Using String Like A Pro

string is one of the simplest tools in my toolbox and it's also the tool that will label you as either a pro or a beginner about as quickly and about as clearly as any other tool that you might pick up and try to use not only will the way that you use string and the tricks that you know about using strings label you as someone who's been around or someone who doesn't know anything it can also make a real difference in the accuracy of the job and whether or not at the end of the day the work you've done has to be torn out or if you can go ahead and press forward because you did it right because you use a string line correctly let me show you how you can set yourself apart from a lot of the guys in construction with a few simple string tricks nothing about what I'm going to show you is complicated but everything about what I'm going to show you has to be practiced so set up something like this a little batter board drive some nails in something that are that's sturdy you know 15 20 40 the further apart you can get them the more accurate it's gonna feel I mean compared to a construction environment so set yourself up some way to practice the things I'm going to show you with this string line so that when you get on the job and when it's show time it's gonna be as automatic as riding a bike you won't have to think about it you won't fumble your knots are gonna hold and you're gonna look like a hero the first thing I want to show you is the two ways that I attach to a nail on a batter board is this complicated no but there's really only two things you have to think about if your string line is brand new if it's just coming out of the cellophane if it's brand new its slippery it's slick and so to attach to the nail I just tie an overhand knot and make a loop basic and that works beautifully because you know it's not gonna slip you can pull that if your string is used if it's a little bit if it's spent a little time out in the Sun and if you've used it a few times it's not slippery anymore and you can just put a larks head on the end say that that holds nicely and the advantage is that when you take it off you don't have a knot to remove you just have a good clean end so I'm going to cut this overhand knot but keep in mind that's a very positive connection I'm gonna cut this off and we're gonna start with larks head render it down rendering down means to tighten swing it back and forth a couple times and it's good as a general sort of a rope trick principle you always leave a little bitter end outside of a larks head like this so if it does slip if it does render itself down a little tighter you've got some space before your knot comes undone now getting back to the idea of taking this apart you just grab the middle of that larks head that's securing it and pull it open and you're out and now that'll go right back on your string line without a problem a larks head is a very versatile knot I've learned on the channel that it's also known as a cow hitch if you're using a line stake instead of a nail on a batter board then one side of the stake or the other is the critical dimension so you have to know which side of the stake you're going to be trying to use as your dimension before you put the larks head on the stake if this side of the stake was my critical dimension I would put the larks head on so it binds like that if the other stake of side of the stake was my critical dimension the knot would turn over so that it binds like that the bite of the line needs to be pulling against the loop let me show you what the problem is if it goes the other way if I'm trying to memorialize this side of the stake and I have the loop oriented like that the string is going to render around and pull out of the middle of the stake or just slip see that it just doesn't work very well unless you are coming back against the center of the knot there's a couple reasons that the larks head or the cow hitch is my go-to knot for starting a pull first day as it goes in so fast second is it falls out completely which is fast and the third is that I can originated a pull and then if I want to start another pull out of the same string let's just say that this is going off across the jobsite and I want the middle of my string to start a whole nother pull I can take that same string put a larks head in it and pull twice off the same string without having to cut my line or put a knot in it that's gonna mess up my spool later I'll never have to take a knot out and I can pull out of the middle of a bite with a firm attachment and it comes out and there's no knot and I come back over to the stake and it pulls out and there's no knot so practice using a larks head it's just really a nice way to originate a string line let me just recap on these two knots for starting your pull the only time I ever use a loop with an overhand knot is on a brand new slippery line occasionally a larks head just wants to slip but once you have confidence that your lines got a little friction in it I just never tie a loop any more I always use the larks head let me throw one other little little piece of information at you and that is batter boards are almost always used in conjunction with nails and so the nail should always be tipped back just a little bit so that when you're pulling the string has a tendency to work its way down the nail towards a batter board rather than having a tendency to work its way up so you look at slipping there because it's up but if it's