A Knot Tying Illustration Collection

Make Any MBK Kite With These

There's a knot tying illustration here for any stage during the construction of an MBK kite. You can make do with these to begin with, particularly if you get in the habit of using a tiny dob of glue to fix knots that should never come loose. For example, where the bridle lines are attached to the kite spars!

These illustrations are long over-due. I used to get comments like 'The kite-making instructions are great, but I have trouble with the knots...' Time to fix this problem for good!

I hope my approach of using multiple close-up photos will make each and every knot a breeze to do.

The heading on each knot tying illustration should make it very easy to find, whichever one you are after. There's no completely standard naming system for knots. However, I hope the names used here prove to be both simple and descriptive!

To put together these images, I used 2 lengths of old Nylon braided rope and a broom handle. The backdrop for each knot tying illustration was soft black cloth. The text below each group of photos just ...errrm .... ties in that knot to how it is used in the MBK series of kites.

The Simple Knot

OK, so this knot tying illustration is so simple it hardly needs explanation! The main use for this simple knot is to prevent fraying near a free end of kite line, in just about any situation. Of course, for nylon or polyester lines there is also the old kite-maker's trick of melting the frayed end with a flame. The gas stove lighter can come in handy for this.

Another handy use is to fine-tune the amount of bow in a horizontal spar. The MBK kite designs use fixed-length toggled bow-lines to put some curvature in horizontal spars. To increase the amount of curvature, you can put simple knots in the lines. One at a time, until the amount of bow is where you like it. Actually, it's surprising how much difference just one simple knot makes!

The Loop Knot

This is the simple loop that can be used for any all the kites, mainly for making a Lark's Head Knot to attach the flying line to the bridle. See the next knot tying illustration, below. Other uses for this knot include...

• The bow-line loop through which you insert the toggle, to bow the spar.
• A handy large knot to stop a Lark's Head from slipping off the bridle line.

The Lark's Head Knot

An amazingly simple yet useful knot. The great thing about this one is that no matter how tightly it gets stressed while holding all the tension of a flying line, it is fairly easy to remove. Regarding getting it loose again, here are a couple of tricks I discovered from experience...

• Grab the line to which the Lark's Head is attached, on either side of the knot. Loosen the line, then ping it tight again by separating your hands, several times. Often, the Lark's Head will loosen just a little, making it easier to unpick.
• Get a finger-nail in between the 2 strands of the Lark's Head, right where it is sitting on the other line. Work the 2 loops apart a little. This also can make the knot easier to unpick.

Every MBK kite uses a short connecting line between the bridle and the flying line. The flying line is attached to this connector with a Lark's Head, making it easy to swap the line from kite to kite.

The Granny Knot

Chances are you have heard of this one! It's a general-purpose knot which is useful for tying two ends of a line together. For my kite designs, I mainly use the Granny for tying a completed keel to the vertical spar. In this situation, fixing the knots with glue is essential! There's not a lot of tension down that end of a single-line kite, so a fancier knot is not required.

The Half Hitch Knot

The simple Half Hitch has many uses. However, it's main disadvantage is that it comes loose easily. If multiple hitches are used, the top one will quickly loosen off unless it's secured with glue. You can use a couple of Half Hitches to attach a bridle line to its spar, as long as that little dob of glue is added. Actually, in this situation the glue can also be used to prevent the wrapped line from shifting along the spar.

The Prusik Knot

Where would kite-fliers be without this great shiftable knot... A bit of a pain to tie at first, but it makes adjusting a bridle so easy! That's why this knot tying illustration is on this page. Pulling the bridle straight unlocks the knot, letting you shift it along the bridle line. Pulling on the lines as pairs as in the last photo causes the knot to fold, locking it in place.

I use the Prusik on upper and lower bridle loops to shift the knot left or right across the kite, for trimming purposes. More commonly, it's also used to slide up and down the bridle line of, say, a Diamond kite to adjust the Towing Point fore and aft.

This mountaineering knot was invented in 1931 by Dr. Karl Prusik. With one 's'. Ooops. At least this page of knot tying instructions has got it right. Eventually we'll update any other page on this site that refer to the 'Prussik Knot'...

If you came here looking for a knot tying illustration, I hope you found something handy!

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Last updated: 14 Jul 2009