... I didn't like the look of the knots in the article
(and couldn't really figure out how they were done)
so I decided to use a proper knot which I thought was suited to the purpose.
It appears to me that you used the same knot, topologically,
but you tightened the 2nd tucking of the
overhand (which
is what makes it a "double ...". To those not seeing this
clearly, it is the form of the
anchor bend / fisherman's bendloaded
on the tail; I've seen such stoppers in some
commercial-fishing gear (and also loaded the opposite way).
It is NOT the
strangle orientation, which knot might be
more commonly presented in knots books qua stopper, btw.
Actually, looking again at your image, it seems that the
A & D (2nd & 3rd from left, bass side) strings are in the
form I say; but the orientation of the monofilament G (!),
B, & presumably broken high E strings is maybe different?
AND, reflecting on what I see in HIS image,
I'm now finding it hard to believe that those strings
are much tight at all --though they sure are straight--,
as the SPart of the knot shows no draw upon the
tucks, and in fact in the case of the A string (2nd...),
it looks as though the tuck has pulled BACK the SPart!?
(that grayish G string also doesn't look all so tight?!).
Is it possible for you to reeve the E string through
the bead a 2nd time (thinking that we could gain
strength by putting the initial bend of the SPart
around the bead, before force reaches a knot) ?
Unfortunately, the double overhand stopper fails with a bang
just as the upper (1st) E-string reaches it's required tension.
I leave a good 3/4" tail and can't see any deformation in the knot before it fails.
//
Working with soft rope I think I can see a mechanism
for how the double overhand stopper might pull through
which suggests the same would happen to a Fig 8.
What do you see AFTER the knot breaks?
--i.p., do you see a small, squiggly bit of broken-off
guitar string? --> which would indicate breakage,
not slippage!
That you observed no deformation suggests to me that
the knotted string simply broke. Does the bead have a
sharp edge (abnormally?), perhaps?
Hmmm, how did you
set it? E.g., anglers
are usually advised to carefully tighten some of
their knots (which also tie monofilament) by pulling
on the tail, with a moistened knot, along with other
parts --and given the relative weakness of the line,
manual pulling can impart significant tightening.
The strings are too stiff for a more complicated knot such as the Ashley.
So, can you help me find a knot that will work and still look nice?
Ashley's ("oysterman's") stopper isn't so complicated, really,
and in fact shows a simple method for making a stopper
--make a noose, and have it nip the tail. But his is a knot
that requires firm setting of the
overhand component as that
otherwise won't be drawn tighter by loading, and can
thus allow the tightly bending SPart to pull the tail
through and spill. (One can tie a variation in which the
SPart turns around the knot's rim and avoids this ... .)
But I remain skeptical that your knot "pulled through"
and suspect that the string broke --as asked above.
--dl*
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