Customer Reviews

Handbook of Knots: EXPANDED EDITION

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was truly surprised by Pawson's book. From the reviews of others, I was expecting a good deal, and hoped it would be as good as Morrow's Guide to Knots, but adding some information not included in that very good book. When the book arrived, it seemed so slim (actually 160 pages, however) and compact, I couldn't see how it could compare.

However, it's a marvel in presenting a wealth of information very clearly. I think it is considerably more informative than the Morrow book, and also gives clearer explanations and illustrations.

It has very many useful knots that Morrow and most other small books do not have, such as the Alpine Butterfly, Ashley's Bend, Buntline Hitch, and the Klemheist knot, gives good information on splicing that Morrow completely omits, and has a lot of useful tips everywhere. The illustrations are truly first rate.

I was surprised though at the omission of the tautline hitch or Tarbuck knot (either would have sufficed). Indeed there were no "ratcheting" loop knots given that slide open or closed to the degree desired, then locked -- a truly useful class of knot that shouldn't have been omitted. If another knot had to go to make room, the only two that could have gone, in my opinion, are the Jury Mast Knot and the Thief Knot. (Admittedly, the Thief Knot is interesting, and I guess that if you need the Jury Mast Knot, you REALLY need it. But that's not one person in 10,000 these days.)

Morrow's is probably more complete for the fisherman.

I highly recommended "The Handbook of Knots" as a first book on knots, and for most people it will really be all that they ever need, except for the sliding loop knot omission. But if you do need a sliding knot, the Tautline Hitch is actually a Rolling Hitch tied on its own standing part after looping around the object being hitched, so since the book gives the Rolling Hitch, if you know this relationship between the knots, then you're all set and probably won't ever really need another book.

Unless you become fascinated by the subject, in which case you'll need Ashley's book.

Overall, Pawson's book sets a new standard among the smaller, conveniently-sized, highly practical knot books.

Bought this book for my course library (I am a wilderness instructor for Outward Bound). Realized too late that it does not include the taut line hitch or the trucker's (wagoneer's) hitch, both of which we use a lot. I would have thought those would be included in any good knots book. Ultimately replaced it with "The Book of Knots: How to Tie 200 Practical Knots" by Budworth & Dalton. Good illustrations a better selection of knots.

For my first work, I started with Ashely's bible on knots.However, that was far and away too authoritative - with thousands ofknots at my disposal, I had no idea what the most important were.

I needed a succinct introduction.

Pawson delivers just that. A "fine little book" it is indeed - yet in this modest, superbly illustrated volume lurk about one hundred important knots - most are very useful, some are decorative, and all are rewarding.

If Ashely's work is the college of knot tying, this would be my vote for the textbook for "Knots 101 - the adventure begins !" END

I wanted to let potential readers know that Dawson's book DOES include the Taut-line Hitch, though you might have to know a bit about knots going in to realize it. The Taut-line Hitch is simply the Rolling Hitch (page 82 in Dawson), with the rope turned back and tied around its own standing end rather than around a pole as Dawson shows it. Dawson probably could have made that clearer, but it is there.

It's true that it doesn't include the Trucker's Hitch. It probably should in the next edition. Dawson does include the Waggoner's Hitch (page 90), which is a slightly inferior but still serviceable knot that performs the same function as the Trucker's Hitch: allowing a line to be quickly tightened to hold a load.

Even given this minor room for improvement, I think this is one of the best books of its kind ever written. The illustrations are exceptionally clear, the selection of knots is almost ideal, the book itself is small enough to easily pack with you, and its binding is unusually tough and durable for use in the field.

I think Ashley's Book of Knots is THE knot book, still unequalled after over 60 years. Yet Ashley's book is so huge and comprehensive that in some ways it is less useful than smaller books such as Dawson's. Buy Ashley for reference, by all means. But buy Dawson's book for everday use.

I consider this book a "must have". It is compact (travels well) and is very well illustrated. The instructions are very easy to follow. Anyone who camps, hikes or sails should have a copy. Makes a great gift (e.g. Christmas stocking stuffer).

This book is good for all but it is great for first timers. Has most of the knots you could want...but of course not all. I'm still looking for a knot book to compliment this one. I've been looking at a lot of knot books and this one is a very well rounded book. If your going to only have one knot book..this is the one

This is overall a good book, with some interesting knots and useful illustrations. At times, however--more frequently than is acceptable--I have found the instructions a little too telegraphic and the illustrations completely mysterious. For instance, the illustrations sometimes seem to change orientation from one step to the next with no word of warning. At other times, critical parts of the knot are obscured by a hand of the person holding it. The descriptions sometimes give me the feeling that small but crucial operations have been left out, as if they belonged to the author's unconscious "muscle memory" and he never thought to include them. For example, it seems to me that it is topologically imposible ;-) to produce the Turqouise Turtle (pg. 52) following the the instructions and illustrations. You just can't get from step 3 to 4 without some missing manipulation of the rope.

