Rope Work Within the Theatre

What knots do you use in the theatre? Rope work in the theatre is something I don't hear much about. What do you use when tying knots, what kinds of rope, and in what application?
 
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And to add to. That, where do/did you learn how to tie said knots?


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If you can tie a bowline, your shoes, and a cloves hitch 99 percent of the knots you will use on deck are taken care of.

...... Something involving tapatalk.......
 
I'm sure others will have many more application than I, but I end up using ropes in theatre quite a bit. I end up hauling cable/rigging hardware up to the grid with ropes quite often. It seems like we end up needing to build new lighting positions fairly often, so I'm using rope to tie off a boom to the grid, or to haul up a chain hoist, or to deadhang a pipe, or even to build a simple hemp set/spot line for scenery or lighting positions that need to travel. It's also a godsend for hanging FOH positions, or anything in a black box type theatre. I just hung a show not too long ago with 5 Mac 2000s in a FOH catwalk. Rather than comically try to get 5 roadcases up to a tiny cove and hold the lights out over a ~60' drop, we just rigged a sheave to the pipe and dropped a line from the cove, and hoisted them up one at a time. I've never done it personally, but I believe venues without a loading bridge sometimes use a line with a block and fall to haul out overweight linesets before reweighting. I've had shows where we left lines tied to the offstage ends of a batten to breast it around scenery when it needed to come in for maintenance.

In most of these hauling situations, the bowline is my go-to knot. It makes a loop that you can use, it's easy to undo no matter how much weight you put on it, and it's easy to show someone. A figure eight is a very important knot when using a sheave or a block - it just creates a wider part of the rope so it won't accidentally run back through the sheave and fall. A toggle (that's what we call it, but I don't know if that's standard - anyone else?) is also useful - its really just bending the rope in half and passing the two ends through the loop. It's useful for hanging drops from grommets, supporting a cable run along a wall, or lots of other scattered places. When tying tie-line, I use kind of a modified clove hitch with a half hitch stopper - just a normal half hitch, except with the line run around the batten twice, but usually not passed under the loop like with a clove hitch unless the head electrician specifically wants it. It helps keep the weight of the cable from loosening your knot, and it doesn't tighten the knot as much so it's easier to untie at strike. This is pretty standard for tie-line, but I don't actually know if the knot has a name. Those are what I use most often, but every stagehand should know those and a few more as well. You never know when you'll get a call into a hemp house and need to tie a belay knot, a prussic knot, a trucker's hitch, and a sunday all in a few minutes.

I learned to tie most of these more basic knots on the job, from more experienced guys. I've found that virtually every stagehand loves to teach knots and compare ridiculous names and different methods they all have for the same knots. I learned things like the trucker's hitch and the sunday at school in a Basic Theatre Technology class. Short of that, most theatre books (Backstage Handbook, Gillette, Parker & Wolf, Ashley Book of Knots) will all have a pretty good knots section - particularly the Ashley book. Beyond that, there a hundreds of websites that give you videos and illustrations of how to tie any conceivable knot.
 
Thanks for the awesome reply! Have you ever heard of a Klienhiest Knot? it might suit some Prusik applications better, cause it is designed with downward or upward force in mind? And which type Bowline do you use, Portuguese, Double, Eskimo, or standard?
 
O how I love me some knots.

Almost all the ones that I require my crew to know have been said:

Bowline
Clove hitch
two Half Hitches
Truckers Hitch (The figure 8 version not the over hand knot version)
Square knot
Double Sheet bend
Larks head (a basic coke for the rigging folks)
And the Rolling hitch for sundays on the fly rail.


The ones I recommend for theatre work and I use often (but dont require) are:

The pole hitch (really handy for wood and poles DUH)
The Highway man hitch (Great for strapping things to your belt or when it needs to be removed quick)
The figure 8 (by itself almost useless but it can be made into a loop stronger than a bowline, a bend better than Fisherman's knot, ties off pin rails and makes the truckers hitch many times stronger and easier to use)
The monkey's fist (no theatre is complete without one and it can be used to throw rope a distance)
A mariners coil


There are TONS of good books on knot tying but the key is to figure out what are you are going to be doing with them. There is one knot which I have never used before but always wanted to called the icicle hitch and its used for hanging something off of a smooth pole.

Icicle Hitch (Loop Method) | How to tie the Icicle Hitch | Climbing Knots


Best of luck to ya and keep tying knots!

GBTimex,
 
...A toggle (that's what we call it, but I don't know if that's standard - anyone else?) is also useful - its really just bending the rope in half and passing the two ends through the loop. It's useful for hanging drops from grommets, supporting a cable run along a wall, or lots of other scattered places. ...
Larks head, although also called a choke. A toggle is an internal framing member or type of switch.
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Animated Knots by Grog. (No relation to CB member Grog12.)
 
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What knots do you use in the theatre? Rope work in the theatre is something I don't hear much about. What do you use when tying knots, what kinds of rope, and in what application?

Two knots will do most of the work you come across in Theatre. A clove hitch and a bowline. The hitch will tie things off and the bowline will do the lifting. I guess an overhand knot (like you tie your shoes) is also important for tieing up drapes and the such.

I learned all of my knots in Scouting. Being able to tie knots got me my first job at an outdoor ampitheatre. Just goes to show you never know what skill you will need to get that first job.

