Part 82

For certain special uses, however, and particularly where the rope is to be used for any kind of sheave work, a 4-strand type of construction will be found the most suitable, as such a rope presents a much firmer, rounder, and greater wearing surface than the ordinary 3-strand. There are many different types of 4-strand rope.

The picture shown on this page represents a coil of 4-strand Manila called “Best Fall.” This rope is made of carefully selected fiber; is 4-strand with heart, and is harder twisted than ordinary goods. Best Fall is adapted for heavy hoisting work, as on coal and grain elevators, cargo and quarry hoists and for pile-driver hammer lines.

~AN AVERAGE COIL OF ROPE--1200 FEET~

The standard length coil of rope is 1,200 feet, although extra long lengths are every day made for such purposes as oil-well drilling, the transmission of power, etc., etc.

KNOTS.

From Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary.

1. Simple over hand knot. 2. Slip-knot, seized. 3. Single bow-knot. 4. Square or reef knot. 5. Square or bow-knot. 6. Weaver’s knot. 7. German or figure-of-8 knot. 8. Two half-hitches, or artificer’s knot. 9. Double artificer’s knot. 10. Simple galley-knot. 11. Capstan or prolonge knot. 12. Bowline-knot. 13. Rolling-hitch. 14. Clove-hitch. 15. Blackwall-hitch. 16. Timber-hitch. 17. Bowline on a bight. 18. Running-bowline. 19. Catspaw. 20. Double running-knot. 21. Double-knot. 22. Sixfold-knot. 23. Boat-knot. 24. Lark’s head. 25. Lark’s head. 26. Simple boat-knot. 27. Loop-knot. 28. Double Flemish knot. 29. Running knot, checked. 30. Croned running-knot. 31. Lashing-knot. 32. Rosette. 33. Chain-knot. 34. Double chain-knot. 35. Double running-knot with check-knot. 36. Double twist-knot. 37. Builder’s knot. 38. Double Flemish knot. 39. English knot. 40. Shortening knot. 41. Shortening knot. 42. Sheep-shank. 43. Dog-shank. 44. Mooring-knot. 45. Mooring-knot. 46. Mooring-knot. 47. Pig-tail, worked on the end of a rope. 48. Shroud-knot. 49. Sailor’s bend. 50. A granny’s knot. 51. A weaver’s knot.]

ENGLISH SPLICE.

For transmission rope.

The successive operations for splicing a 1³⁄₄-inch rope by this method are as follows:

1. Tie a piece of twine (9 and 10, figure 6) around the rope to be spliced, about six feet from each end. Then unlay the strands of each end back to the twine.

2. Butt the ropes together, and twist each corresponding pair of strands loosely, to keep them from being tangled, as shown (a) figure 6.

3. The twine 10 is now cut, and the strand 8 unlaid, and strand 7 carefully laid in its place for a distance of four and a half feet from the junction.

4. The strand 6 is next unlaid about one and a half feet, and strand 5 laid in its place.

5. The ends of the cores are now cut off so they just meet.

6. Unlay strand 1 four and a half feet, laying strand 2 in its place.

7. Unlay strand 3 one and a half feet, laying in strand 4.

8. Cut all the strands off to a length of about twenty inches, for convenience in manipulation. The rope now assumes the form shown in b, with the meeting-points of the strands three feet apart.

Each pair of strands is now successively subjected to the following operations:

9. From the point of meeting of the strands 8 and 7, unlay each one three turns; split both the strands 8 and 7 in halves, as far back as they are now unlaid, and “whip” the end of each half strand with a small piece of twine.

10. The half of the strand 7 is now laid in three turns, and the half of 8 also laid in three turns.

The half strands now meet and are tied in a simple knot, 11 (c) making the rope at this point its original size.

11. The rope is now opened with a marlin-spike, and the half strand of 7 worked around the half strand of 8 by passing the end of the half strand through the rope, as shown, drawn taut, and again worked around this half strand until it reaches the half strand 13 that was not laid in. This half strand 13 is now split, and the half strand 7 drawn through the opening thus made, and then tucked under the two adjacent strands as shown in d.

12. The other half of the strand 8 is now wound around the other half strand 7 in the same way. After each pair of strands has been treated in this manner, the ends are cut off at 12, leaving them about four inches long. After a few days’ wear they will all draw into the body of the rope or wear off, so that the locality of the splice can scarcely be detected.]

Why Do We Go to Sleep?

First, of course, we sleep to rest our body and brain. During our waking hours many, if not all, parts of our bodies are active all the time, and with every movement we exhaust or spend some of our strength. Take the case of your arm, for instance. You may be able to move it up and down fifty or a hundred or more times without getting tired, according to how strong you are, but sooner or later you will not be able to move it any more--it is tired--the life has all gone out of it and it needs rest, in order that it may become strong again. Every time you move your arm you destroy certain parts of its tissues, which can only be replaced during rest. Every activity of your body has the same experience, and the constant work of the brain in directing the various movements and activities of the body, tires it out too. As soon as this condition occurs, the brain tells the other parts of the body that it is time to rest, and even if we try to keep awake and go on with our work or play, or whatever it is we are doing, we find sooner or later that it is impossible. If we persist we fall asleep wherever we happen to be. It is not necessary for all parts of the body to be tired before we sleep. One part alone may be so affected by what it has been doing that it alone causes us to fall asleep. Sometimes the eyes become so tired, while we are looking at the pictures in a book or reading, for instance, that we fall off to sleep quickly. It is perhaps easier to bring on sleep by making the eyes tired than in any other way. That is why so many people read themselves to sleep. It is such a gradual passing into unconsciousness that you can hardly ever tell where you left off reading. It is said that when we are awake our bodies are continually planning for the time when we shall need sleep and are continually making some little germ which is carried to the brain as soon as made, and when there are a sufficient number of these little germs piled up in the brain, we go to sleep. The process of sleeping then destroys these germs, and when they are destroyed we again wake up.

Why Do We Wake Up in the Morning?

To answer this we must go back to the answer to the question, “What makes us go to sleep?” We go to sleep in order to secure the rest which our body and brain need to build up the parts which have been destroyed during our active work or play.