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Natural gut twist

Q: I read the tip submitted by T. Perry Widener about keeping gut from unraveling, which appeared in the June 2003 issue, but I don’t understand why it makes a difference which way you make the loop when you’re weaving the crosses.

A: One way of visualizing why the loop makes the difference it does is to get a tie wrap. You could also use a leather belt, or anything else that is flexible enough to loop, yet has side-to-side stiffness.

Hold down one end of the tie wrap, and then loop the tie wrap and hold down the other end. You’ll have something that looks like the loop of a roller coaster.

Now, still holding down the ends, slide the ends away from each other. You’ll see (because of the cross-section and side-to-side stiffness of the tie wrap), that there is actually a twist in the tie wrap, which only appears as a loop when there is enough slack. The trick is to get this twist going in the same direction as the lay of the gut. If the twist is counter-clockwise, it will tend to unravel the gut, which is what is happening when the strands separate. Even if the twist is clockwise, however, you don’t want to overdo it, because getting too much twist can cause kinking.

From the September 2005 issue
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