


kayakfit

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #26 on: August 19, 2021, 05:21:56 AM »
I?ll try the ?twistydore? knot.  I?ve been using a Carrick Bend, which holds in some types of floss, but not in others.  By tying an overhand knot below the Carrick Bend, it always holds.  It?s easy to tie too.  However I imagine that the floss is under a lot of shear strain at the overhand knot.  I haven?t broken it yet, so it does work well, but it seems like an inelegant solution.  As for re-using floss, sometimes it begins to shred when using it once.  You?re not going to get a lot of use from a piece of dental floss, and getting shreds caught between one?s teeth is un-fun.  When one considers sanitation, it seems worse than pointless.

James Petersen

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Re: Suggestion for dental floss loop knot?
« Reply #27 on: November 05, 2021, 06:32:47 AM »
Seems I am a bit late to the party, but I think the first knot I ever posted about might fit the bill. It is simply a round turn tied around a round turn. When drawn up it holds extremely well and seems to be quite strong.

https://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4150.msg25169#msg25169

The pictures leave a lot to be desired, but convey the idea. Might be a bit fiddly to tie in floss, though.

- JP