Des Pawson created a great manual for tying all types of knots. He successfully breaks down the various categories to include essential basics, their technical counterparts and various other useful techniques for both decorative uses and inquisitive minds.

As an avid sailor and user of all types of knots, I can't emphasize enough the importance of strongly knowing how to tie the perfect knot when needed. I've been waiting to buy a knot book for years and this one is perfect. The first time I came across his book, a fellow sailor pulled it off the shelf of his vessel to quickly show me an example. After that I was sold on the colorful pictures, simple explainations and great organization of his collection.

Pawsons book is a great guide and I find myself picking it up at various times to simply relax, practice my old knots, and learn a few new tricks.

for the price the best book on knots there is & I bought (and returned them all :-)
Very complete concerning how to use the knots, and their terminology. Little pictograms in the upperhand corner show it's intended uses, and takes you through all the various types of material and how to prepare it for your work. But the real point is can you replicate the knot? And yes Pawson shows good detail both in picture and word of how to obtain that particular knot.

The cover can also be used as a bookmark so go get some string and start knotting. I always keep some on me for when I have time with nothing to do. Knotting is a cheap and easy hobby but like all else, it takes practise.
This book makes a great hobby totally affordable and fun.

Just as there is no perfect knot, there is no perfect knot book. All have deficiencies of one sort or another. One common deficiency seems to be misleading or just plain wrong directions for tying a knot. Another deficiency is a failure to tell the reader when to use a particular, or more important, when not to use it. All the books suffer these deficiencies to one degree or another.

Another deficiency is too many knots! But how could this be a deficiency, one might ask. Isn't more better? The answer is that the beginner needs to know the most useful knots that have the widest application. If the book contains knots that don't have wide application but doesn't tell the reader which ones are widely used and which ones aren't, how is the reader to know which ones to learn? Therefore, for a beginner, careful selection by the author is essential.

Budworth, The Complete Book of Knots

Of all the books, this is my pick as the best for a beginner.

What I like about this book is that it contains large, clear line drawings, and for the most part, the layout is pleasing to the eye. Drawings are superior, in my opinion, to photographs. One drawback of drawings is that the cordage you're trying to knot never lies as smoothly and gracefully as the one in the drawings. (This tends to be true of photographs, too, however.) But if you view the drawings more as a blueprint, then you get a conceptual understanding of how the knot is to be tied, and drawings allow a clearer conceptual understanding than photographs in most cases.

Another plus to this book is that most of the knots Budworth picked for inclusion are useful and often "best of breed" knots. On pages 6 and 7, there is a "directory of knots" that shows the best or most popular use of each knot. In addition, for each knot, there is a summary called "applications," and occasionally a warning when not to use a knot.

A minus is that some of the drawings are wrong or misleading. For example, in the drawing for the double bowline (figure 8 on page 37), the arrow to show how the working end is rove (threaded) through the loops would have the working end going from the top of the loops to the bottom when it should be the reverse. After some frustration and referring to other sources, I was able to tie the knot. (Google is your friend.)

A bigger minus is the terseness of the descriptions. In a number of instances, the author assumes you should be able to figure out the process from fewer drawings than I think necessary. I would like it if each and every step in tying the knots were shown. With some effort, I was able to figure out each knot that I tried to tie even though some drawings included several steps in one drawing. But why make the reader work? A book for beginners should make it easy.

When I was starting with this book, I thought that it would be helpful if the author included pictures of the finished knot. After about a week, I realized that he did! But they are murky pictures that are either in a small space at the top of the page, above the name of the knot, or serve as a background for the entire page. There is no excuse for such bad pictures, which mar an otherwise excellent layout. Instead of putting some trivia about the history of the knot in a circle on each page, a clear monochromatic photo in the circle would serve the reader better.

The book does not include decorative knots (Budworth having written a separate book on decorative knots).

Because of the terseness of the descriptions, the lack of clear photographs of the finished knots, and the occasional errors, I downgraded this book from five stars to four.

Pawson, Handbook of Knots (expanded edition)

This book contains very clear color photographs, and the layout is quite pleasing to the eye. The problem with photographs is that it can be hard sometimes to discern when one cord is on top of another or below, and sometimes the hand can be hiding some important information. Compounding this is the fact that the book is small in format, and when you have four or five photographs on one page, each photograph ends up being small (say, 1.5" by 2.5"), too small sometimes.

