Hi all,

Here is a short video explaining how to easily and quickly remove a knot in your flying lines.



PS: New line tuning video coming soon :)

Christian

Wow are you kidding me, smashing the knot between a hammer and concrete? If we caught someone at work doing that to dyneema slings they would be condemned...I'd stick with the knot in my lines, your probably doing more damage trying to get it out. You usually give good advice but I reckon this isn't one of them

Wonder what else he 'fixed' with a hammer.

imagine he was a little upset the first time he took to his lines with a hammer! Multiple blows for sure!

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Nathe said..
Wow are you kidding me, smashing the knot between a hammer and concrete? If we caught someone at work doing that to dyneema slings they would be condemned...I'd stick with the knot in my lines, your probably doing more damage trying to get it out. You usually give good advice but I reckon this isn't one of them

Totally agree with Nathe, this is very bad advice Christian. You can see how much you damaged the line after you remove the knot, see how furry it was? That furriness is broken line fibres and the line is now permanently damaged and weakened

The pliers with a flat section is a good tip, but the lines should be soaked first with a soapy water solution, you want those fibres to be well lubed so they slide on each other and do not break. Water/lube and squashing the knot flat and rotating it 5-15 times will loosen any knot to the point where it can be undone by hand with no damage.

A hammer can be used, but the line must be wet/lubed and supported on something hard and shiny, like a glazed floor tile, or something made of polished metal, etc.
Tap the line with moderate force, just enough to flatten the knot and then rotate same as the pliers method, and within a few taps and roations, the knot will be loose enough to undo by hand.
Sometimes a large sewing needle and a thimble are needed to work the line to help loosen that very first bit of the knot, after that you should be able to undo with your hands, if not, then you need to "work" the knot a bit more with the hammer or pliers.

Teeth - def not recommended unless you have no access to the above tools and soapy water. The surface of most teeth are actually quite rough and can have very sharp edges capable of damaging those line fibres. Also your teeth will not make an impression on a knot thats been pulled really tight under load. Plus you can chip or break your teeth.

I've been using the hammer and a shiny surface with wetted line for decades now and have never had a knot I could not undo, or had a line that was damaged as a result of getting the knot out.

This idea of "working" knots with a hammer is old, goes way back to loosening knots in ship mooring lines, but in that case it took a few men to handle the rope and another to swing a sledge hammer onto the knot! And they did wet the line if it was dry.

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Ozone Kites Aus said..

Nathe said..
Wow are you kidding me, smashing the knot between a hammer and concrete? If we caught someone at work doing that to dyneema slings they would be condemned...I'd stick with the knot in my lines, your probably doing more damage trying to get it out. You usually give good advice but I reckon this isn't one of them

Totally agree with Nathe, this is very bad advice Christian. You can see how much you damaged the line after you remove the knot, see how furry it was? That furriness is broken line fibres and the line is now permanently damaged and weakened

The pliers with a flat section is a good tip, but the lines should be soaked first with a soapy water solution, you want those fibres to be well lubed so they slide on each other and do not break. Water/lube and squashing the knot flat and rotating it 5-15 times will loosen any knot to the point where it can be undone by hand with no damage.

A hammer can be used, but the line must be wet/lubed and supported on something hard and shiny, like a glazed floor tile, or something made of polished metal, etc.
Tap the line with moderate force, just enough to flatten the knot and then rotate same as the pliers method, and within a few taps and roations, the knot will be loose enough to undo by hand.
Sometimes a large sewing needle and a thimble are needed to work the line to help loosen that very first bit of the knot, after that you should be able to undo with your hands, if not, then you need to "work" the knot a bit more with the hammer or pliers.

Teeth - def not recommended unless you have no access to the above tools and soapy water. The surface of most teeth are actually quite rough and can have very sharp edges capable of damaging those line fibres. Also your teeth will not make an impression on a knot thats been pulled really tight under load. Plus you can chip or break your teeth.

I've been using the hammer and a shiny surface with wetted line for decades now and have never had a knot I could not undo, or had a line that was damaged as a result of getting the knot out.

This idea of "working" knots with a hammer is old, goes way back to loosening knots in ship mooring lines, but in that case it took a few men to handle the rope and another to swing a sledge hammer onto the knot! And they did wet the line if it was dry.

Spoon on spoon also works, but personally I use a pair of pliers that I ground and polished up on a buffing wheel. Always with detergent as a lubricate.
If knots are well set I ALWAYS advise replacing, or splicing in a new section.

How many knots you fixed in this fashion cbulta? How many snapped lines possibly due to removing knots like this?

I reckon just the chew in the mouth trick works everytime, with minimal damage to the fibers. Besides, it's already knotted so it's already "damaged".

The only time a got a knot in a kite line it was already snapped. I put it in there during a self rescue, the line was broken anyway.

Is this more about 'how to remove a knot from your bridal, that didn't make your kite fly better'. I have tied knots in my bridal and felt like a genius, more often I can't remove that knot fast enough.

Hi all,

I put the same questions out in a forum a while back when I had got a knot in my lines for the first time. I did the old spit and chew method and it worked perfectly well.

Among the forum replies at the time, there were many varied suggestions raised for and against all methods. Here is the link if you're interested in what was covered back then...

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Kitesurfing/General/To-knot-or-not-to-knot

Normally just chew the not in you back teeth gently and then she will come out

When the gentle chewing trick didn't work after 15 minutes on a secondhand line, I soaked the knot in (originally and finally) warm soapy water - for 24 hours. Suspect that it helped - came out after 5 minutes.

There are three things you need to do to get a knot out of a line:
- compress the fibres to make some space in the loops. Gentle chewing, tapping with a hammer, squeezing with pliers are ways of doing that.
- *PUSH* the loops along the line. You can do that with fingers or one edge of your teeth. Don't try to pull the loops until there is some obvious slack.
- lubrication. Water, saliva, soapy water

Never do anything that will tear the fibres. That includes:
- bashing hard with a hammer on a rough surface
- actually biting the line with your teeth
- pulling hard on the loops with pliers (gentle pressure on thicker line is not so bad)
- trying to poke nails or spikes or needles through the loops.