Knots are something we do every day of our lives. From the tying our shoe laces and wrapping a package to the most advanced climbing and boating knots we tie knots until we we no longer share this earth with others. My interest in decorative knotwork began whith my son and I working on the restoration of a 1955 Chevrolet Suburban. The complete frame-off restoration was going well and we were getting to the point of beginning to put it back together when we started searching for ideas of how to decorate the interior. We came across a website containing mariner style ropework and decorations and were awestruck at the beauty and functionality that can be achived using simple cord and rope. Knowing that marine enviroments were much more demanding on surfaces that could ever be found inside a vehicle we decided that this would be the style to use.
Now for the learning part; being that I serve as Assistant Scoutmaster in my sons Boy Scout Troop we both have some limited experience with working with rope and knot tying. We know that our skill are nothing like will be required for what we have envisioned for the Suburban we affectionately call “Dude”. The BSA Scout Handbook and The BSA Scoutmaster Handbook both show the basic scout knots and we had picked up a few other basic books like The Handbook of Knots and ??????. While these are fine books that illiustrate the basics of knot tying they by no means offer the comprehensive collections of functional and decorative knots that we would be needing. After much reasearch we found that the Ashley Book of Knots (written in 1946) was the definitave collection of knots for all purposes and The Complete Book of Decorative Knots and The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Knots and Ropework are both more modern text that deal with the changes in knotwork that has occured due to more modern rope making techniques and materials.
This blog is intended to document our transistion from beginner Scout knotters to highly skilled marine artisians. We will illustrate our various creations along the way while attempting to demonstrate our new skills in functional ways. We hope that you will stay around to see our progress and look forward to hearing from you should you have any tips or advice to offer for our budding skills or our eventual goal of "Tying Dude Up" to create a Custom Antique Vehicle that will be envied by all.
