The Knot Handbook

I bought the book as a gift. The gentleman who received it teaches rope making and knots to young children and boy scouts. The book was perfect, I loved that it had all the basic knots and the instructions were easy enough for anyone to follow, perfect for the boy scouts and anyone who is getting stated in tying knots.

I'm not a knot expert, nor do I play one on TV, but I found this book useful and interesting enough to buy two copies. I found the first one at my local independent bookstore and bought it for my nephew's birthday present. Once I had it at home I considered giving him one of my other 6 knot books and keeping this one for myself because I found the pictures much clearer than the other books on my shelf. In fact, during the "scanning" period I saw the Pile Hitch on pages 154 - 155 and thought it was an elegant solution for a temporary tying-off. Within days our waterwell pump's wiring had a short and so we had to pull it up and replace the pump and wiring and then re-install all of that in the well casing in temperatures a bit above zero. This required being able to easily stop the pump and 147 feet of coiled tubing when we needed to and this particular hitch came to mind. It was cold and dark and this simple hitch worked perfectly. For me, that one use paid for the book. For my nephew's book, I took it took an office supply place and had it done with a comb binding so it would lay flat. I've done the same with my copy and am having fun practicing knots. I can only tie about 3 knots (bowline, taut-line hitch and a stopper knot) with confidence, but enjoy trying to learn more.