Tie Knots - Hitches

Chris Conrad: Hi, my name is Chris Conrad and I am an Assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 165 in Fredericksburg, Virginia and today we are learning how to tie everyday knot. Now, the next four knots I am going to teach you are actually hitches and a hitch is a knot that connects a line of some sort to an object, for example these pieces of bamboo.

Now, the first hitch I am going to teach you is called the clove hitch. The clove hitch is the standard knot used to start lashings like these ones you see behind me on the scarves. Clove hitch starts by creating a round turn where the working end passes over the top of the standing part to create a X. we take it around one more time and the working end goes underneath its own tail.

This one is a very distinctive knot, this is a clove hitch or we have one going across the top and two underneath. Now, the variation on this knot that I would like to show you is called the constrictor knot. The variation on the clove hitch and all we are going to do is we are going to take the working end and pass it underneath the standing part to create essentially an overhand knot that slips underneath the top part.

It is called the constrictor knot because you can use it to really tighten down a hitch and it holds very well.

Now, the next knot I am going to show you is called round turn and two half hitches. This is an anchor knot. Round turn as the name implies means we go round our spar for one complete turn and then come back out. From here we simply want to do two half hitches. A half hitch, we take the working end across the standing part and come up through the hole and repeat that a second time for the second half hitch. We worked all the flack out of this knot and this is a fantastic anchor because all of the tension is actually taken on the round turn instead of on the two half hitches.

Next we are going to learn two new hitches, the pipe hitch and the taut-line hitch, which is used in combination, are excellent for creating vertical structures like this pole here. The pipe hitch is very similar to the round turn and two half hitches. In that we are going to be wrapping the pole and finishing the two half hitches, but in this case instead of wrapping the pole twice, I am actually going to wrap it four times and finish with two half hitches.

So I will take the working end. Cross it across the standing part, bring it up through the loop that is the first half hitch. Cross the cross standing part again and up through the loop and that is our second half hitch. So, four times around finishing with two half hitches and you notice that even with a very slippery nylon cord and very slippery bamboo that we can put a great deal of tension on that line and it won t slip. Although it can be pushed down to lineup with our other pipe hitches.

Now from here, we are going to down to our stake. So, I have taken my cord around the stake at the bottom and we start to taunt-line hitch off with a half hitch. So, I will take the working part of my rope across the standing part and up through the loop and I am going to take the working end around and up through that same loop a second time.

From there we move to the outside of knot, crossover the standing part again and come up through the loop. This creates three round turns around the standing part and introduce a quite of bit of friction into the overall hitch and this hitch can be moved down or up, in this case up to tighten and provides us with a nice stable structure. So, now our pole is nice and stable. Well, we have been learning everyday knots and from here, I have got two new hitches, which I like to call good for a fast getaway.