Twine wrapping for railings on ships

Hi - I remember seeing twine "wrapping" or "whipping" on the railings
on a Navy vessel. The wrapping was iron-hard, super tight, and I
remember hearing that it was done by bosun mates and that it was a real
art form.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about, and how to do it? I would
love to be able to do that sort of fancy embellishment.

Thanks,
Tim

Theres a lot of different coverings but the most seen is the spiral
hitching, then you can get into the criss cross patterns and then
cackling and spanish hitching(which is my favorite and most time
consumeing) coxcombing. etc. None of it is hard to do but it does take
large amounts of time which is where most people stop. But it can be
found in the popular knot books like ashleys and graoumont and
hensel's.

Marty



wrote:
Hi - I remember seeing twine "wrapping" or "whipping" on the railings
on a Navy vessel. The wrapping was iron-hard, super tight, and I
remember hearing that it was done by bosun mates and that it was a real
art form.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about, and how to do it? I would
love to be able to do that sort of fancy embellishment.

Thanks,
Tim

It wasn't always done by bosnmates. It was done mostly by whoever had
an interest in it and was on duty, or who had claimed a piece of
territory as a project to pass the time at sea. I did all mine aboard
ship as a Storekeeper and can remember seeing Radiomen, Hospital
Corpsmen, Cooks, and a lot of Deck Seamen doing this stuff to fancy up
their work areas. Actually for some reason in my 21 years working with
ships and boats people involved with electrical work had the most
interest.

Marty

MCC schreef:


That is a serving mallet.
"Worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way"

Happy New Year!
--
MCC
31/12/2005 19:08:01


happy new year,

a serving mallet? that helps:
http://www.all-model.com/wolfram/PAGE26.html

worm and parcel and serve
in Dutch that is: trenzen, smarten, bekleden

this craft in action:
http://www.brigniagara.org/bosun_report.htm

knot swinging,

Ben