down against the batter board you've got some extra friction so the nail should always be tipped away from the direction of the pull just a little bit works better most of the time when you have batter boards or line stakes and string lines you're trying for an accuracy that's essentially the accuracy the width of the string so what all matters all these details are going to add up to these details kind of layer they layer and the more accurate you can get with something as mundane as how you tie your knot and wear off of the nail or off of the line stake your string comes to rest it all accumulates to acceptable accuracy once the work is in place with the end of your string firmly anchored in the right spot now it's time to tighten that thing up and hold it tight this is magic if you're tightening to a nail you use a fiddle string knot or I've learned it's called an engineer's not very easy you form a loop around your index finger and then twist it up five or six times one two three four five six not too many then with one hand I use my left hand I tighten the string and with my right hand I pull the slack back can you see that the slack is sliding around all those twists and then you can pull that as tight as your left hand will pull it tight enough to break it if you're not careful and then simply pull the bitter end back and let it go see that can you hear that that's a tight string that's a 40-foot pull it has not sagged 1/8 of an inch works great so here's the thing it's the friction of that loose end winding around the tight side that holds the line and that also makes it hard to take the friction out of it to take the slack out of it if you tighten it so don't wind it too many times let's experiment there's six twists in it right now let's go seven eight nine there's nine twists here's the problem it gets harder to pull that slack out and in any case you have to pull parallel you can't pull sideways the two lines the one tightening and the one holding has to be parallel but then with all those twists can you see that it stretches out too long it's just kind of awkward five is the number let's start from scratch one two three four five get a good hold pull parallel BAM it's held you can tell us about right when it renders up and it's just about you know 3/8 of an inch long right there half of the beauty of the knot is how easily it ties the other half of the beauty of the knot is how easily it releases BAM gone see that let's do that again 1 2 3 4 5 drop it over the nail render the slack tight time to take the string down pull it back parallel to the line BAM you're free how do you beat that if you're attaching to anything except a nail you're probably going to want to use what I call a binder it's not even a knot it's just using the way that pressure and friction work together to resist movement and it works like this you run the string by that your line steak on the side of the line steak that is the correct measurement you pass around the steak one time and then as you pull it tight you let the working side of the string come up and lay over the bitter end then you can render the slack much like we did with the fiddle string not pulling in both ends and then the pressure of this side capturing the loose side against the side of the steak holds it tight I mean tight now the beauty of this is it goes on so quickly it holds so firmly and it unties in a moment like this and you're free how do you beat that the other thing is you can do this on almost anything you need to tie to you can do it on the end of a board I may go around twice on a board you do this on a steel pipe and it'll hold you see how much better that is in a series of half hitches and square knots and granny knots and who knows what so this binder not this friction knot is so simple it's easy to overthink it and complicate it to where not only does it not work as well but it doesn't work at all one way to think about this is that you should realize that this does not work even a little bit on a loose string it doesn't begin to do its job until the line begins to get tight let me show you if I go around there and try to get that string to hold when there's no tension on the line it holds nothing but on the other hand if I stretch that hard enough that I actually have to squeeze my hand and then wrap it around there and then roll that string over a half a turn it's held you see that I like to combine those things where while their line is slack I throw it around and get it over the top and then as I tighten it it's already in the position to hold itself but don't be confused by the simplicity play with it a few times and you'll realize that the act of the tight line laying over the top of the loose line is what holds or binds or makes this little hitch work so well with a string so as you think about this you'll realize that this will work on almost anything now it works best on something with nice tight square corners like a beautiful square concrete stake it will work on a round concrete stake if you go around twice it'll work on beams it'll work on it'll work on almost anything with slight adaptations friction and gravity and all of these sort of elemental forces can work for us if we think about it and use use our noggin just a little bit so these knots our engineered are designed to hold a string tight how tight should a string be the answer that is as tight as you can make it without pulling your nail loose without pulling your batter board over they need