How to Tie an Overhead Knot

Series Summary

A broad base of knot tying knowledge will allow you to secure tent poles, carry bottles and secure tarps and tents to stakes and trees. There are a number of different knots that can be tied for uses in different situations or to satisfy unique needs. Along with knots that are tied with ropes for use in the great outdoors, there are also numerous knots that can be used with neckties and bow ties. In this free video series, a knot tying specialist demonstrates how to tie a number of different knots, including an overhead knot, a bowline knot and a figure-eight knot. Additionally, different necktie tying techniques are explained, such as the Windsor and double Windsor. Knots have many uses, and these tips will outline the practical as well as the fashionable uses.

Video Transcript

"Knots have a long and varied history, and today I'm going to show you how to do a, what's called a overhead knot. Not what we got here is we got two lengths of rope and we got one loop here and one here, and what I'm going to do, is I'm going to take, this here is called the working end because this is the one that's going to be used to tie around everything. What I'm going to do is I'm going to roll this over the top of this loop here and it's going to go under, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring it back under both strings, like so. We basically do an overhand knot that's going to encompass all four of these lines here, and you can kind of gather them up and make them even. There you have it. There's your overhead knot. Let's do this one more time. Let's go back up. This is going to be you know, mostly for two pieces of independent string, but you want to make some loops here. So what we got here is we want to bring this over, bring it under, both ends like so, back through your overhand knot, and make sure to lay both loops on top of each other to kind of give it this square look here so you're not as tight and then your ropes stay looking pretty good like this because you don't want them to bind up when you're using this. And there you have it. My name is Harold Winchester and that is your overhead knot."