Heaving line bend
| Heaving line bend | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Category | bend |
| Typical use | to attach a Shamisen string to a thick silk eye (rightmost crossing above should have pink cord running UNDER black eye) |
| ABoK | #1463 |
This mis-named " heaving line bend " is a result of a couple errors in knots documentation, and the fact that most knots book authors do research not in the
field of actual usage, but in the pretend presentation of such usage in knots books.
In his 1916 book Om Knutar, Hjalmer Ohrvall cited an eye hitch he had found in a Japanese guitar-/banjo-like instrument called a S(h)amisen, which had three
strings. These strings are secured to the three large eyes of a complex knot of thicker material formed at the base of the instrument, with the strings bending
over the edge to tie to them. Ohrvall's daughter's drawing of the knot mistakenly got the first crossing (at the bight apex) reversed, without which error no
one would have dreamed of using the hitch for messenger lines. In any case, the general lack of untensioned security makes the knot less than well suited
to such a task. Sam Svensson (who could read Swedish, and should have thus understood the use of this knot as Ohrvall presented it), presented the knot
in the same misdrawn form as a messenger line (i.e., thinner to thicker) bend, and Clifford Ashley's book repeated Ohrvall's image but with an imagined
purpose for the knot! cf www.kine-ie.com/shamisen/neo.htm & www.kotosandmore.com/nagauta.html and also Knotting Matters #81 (December 2003) pp.16-17, "How a guitar string became a Heaving-line!" by Sten Johansson
quick and simple knot that is used to attach playing strings to the thick silk eyes of the anchorage knot.
Tying steps:
- Insert the string through the bight, well down from the bight tip.
- Go around the bight and cross above the string on the back side.
- Finish by tucking the end between its turn around the first bight leg and that leg; pull tight.
