Talk:Turk's head knot

A note

And who could possibly remember this famous quotation? From chapter CCLXVII, "The Turks-Head:"

Now look you for'ard on the Pequod, where Queequeg and Stubb sit with yon ill-favored Lascars, worrying at a piece of rope. With what skill do they fashion it into that knot of all knots, the Turks-Head, that tangled complexity of cunning artifice. Yet, mark you, landsman, this knot with its sundry mystifications has no use in the fastenings and attachments. Every sheet-bend, inside-clinch, diamond-knot, double-crown, half-hitch, clove-hitch, blackwall-hitch, and carrick-bend has its place in the regulation of the Pequod. The humblest of the bowlines, stings, dead-eyes, splices, reefs, bends, hitches, knots, grommets, tarpaulins, epidydimides, and seizings, keeps our little world sailing on its appointed course. And yet the Turks-Head, which binds no sail, chocks no reeve, fillets no quoin, braces no cutting-spade, like some rough Kabbalah of the folio Parsees, is the Prince of Knots! Bethink yourself well on it, landsman! Aye, what are your bankers, your stock-brokers, your clergy, your Senators, your professors, your players with railroads, your stackers of wheat, your hog-butchers to the nation, but the Turks-Head Knots of human discourse, while it is the lowest square-knots and sheep-shanks that connect and bind our souls like some fragrant, oleaginous, glutinous, nacreous, viscous antinomian asphodel from the rarest and most prized of the far Barbadoes.

(Note: It's a joke. Laugh.)

How is the knot used to avoid chafing? Anyone care to explain that? FireWorks 07:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As well as around a pole, the turk's head can also be formed as a flat disk or mat - my knot book continues to call this a turk's head. I have seen such mats used to prevent, not chafing as such, but analogous damage to the deck around where blocks are secured, to a ringbolt or similar. When the line through the block is tight the block is held away from the deck and all is well, but if the line becomes slack the block will drop to the deck, and if the line is flogging the block will beat against the deck. If it's a heavy wooden block with metal strapping this is not good; a turk's head mat of rope around where the block is secured will potect the deck and deaden the noise. PeteVerdon 00:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You can also tie it around the rope you're trying to protect to prevent chafing. 24.23.117.99 (talk) 02:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Drawing?

Does anybody have an actually drawing of a Turk's head? I'm considering getting a tatoo of this, and my drawing skills are not too good. Pabelanger ^(Talk) 16:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Number of bights

Re sentence: "The number of bights is the number of crossings it makes as it goes around the circumference of the cylinder". This sentence is a little unclear. What does "it" refer to? The number of crossings the strand makes as it goes around the cylinder? Other online explanations indicate that the number of bights is the number of turning points (or 'bumps' or 'scallops') on each side of the turk's head knot (i.e 5 'bumps' along one side of the knot = 5 bights. A diagram could help to clarify this.Gobiidae (talk) 04:40, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]