Basic Guide
How We Do It...
Learning Skills
We all are expected to learn some basic skills which improve our presentation,
and help us fulfill our mission. Some will excel in some of the skills,
but we all learn the basics. Everyone needs to learn how to card wool and
spin it with a drop spindle. Sewing of a basic nature is needed to repair
your clothing, if not make some of the basic pieces. Some basic chip carving
is needed to mark your wooden goods. As a seafaring people, we need to
need some rope handling, including a square knot, half hitch, clove hitch
(double half hitch), bowline, bowline on a bight, figure eight, sheepshank,
sheet bend, tautline hitch, and a trucker's hitch, some basic lashing,
and a back splice, in-line splice, and eye splice.
Other skills learned in MacColin are by interest, including boat making,
black powder firearms, blade handling, pole arms, baking with charcoal,
and blarneying unsuspecting customers into learning just how heavy chain
mail is!
Rope work
These knots, bends, and hitches, and some basic lashing take care of most
of our needs.
|
Square knot (aka reef knot) |
sheet bend |
sheet bend |
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clove hitch (double half hitch) |
tautline hitch |
figure eight |
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Bowline |
Bowline on a bight |
Trucker's hitch |
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Half hitch |
Sheepshank |
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| Backsplice | Eyesplice | Line Splice |
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Splices
Splices are strong and permanent. All of us need to know these, the basic ones.
Back splice: protects the end of the line (and your hands).
Eye splice: for a loops, often used for gates.
In-line splice: for joining of two lines into a longer one.