How to I get my heel knot to cover the entire area?

[seveneves]

Does anyone else have this problem? I have Bruce grants enclycopedia of rawhide and leather braiding. I braided the heel knot and even made the extended version of the knot so that it's over three under three but there's still space between the laces. Also the bottom kind of creeps up leaving the lower half of the foundation exposed. What do I do?

Edited January 13, 2010 by seveneves

[CLH]

Need wider lace,or go o4/u4 or more bytes on your foundation knot. On your foundation knot, don'nt tighten it so tight and it'll stay down. hope this helps. Clint Haverty

[entiendo]

Over 3 and under 3...not sure what that means so I hope I'm not telling you something you already know, but isn't a heal knot a bosel knot, or are there other uses for the knot? "Not" sure...But I was under the impression heel knots aren't typically extended to make them longer???

Anyways, It may be time to learn to do more interweaves. I personally would not make the string wider, well unless you are using 1/16". The smaller the better...well when it comes to braiding anyhow.

Edited January 13, 2010 by entiendo

[Bevan]

Does anyone else have this problem? I have Bruce grants enclycopedia of rawhide and leather braiding. I braided the heel knot and even made the extended version of the knot so that it's over three under three but there's still space between the laces. Also the bottom kind of creeps up leaving the lower half of the foundation exposed. What do I do?

Mate i just spent shitloads of time working out a knot ,,, yes it was a heel knot on a bosal ,, 8 bight interweave , what size is ya knot? , what size are ya strings? and how many bights ????

Cheers for down under

Bevan

[Bevan]

Does anyone else have this problem? I have Bruce grants enclycopedia of rawhide and leather braiding. I braided the heel knot and even made the extended version of the knot so that it's over three under three but there's still space between the laces. Also the bottom kind of creeps up leaving the lower half of the foundation exposed. What do I do?

Yoy could always'; use a diffrent colour and do" another interweave , dependeng on your knot size and string size , its all about size ya know mate , lol , Cheers big ears

Bevo

[Bevan]

but isn't a heal knot a bosel knot, or are there ther uses

The heel is the possie on the bottom end of the bosal ,,, the knot that i put on the heel is an 8 bight turkshead , a popular 1 is a six bight turks head , so i suppose the heel is not the knot but the turks head is , and yes ,,, size does matter , lol , when it comes to bosals

oops sorry ,,

some one else can have a go now

Edited January 13, 2010 by Bevan

[entiendo]

I don't think it would be good to increase the size of the turks head if it's a bosel heal knot. Only because it's wider at the top than it is at the bottom so the braider is going to have a rough time doing the herringbone interweave at the lower end. Better to add more interweaves so the knot is consistent.

[rgerbitz]

Nowing how to make a turks head can get a guy a long ways in braiding. Nowing how to do a lot of diffferent interweaves does a lot to make your projects better. For instance on the first interweave you can have the turn back on the outside of the knot, sort of forming another set of bights. This is handy for closing the ends in a little tighter without expanding the foundation. Putting an inter weave only in the middle or to the top or bottom of a knot will close in gaps on something like a heel knot where the shape is irregular. Experimenting will help you get more intimate with what will and won't work.

Rob

[HorsehairBraider]

Seveneves, what rgerbitz is talking about is covered in the book "Braiding Rawhide Horse Tack" by Robert L. Woolery. I think he explains it pretty well but best are his pictures which (for me anyway) say a whole lot.

I'm not good at saying things but I'll take a try.

I think you can make the knot you are currently using work. Are you tying the knot with the bosal held nose button down, or are you tying with the nose button pointing up? I would suggest to tie the first way, with the nose button pointing down as I think it's a LOT easier. Take off your knot and start over, this time keeping your foundation turk's head or casa knot a lot looser, paying attention to keeping it tight at the "bottom" where it meets the arms of the bosal. Then start your interweave and be prepared to just keep going. If O3U3 does not cut it, keep going... even if you have to get up to O17U17, keep increasing. If you are careful to keep the "bottom" (it will turn into the top when the bosal is right side up) correct, pulling the passes down where they belong, you should not have a problem getting this knot to cover your foundation.

Sometimes though you do just have to use a different casa knot. With practice you get so you can tell from looking at how the foundation knot lays, once you tie it. You can see the foundation you just tied simply won't work. And with even more practice, you can call it before you tie anything at all.

[lilpep]

Does anyone else have this problem? I have Bruce grants enclycopedia of rawhide and leather braiding. I braided the heel knot and even made the extended version of the knot so that it's over three under three but there's still space between the laces. Also the bottom kind of creeps up leaving the lower half of the foundation exposed. What do I do?

<BR><BR>hello seven i read your post and thought i would ad my 2 cents from what you describe it seem sto me that your foundation or base knot is not the problem but it would have helped if it was a bit larger than what you started out with. if you followed Grants book you made a 7x6 and added two interweaves. you have two options in my opinion. the first would be to add more interweaves and take it to 04u4 or even 05u5 this can be done by following the same technique or pattern for the third interweave. the second option is by adding a second interweave of the same size as the base knot. this sounds strange i know but it is very possible. in woolery's book he talks about interweaves and it would be the one that sits on the inside and sticks out on the outside on the other end of the knot. i particularly dont like the way he explains but thats my opinion. by adding a second interweave of the same size as your base knot you are making a different knot but in the same pinneaple family. the thing here is that you already have two 5x6 interweaves and this would make it a little confusing. i would suggest losening your pervious interweaves and your base knot so you can accomodate a fourth or fifth pass to your knot. it would be good for you to invest about 26dlrs and buy the Tom Hall book " introduction to turks heads" this is a jewel of a book and personally i recommend it over any other book to learn about turks heads. it would help you understand the different types of interweaves and the pinneaple classes their is. for eexample the heel knot in grants book is a type 1 pinneaple of three passes (if you add another interweave it would be a four pass) if you were to add the "outside interweave" like in woolery's book it would be a type 2 of four passes. this might sound complicated but its "knot" so much. other than adding the extra interweaves you would have to take apart your heel knot and increase the 7x6 base knot into a 9x8 to ad two more parts and make it longer so the bottom gets covered up well, i think that the with of the ground work for the heel knot would still require 4 or 5 passes to cover every thing up nicely. by increasing the bits the six point star like apearrance of the ends of your heel knot would look like a 8 point star and by adding parts to the knot it would help cover the length of the heel. increasing the knot would also help it close more on the ends and that way you would not have a big opening at the bottom. if you increase the base knot to 11parts x 10 bits you might get to crowded at the ends depending on the with of your strands so i wouldnt recommend it. either way just to try and salvage it you can put more passes/interweaves into your heal knot but lossening and adding one more will create a few more problems like distortion and if you are working with rawhide you would have to retemper the whole knot to get it to work loose. in short i guess you have one more option which would be starting over with a 9x8 and adding more than 2 interweaves (making it a four or five pass). hope this helps to clear it up some. send me an email and i can get you hooked up with what you need on the T Hall book, its a freebe.  jorge.a.rodriguezespino@us.army.mil. take care Edited January 16, 2010 by lilpep