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How To Tie A Double Sheet Bend | Bushcraft & Outdoor Knots

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paulkirtley.co.uk The double sheet bend is a knot I find useful for attaching pieces of rope or cord of unequal diameter. This is something I've been asked about, particularly following my video about the double fisherman's knot, which is great for attaching two pieces of cord of exactly the same diameter.

Here, I briefly look at the sheet bend, which is OK for attaching two cords of equal length but not particularly secure when attaching a slim cord to a fatter rope (as demonstrated in the video).

The double sheet bend does a much better job of this, cinching down nicely, then holding firm. Because it clamps down and holds firm, I finish by showing a method of adding a quick-release to a double sheet bend so you can easily get it undone again. This is something I use as a matter of course to attach paracord guylines to larger tarps with tape-loop attachment points.

I hope you found this video useful.

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Tags: knot,knots,bend,sheet bend,double sheet bend,double sheet bend with quick release,how to tie a double sheet bend,joining ropes,joining cords,joining cords of unequal diameter,tarps,tape loops,campcraft knots,campcraft,bushcraft,bushcraft knots,camping,camping skills

Video Transcription

hi guys poor curtly here another short video on useful knots and one that I find very handy to have in my repertoire around camp and while making trips now in previous videos I've talked about joining two pieces of cord together that are of equal diameter and it begs the question indeed some people have asked the question in the YouTube comments people have asked well what if you've got two different size different diameter pieces of cord how do we join those together what's the best way to join those together I'm going to answer that question today we're going to look at the sheet Bend and the double sheet Bend first though you might be asking why would you want to do that why do you need to join two pieces of cord together that are of different diameters well a couple of simple examples in terms of camp crafts first one might be that you're trying to get a cord over a branch now that could be that you're trying to sling a cord up so that you can pull a thicker rope over the branch so that you can haul a parachute up it might be that you want to get a bear bag up or a bear barrel or something up a tree suspending that way and throwing larger diameter ropes which might be the strength you need can be quite difficult it can be easier to throw a length of lower diameter cord particularly if you weight the end now you could wrap a stone into that or you could get those little specialist beanbags that are like hacky sacks filled with stainless steel balls that are quite heavy and you can sling and you can sling a long length of fine cord quite easily with that people also use catapults to fire a fine cord and then what you want to be able to do then is to join these two together so that you can haul the thicker heavier rope up and over to do the job that you actually wanted to do but first of all you need to get the fine rope over and then you need to join the two together and so this is somewhere where we can use the double sheet Bend in particular I find very very useful another place I find and a double sheet Bend particularly useful is attaching a guideline onto a tape loop of a so that might be the tape loop of a tarp and I that's a fixed loop and I want to attach a guideline that I don't normally have permanently attached maybe it because I don't want it attached maybe because it's not easy to pack that way maybe because they get tangled and I might also want that to be quick release from packing down so we can add a quick release to the double sheet Bend to do that job and one of the things about a sheet Bend is it's not just about efficiency of tying on and untying it's all so that's what that knot has been designed to do a sheet Bend it's designed to be attached to a sail something that is flapping in the wind it's not going to come and done that makes it great for attaching guylines onto tape loops on tarps so this is how we tie the basic knots and I'll add the quick release at the end all right first let me remind you what a single sheet bone looks like so I've got my two pieces of cord here this is the thinner one it's a blue piece of paracord this is a piece of somewhat higher damage so I think it's about eight mil doesn't really matter it's thicker than the paracord and here it's just important to think about where the tails end up that is the tail there of this one here we have the thinner cord that comes up through the middle I'm going to take it round the back like that and then across and through here like so okay so the tails are on the same side okay and this is the single sheet Bend there and it's important that that grabs that you know you've tied it wrong if that comes around there that's not going to hold yeah it needs to be back there needs to be back there so if you haven't already realized you are tying the thin cord around and through the thicker cord yep so if we're attaching the thin cord and the fatter cord together we are using the FATA core as the fixed loop if you like that's just that could to all intents and purposes just be a fixed leap and that's the thicker rope and then the thin rope is the one that's doing the work as it were so I'll show you the single one more time and then we're going to look at how we progress onto the double so up and through round the back across the front and under there and then pull that down so that's a single sheep end all right now you can see that with this rope that's not it's holding it but when the tension comes off it's a bit loose okay so one of the things about the double sheet Bend which I like is that it cinches down a bit better so let's have a look at the double so again we've got our loop here with the fatter cord we're going to start off exactly like the single I'm going to come round go across the front then we're going to go around again and go across the front again and under so we have this shape okay before I pull it tight so the tails are on the same side again we've got two wraps around through and across and then that just cinches down like so and that holds better I think particularly modern slidy ropes that we tend to use tails are on the same side that's nice and tidy there alright let's have a look at how we might put a quick release in that then okay so here's my fixed loop that could be a tape loop that could be a tape loop on a tarp it could be a fixed loop yep here we've got a bite of the fatter but we're always tying the thinner one around the fatter one and I appreciate the lights a bit difficult today there's very bright sunlight outside the woods and that's causing a lot of dabbling here but hopefully you can see what's going on so we're going to go across the front so a tie in a double

and what we did before is we went across the front for the double but here like a lot of knots to make them quick release we put a bite through at the end rather than feeding alive end through so I've still only got two wraps but I've made a bite here hopefully you can see that clearly against the background and that's quite bright in the foreground there we're going to cinch that up that cinches down very nicely a little bit of a pull there and there's our double sheet Bend as before two wraps but we've got this quick release now which means however tight that's being pulled down I can then quick release that it ends up being a single sheet Bend but loosely tie single sheet Bend that then easily comes and done that's particularly useful for tying onto tape loops on tarps I'll show you one more time around across the front that's just single around again for the double and we pass a bite through at the end there trying to keep my hands out the way so you can see what's going on cinch that all up nice and tight and there's that double sheet Bend with a quick release tidy well guys I hope you found that informative I hope you find the double sheet been in particularly useful it's one that I find especially handy around camp have indicated a couple of uses there but I'm sure there are many others that you can think of between you and you can leave that in the comments below if you've used that and found it particularly useful for something that'd be good for me and everyone else to see that in the comments so I look forward to your comments let me know if you liked this video if you like this video please click the like button at least and if you've got any comments on the format please leave them in the comments below and if you want to see more videos like this please subscribe to my channel really appreciate you watching this video and I look forward to speaking to you in the next video take care and enjoy the outdoors [Music]

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About the Author

Paul Kirtley

Paul Kirtley

Bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor safety with professional instructor Paul Kirtley.

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