Most places I used the rope on hand. Poly-pro or plastic rope does not hold knots well, so avoid those. Sisal and multi ropes are very common in theatre. It is important to learn how to tell rope is getting old.
 
So is it Bowline or bowlin, Ive heard both, and my professor who teaches a basic rigging course calls it bowlin.

Always spelled bowline. But more often than not, I hear it pronounced as "bowe-linn", but the spelling is still the same. Might be a regional thing.
 
In most of these hauling situations, the bowline is my go-to knot. It makes a loop that you can use, it's easy to undo no matter how much weight you put on it, and it's easy to show someone. A figure eight is a very important knot when using a sheave or a block - it just creates a wider part of the rope so it won't accidentally run back through the sheave and fall. A toggle (that's what we call it, but I don't know if that's standard - anyone else?) is also useful - its really just bending the rope in half and passing the two ends through the loop. It's useful for hanging drops from grommets, supporting a cable run along a wall, or lots of other scattered places. When tying tie-line, I use kind of a modified clove hitch with a half hitch stopper - just a normal half hitch, except with the line run around the batten twice, but usually not passed under the loop like with a clove hitch unless the head electrician specifically wants it. It helps keep the weight of the cable from loosening your knot, and it doesn't tighten the knot as much so it's easier to untie at strike. This is pretty standard for tie-line, but I don't actually know if the knot has a name. Those are what I use most often, but every stagehand should know those and a few more as well. You never know when you'll get a call into a hemp house and need to tie a belay knot, a prussic knot, a trucker's hitch, and a sunday all in a few minutes.

The bowline has a lot of good things about it... If you are in a situation where you need to clear the rope, a bowline unties without any knot left in the rope (whereas a figure 8 leaves a knot, potentially fouling the block if your forget to untie it, so that really depends on what the application is...). Also its possible to tie one using only one hand, making it useful if you need to put it on while holding something. One last thing, figure 8s weld into the rope, while bowlines will not. I also end up using the sheet bend a lot. Its used to attach two lines of different sizes together. It will also hold slick lines where a square knot might not (useful for water skiing and poly-pro ropes). I end up using a taught line hitch a lot for towing speakers. I just bow tie line to hold cables to pipe if I am forced to not use e-tape for that...

To whoever argued that figure 8s are not terribly useful, I disagree. You can quickly put a bite on the rope that wont come undone, and its useful for climbing.

I dont remember what the knot for tying off to a cleat is called, but its useful to know that, as a ton of things can be treated as cleats (and they get installed a lot to hold various things flying in not on battens). Its easy to tie, and can hold a 100' yacht, so it ought to work for most things if using properly sized rope and cleat.

+1 or 5 or whatever on variations of the trucker hitch. That Icicle hitch looks awesome. If I recall correctly from my wilderness camping days, simply wrapping a rope 5 times around something is considered a knot of some sort. Not acceptable in theater, I would imagine, but if you need to hold a tarp up because its raining and you want fire and your hands are frozen to the shape of a paddle grip (yay hypothermia?)
 
Always spelled bowline. But more often than not, I hear it pronounced as "bowe-linn", but the spelling is still the same. Might be a regional thing.

We use the -linn pronunciation down here as well, for what it's worth.
 
I heard "bowline" came from its use in archery. Anyone know about this?
 
This is a great topic, and a very important one.

I dug out some old things from college and part of the stagecraft final exam consisted of knowing the following knots.
Overhand Knot
Figure Eight Knot
Bowline
Square Knot
Sheet Bend
Clove Hitch
2 Half Hitches
Trucker's Hitch
Belay Knot

However, the knots I actually use on a regular basis consist of the following.

Figure Eight
Figure Eight Loop
Larks Head ( also known as - Cow Hitch, Girth Hitch, choke, Cobra's Hood/Hitch)
Bowline
Bowline with a Half Hitch
Clove Hitch
Clove Hitch on a Bight
Half Hitch
Two Half Hitches
Belay Knot

And these are the knots that I use occasionally.
Overhand
Double Overhand Stopper Knot
Square Knot
Sheet Bend
Double Sheet Bend
Prusik Hitch
Circus hitch

I've only used an actual Truckers Hitch a dozen times, usually we roll with a slightly modified approach. ;)

[rant]
Knots are very, very important though; nothing irks me more than when I see a college kid that can't tie a half hitch, or a clove hitch (which saddens me greatly because I, usually, know a few of the professors that taught these students). It also bothers me when someone (a professional, in this example) stands there fumbling with the line trying to tie a bowline. A professional should know how to tie knots that are relevant to them, as should students. But more importantly, they should both know just to ask a question or say they don't know how (particularly students and young professionals). I've certainly not been able to recall a knot or two, it's simple, just ask, no one's going to laugh. Once I was even asked to tie a different knot because that's what the house used.

My big secret is that I don't like working with people who can't tie (at least) simple knots and don't bother to ask how or say so. Instead they either sit there fumbling, or tie something completely different, usually a mess of overhand knots. That is not acceptable, so, if you don't know how to tie it (or how they want it), ask!
[/rant]

Now, the other big topic here is splicing, I have a book or two on it, but never could get into it. I've also never really had the urge to because I've only seen it done a few times, at least two of those times it was not necessary, but still nice. The other part of this is that the only time I've seen it done is by [-]old guys[/-] those that have a significant amount of experience in the old ways. How many of you are still splicing on a regular basis?
 
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