A Test Of Lone Star Knot Variants As Proper Coverings For The Shoulders On A Bottle

TEST OF KNOT FOR BOTTLE SHOULDERS

One of the problems with trying to cover a hot sauce bottle with a loose collection of Turk’s Head variants is how to handle the shoulders of the bottle. The slick glass and sloping shoulders tend to make any normal Turk’s Head scrunch up onto the neck of the bottle leaving a frilly edge which is the part of the knot that was supposed to be on the lower straight-sided part of the bottle. The quick and dirty workaround is to pre-knot the neck of the bottle with a tight Turk’s Head that will act as a stopper. The shoulder knot still tries to slide north, but with careful work it stops at the neck knot, and that pressure can be carried back through the knot to the straight part of the bottle. You could always coat the bottle with some sort of tacky adhesive, but that is cheating according to my self-imposed rules on bottle knots.

While reading Bruce Grant one day I found the Lone Star knot. A ready-made solution for a very similar problem in horse tack.

This led to a series of small scale tests for concept and technique. The above “Lone Star” of 8 points is one of them. It is tied over the end of a piece of PVC pipe about 1 1/2″ outside diameter. It was attractive and showed that the concept could be upscaled to any size. Most of them were done, like this one, as a knock-off of the Lone Star, a Pineapple knot that was only interwoven on the lower part of the knot. Because the upper part of the knot had less material to crowd into the steadily decreasing diameter of the bottle’s shoulders you could work them into a snug, attractive knot. If you look on the bottles in the “Hot Sauce Collection” you will meet members of this family – but also other solutions, some more common than others.

After testing, this concept was found to work excellently. One of the secrets on a bottle-sized knot is to work the carrier knot down tight on the straight sides of the bottle before you work the upper part — done well it is well done.

Thank you for taking the time to read this longish post, I do hope it was worth your time. If you have any questions leave a comment; if you have any comments leave them, no questions.

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William