Although the book is soft-cover, the binding is stitched, and the book can be opened flat without breaking the binding. I found that it would stay open without much difficulty.

Pawson, like Budworth, is a founding member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. But his choice of knots puzzles me. For example, he has a number of stopper knots but does not include Ashley's stopper knot, which many consider the most important stopper knot. He also does not include any grip-and-hold knot (such as the midshipman's hitch, taut-line hitch, or the Tarbuck knot). This is peculiar in that a grip-and-hold knot can be quite useful. I almost had the feeling that Pawson had decided that he would avoid (when he could) duplicating what Budworth had done. Quite gentlemanly, but not what I want in a book for beginners.

On the plus side, Pawson includes a number of lashings, plaits and sennits, and splices, which Budworth does not.

For what it's worth, I was unable to tie the Turquoise Turtle knot following Pawson's description until I watched a video on the internet.

Based on the fact that this book uses photographs instead of drawings (particularly in a small format book), the sometimes odd choice of knots, and lack of warnings about certain knot uses, I downgraded this book from five stars to three.

The Morrow Guide to Knots

This book contains very clear color photographs, and the pictures are larger than in the Pawson book which is helpful. But layout is off-putting. There are typically several pictures on a page, but the picture on the top of the page is not the starting picture; it's the one on the bottom of the page to the left.

Like the Pawson book, the book is soft-cover, the binding is stitched, and the book can be opened flat without breaking the binding. I found that it would stay open without much difficulty.

I found the choice of knots to be satisfactory in that most of the basic knots are covered. A plus is that several ways of tying a knot is shown for several of the knots. That is always helpful. Another plus is that it covers decorative knots, such as plaits and sennits.

This book's depiction of the climber's method of tying the bowline knot took me an hour to figure out because two steps were (inexcusably) combined into one picture without an explanation.

A minus is that the book is outdated. This comment would have come as a surprise to me before I started studying knots inasmuch as many knots are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. But a number of improvements in knots have been made in the last twenty years, and these improved knots can't be found in a book published in 1981. Moreover, for the Tarbuck knot, the book states that the knot is used by climbers, but climbers have avoided this knot for decades because it tends to damage the kernmantel type of rope used in climbing.

Another minus is the paucity of information about the use and misuse of knots.

Based on the fact that this book uses photographs instead of drawings (particularly in a small format book), the odd layout, the lack of warnings about knot uses, and the dated nature of the information, I downgraded this book from five stars to three.

Budworth, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Knots & Ropework

This book contains very clear color photographs, and the layout is quite pleasing to the eye.

Of all the books that use photographs to depict the tying of knots, this is my pick as the best. Although the pictures are small, it's much more step-by-step than the others. In particular, it doesn't suffer from the terseness of Budworth's The Complete Book of Knots, and it shows a large picture of the finished knot. (It also correctly depicts the double bowline.)

An important plus of this book, given its claim to encyclopedic coverage, is the inclusion of decorative knots. There are far more knots in this book than any beginner would need, and there is a paucity of information about the use and misuse of knots.

My copy has an update date of 2002, making it the most recent edition of all my knot books.

This book coupled with Budworth's The Complete Book of Knots would make a complete library for any beginner. But this book is too much, in my opinion, for the ordinary reader who just wants to learn a few useful knots.

The fact that this book uses photographs would normally make me downgrade it, but number of step-by-step pictures for each knot offset that. Based on the fact that this book is intended as an encyclopedia and it fulfills that function very well, I give this book five stars. If this book were intended for a beginner, however, I would downgrade it to four stars because of the sheer number of knots, the lack of guidance to beginners as to which ones to learn, and the lack of warnings about knot uses (and misuses). The number of ste-by-step pictures keeps it from going to three stars.

The Ashley Book of Knots

As an encyclopedic work, The Ashley Book of Knots is not suitable for beginners. For knot aficionados, it's a must-have.

Based on the fact that this book is intended as an encyclopedia and it is in fact the standard reference work for knots, I give it five stars. If this book were intended for a beginner, however, I would downgrade it to three stars because of the sheer number of knots and the fact that it was published in 1944, which means that it does not satisfactorily address modern synthetic ropes.

Conclusion

For the beginner, that is, for the reader who simply wants to learn a few of the most useful knots, my pick is Budworth, The Complete Book of Knots. For an encyclopedia of knots, my pick is Budworth, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Knots & Ropework. For the knot hobbyist or public library, The Ashley Book of Knots is a must-have.