How the smurf do you tie an alpine butterfly? (Awlso, general knot thread)

[Dane]

Definitely! Your Gas Station MRE challenge badge could use a companion.

As an aside, I think I got much better at tying the lanyard (or diamond) knot after I earned my Paracord badge.

The pride of earning the badges gives motivation to practice, thus leading to better skills. That makes sense.

I plan on making an attempt at a lanyard or something this weekend. I'll keep you posted. I do think though, that I will have a hard time making a complete thread just for a personal badge. Everyone might not be so interested in my personal knotting pursuits? Have to just cross that barrier, right?

[IMR4198]

    Some badges require a fairly significant commitment.  Maybe 30 days of coming up with something new every day.  Others are easier.  Starting a thread that consists of you making something from paracord doesn't require so much.  An initial post with maybe four or five photos.  Pretty much a one-time thing.  Some of the members will make a comment.  A little chit chat back and forth and that's about it.  Apply for your badge. 
    One of the members gave me some good advice once upon a time.  "Don't try to overthink it."  Like any advice, I don't follow it.  But still, I remember it and use just a little dab of it now and then.  Best wishes.  G
 

[Dane]

Thanks G. That's good advice. Will remember that.

[Farmer X]

Looking forward to seeing what you make!

[Dane]

Thanks, Farmer.

I went at it yesterday, which resulted in a lanyard and what became a rather sorry excuse of a monkey fist. I will post some pictures in a separate thread as required for the badge.

[Dane]

I made a lanyard by the fire of a stump of paracord I found.
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[BPRoberts]

Fire making has a badge too...

Totally forgot about this thread, glad to see you're all enjoying it. Might have to follow up on some other knots.

[IMR4198]

    I learned how to tie an alpine loop knot or whatever you call it.  Encouraged by this thread.  I learned the simple simon knots too.  Over, under, and double.  Handy for slippery synthetic ropes.  Also a few other things.  This seems to be a little hobby that doesn't take a lot of money (not yet anyway) and is useful.  Thanks.  Best wishes.  G
 

[pfrsantos]

I have an Ashley's, but I find it's a difficult book to actually learn to tie knots from. It's great if I want to check "did I tie a real X or a Y that's similar", and the historical info is cool, but I don't find it useful for teaching.

Like I said yesterday, I think I have it solved. The problems with the Butterfly are:

1. It's about as unsymetrical as a knot can get. Go left>right instead of right>left? Different knot. Front to back instead of back to front? Different knot It doesn't help that there doesn't seem to really be a consensus on which side of the final knot is the front and which is the back, and most sites don't give you pictures of both (or do things like give you right "front" and wrong "back". )

2. When you tie it wrong, it's looks and behaves very close to correct (until you put it under load, I guess.) Tie a bowline wrong? It'll slide, obviously not a bowline. Tie a square knot wrong? A granny looks fairly different.)

3. While many knots have multiple ways of being tied, there is usually one that's the "default" and the others are either used in weird edge cases or as curiosities. Both the "figure eight" and "hand wrap" method are about equally popular for the Butterfly, and there's also a (slightly less, but still fairly popular)  twist/hybrid method. Even within the main methods, there's a lot of variations.

Long story short, when you start learning the butterfly, it feels like you're learning four or five different related knots (like learning a timber hitch, two half hitches, and a taut line or something), but no one actually tells you which one is which. They do tell you to make sure you don't accidentally tie the DEATH BUTTERFLY. But don't do a great job of explaining what it actually looks like, how it's different, etc.

Here, watch this:


Check the original post and the rest of the thread, bet you'll like it.

 

[IMR4198]

  The video was interesting.