Stage 4. At this stage, the knot tyer can be helped by the
symmetry of the already tied part of the second "8"-shaped nipping loop.
Or, he can follow
the same reasoning that had helped him proceed till now : He should drive the working end to make a right turn, in order to accomplish two things :
1. to encircle, and wrap together the first end and the second bight of the "8"-shaped nipping loop together, and to drive the working end so it becomes parallel and adjacent to this first end.
2. to encircle and wrap the first end of the "8" shaped nipping loop it belongs, too, in order to be entangled with it, too - as it happens with the bights all over the knot s nub : they encircle and wrap together the two pairs of any parallel and adjacent ends meet in their way !
Important note : This is the only time the working end has to encircle
three segments at one stroke : the two segments of the first "8"-shaped nipping loop, and the first end of the second "8"-shaped nipping loop that had been formed during the last 3 Stages. I have to mention this, because it is a point where the inexperienced to tie the Teedledee bend or loop knot tyer runs the danger to make a mistake... I, too, had made this mistake many times, when I was tying this knot at the beginning, because I was fooled by what I had to do right after this move : to drive the working end of this second double nipping loop in a position it will become parallel and adjacent to the first end, so then, just by retracing this first end, to drive the working end out of the knot s nub. Yes, one should do this, but he should not be too quick : he first has to complete the formation of the second bight of the second nipping loop, that encircles its own end, and, to do this, he has to encircle all the
three segments he will meet in his way.
I believe I should not repeat that, right after this move, this working end has to go "over" the diagonal element, as all the parallel and adjacent segments of this knot do...Then, it should go "under" the bight of the first "8"-shaped nipping loop, and get the hell out of the knot s nub !
Attention : I said : "
under" the bight of the first "8"-shaped nipping loop", NOT
"under everything" !
If, at this point, the working end goes under everything, i.e. under
both bights, of
both nipping loops, the knot would be tied wrongly. It will not make any difference regarding the overall security of the knot, but it will deform its nice, symmetric shape, which helps us inspect if we made any mistakes during tying, at a glance.
I know that the my ability to describe a sequence of moves in a language I have only an inadequate, very rudimental knowledge and experience of is very limited, and this fact, added to the fundamental difficulty of any language to describe the curvilinear, convoluted paths of the segments of knots in 3D space, does not help at all !
To the brave interested reader that has read all those four verbal descriptions of the four Stages / pictures, I say one thing : Tying this ultra-symmetric knot ( Roger E. Miles calls it "triple symmetric" , for reasons I can not explain here ) is
MUCH MUCH easier than it sounds ! The greater help is offered by the symmetry itself : whenever we make a however small mistake, make a wrong turn or tuck, the end result would be awfully distorted, so we will notice that something went wrong at once, during the inspection of the knot. The mistakes that can not distort the final image very much, can not influence the security of this knot at all ! I had deliberately tied all the possible knots, doing all the possible mistakes one can do, if he follows the sequence of moves I describe. One end up either with an ugly tugly, which bears no relation with this beautiful knot whatsoever, or with a slightly different knot, that it is as secure as the one he should had tied. If one or both parallel and adjacent segments do not occupy the correct positions, and the knot looks like the more simple form of the Tweedledee bend or loop shown at the attached pictures, the overall security is not jeopardised : I prefer the more compact, tighter form I describe in this thread, but the simpler forms are also OK, and also extremely secure !
My message is simple and clear : If one
understands what this knot really is, its structure, the way it achieves the interlocking of the two
"8" shaped double nipping loops (
leaving the diagonal elements deep inside the knot s nub ), he will never have any problems with its tying. He should not remember things, he should only follow the only reasonable and possible path that can lead to tie it.