to be tight and the reason is because if you're working in the wind the wind will push your string out of straight if you're pulling a long distance gravity is going to pull that that string down and a string that's not straight is worse than no string at all because you're assuming it's straight and you're building to an incorrect line so the limitations on getting a string tight or to how good a grip you have and how firmly the end of the string is anchored so the key to all of this is practice so you need to practice these knots sometime somewhere where nobody's watching and while you're at it you know maybe practice cutting a string with your bare hands I've got a video on that and it goes like this so that's not just a trick that's also a tool and there will be times when you'll be really glad you know how to do it so there's nothing wrong with cutting string when you need to cut your string and there's nothing wrong with tying pieces of string back together when you have a nice long piece that you want to put back on your roll the knot that I like to use for joining two pieces of string line that I intend to use in construction in the future is a water not a water knot is so easy it's two overhand knots one reversing the direction of the first one the reason I like a water knot in a string line is because it's compact it's not a big bulky knot and the line continues to pull out of the center of the knot so you only have about half the diameter of the not pushing your string off of a board or off of a you know fill-in-the-blank you only have half the diameter of the not pushing the string out of straight the last reason I like it is because it never lets go with the loads that I put on it when I'm stretching a string so to tie a water not the first thing you do is simply put an overhand knot in the end of your first line and leave yourself plenty of bitter end now take the other line the one are you going to join to it and take the bitter end of the second line and stick it into the overhand knot exactly where the other bitter end exits like this pull plenty of material now you're simply going to retrace the path of the original line through the original overhand knot like that one enters who are the other exits and exits were the other enters you can trim these down close they're not going to slip out and it makes a nice clean small interruption in your string line my old strings have lots of knots in them and lots of pencil marks on them because not only will a string establish straightness and it will establish elevation it will also establish a distance along the string like this you can hook a tape bring it down into contact with a string line that stretched nice and tight and put a mark on there for instance that mark is at 22 feet now that marks a little hard to find but if you pay attention or maybe put a scrape mark on the ground you'll know that okay right there is my mark at 22 feet you can use that for establishing square by pulling an intersecting line or a tape measure at a different angle to verify that there's 23 feet from a known distance at a known line at a known elevation it's a black board suspended right in midair so just think of new ways to use a string line and they will get you out of a bind all the time let me show you how I do not wind up my strings I don't wind them up like this because I'm winding a twist or a kink in the string as I go with every revolution not only that but if I get a whole bunch on there and then store it it's easy for it to just kind of fall off you see that when you just go around the middle of the ball it'll fall off what I like to do is to do it in a figure eight because a figure eight does not put the kink on the string it'll remain limp and pliable and cooperative and not only that if you hold some tension on the string as you're doing this it will tend to not fall off in a mess in your toolbox now winding it in a figure eight takes a little practice I mean it's a learned sort of a coordination thing holding the tension as a learned coordination thing and you can't do it on too long a stick because it's just too awkward but with the right length stick and they're just a little practice you can wind it up and then maybe put a half hitch around there pull it tight and it'll be useful the next time you need it it unwinds off a figure eight just as easily especially if you put a little distance between your hands and get it started and then just if you keep the tension even it will pull itself off there pretty handily if you keep your hands apart I had to use string a lot setting up these footings like a lot and I think I used every one of these tricks and processes and knots several times making this happen so if you're interested in that and how they were actually used in a real life situation check out some of these episodes on our house building project there's gonna be a lot of information there you might have a look and in any case glad you're here thanks for watching

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 624,988

Rating: 4.9442573 out of 5

Keywords: string, tools, pro tips, string tricks, batter board, string line, larks head, cow hitch, line stake, accuracy, Fiddle string knot, engineer's knot, binder knot, square concrete stakes, water knot, winding, half hitch, overhand knot, mason's line, braided string, twisted string

Id: cv6BdwMe560

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/theY4Kman]

That fiddler's knot [06:42] rocked my world