Three Part Knots
Three part knots may be braided to any required diameter by the method give here. The first two wraps are taken around a form of the needed size and then increased to three parts by a simple interweave in increments of three bights. There are two “starts” that may be used. The first begins with an incomplete two bight knot that may be increased by three bights to five, eight, eleven, fourteen, etc to any size needed.
3 Part X 5 - 8 - 11 + Bight
In step 1 you wrap completely around the form and cross the standing end (red). Then wrap around again and cross over the first wrap and under the standing end, to come between the two wraps.
Step 2 is to pull a bight down from the top (red). Then in step 3 push a bight from the bottom up over it (green). This has added two bights.
Now in step 4 pass the running end (which just turned blue) over one – under one- over one – under one, where it comes back between the first two wraps. At this point you are ready to repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 to add three more bights or complete the knot with an over at the bottom and an under up beside the standing end.
(Hint) – Steps 2 and 3 can be done with the tip of a lacing needle by going under the second wrap and reaching up under it to pull the top bight down.
(Another hint) – For a large diameter knot such as a hatband it helps to leave some slack in the first two wraps as the knot tends to tighten up with the several bight crossings and interweaves that are needed for a large number of bights. Otherwise you will find yourself pulling slack back from the running end to have working room across the knot.
The main advantage of these methods is that they do not require any pins on the mandrels. They build from the starts in one direction and you can stop at any number of bights and pull the slack out, so that the size of the mandrel is not important so long as it is large enough.
The photo on the left shows three more bights added and the right picture is after more bights and approaching the start to finish with one more tuck along side the standing end. This is now a 3p X 14b knot.
3 Part X 4 – 7 – 10 – 13 + Bight
This pattern initially braids a three part X 4bight knot which may be increased by three bights with each repetition of the bight crossing and interweave steps for seven, ten, thirteen or more bights.
Step 1 is the same two wraps around the mandrel, but notice the difference in the manner of crossing the standing end each time.
In steps 2 & 3 the upper bight now comes over the lower when we cross the two bights.
In step 4 the interweave with the running end is the same sequence but its direction across the knot has changed.
This template shows that the knot does not deviate from a three part flat braid in any respect. This one of the characteristics of any simple turkshead.
One or the other of these two methods will braid any possible three part turkshead. This one starts at four bights and the previous one starts with five bights. The three bight increments of each cover all will cover all the three part knots and neatly skip any that are divisible by three (which would violate the common divisor rule).
They also serve as the foundation of the two and three pass “Spanish ring knot” which I will discuss in a later lesson.
The mai reason for two methods is to have a choice between four or five bights for the small ring knots. above this number of bights one more or less will really have little effect and you can take your pick. The interweave for a spanish ring knot is a little different between these two forms and cuold be a factor in which you use for larger knots.