Page 562 - The Ashley Book of Knots

DECORATIVE MARLINGSPIKE SEAJ\1ANSHIP (APPLIED KNOTS)

inches long, with either a notch or a hole at each end, is kept a few

inches in advance of the work, to hold the tracks apart. Holes are

preferable as the stick cannot then fall to deck. The completed sinnet

is wound helically and snugly around ropes and spars. Around a rope

the end is tucked and seized in; around a spar the end is tacked or

nailed.

3485. RAILROAD SINNET (2). Baggy wrinkle is the name applied
3485"

to the RAILROAD SINNET chafing gear of a fisherman's topping lift.

There are a number of variants of the name, which may mean that

it is not yet old enough to have become standardized. The title

that heads this paragraph is from \-Valdo Howland. Gershom Brad-

ford speaks of "bagy 'u.:rinkles," Rodman Swift of "baggy winkles,"

James B. Connolly of "baagy winkles." Captain Daniel Mullins calls

them "bag wrinkles" and Charles G. Davis, "bag-a-wrinkle." Bag or

baggy may be derived from the bag of the sail where the topping-lift

chafe centers and where wrinkles are apt to form, unless the wind is

strong enough to flatten them out. Winkles or wrinkles are spirally

marked sea shells that wind in much the same manner that RAILROAD ~ ,.,

~ If
SINNET twists around the lift in fOIming a baggy wrinkle. It is an . '7 I{

amusing name, of recent coinage, but its origin is already obscured.

3486. RAILROAD SINNET (3). Platted corn-husk mats as \vell as

chafing gear are made of THREE-STRAND SINNET thrumming. Rope

yarns six to eight inches long, or the crotched ends of corn husks,

are introduced at the top left of the sinnet each time that it strand is

led to the right. When the strands have crossed the sinnet one to

three times they are laid out at the right side.

A corn-husk rug is either sewed flat as other braided rugs are or

else it is made thicker by being sewed with the sinnet on edge. In

the latter case all ends are laid out at the upper edge of the sinnet.

The fuses of Chinese firecrackers are platted in this same way to

form the crackers into "bunches."

3487. Sallie tucks, tucking or "sallies" are used on the bell ropes 1.:

.\.
of chimes to cushion the hands when pulling. They are usually made ~ .......
-

-
--
of bright-colored worsted yarns, the different colors serving to iden- - -

to~
tify the bells. A number of short yarns are tucked between the -~
-,

~­
strands and these are trimmed off evenly. If four-strand bell rope is ,..'

,
~-
used, the yarns are stuck through the center of the rope in alter- I,

, ,
I •
nating directions and crowded together compactly. The length of 3466 ,
•

the "sallie" is governed by the size and swing of the bell. I
•

3488. Marline or other two-strand material is thrummed with the

fingers or else with a large blunted needle. A number of long yarns 3488

are threaded at one time and sewed either back and forth or over

and over. They are packed down hard and trimmed.

I I

3489. For heavy chafing gear a single strand may be removed

from a three-strand rope and separated into yarns, which in turn are

cut up into thrums. These zre rove through the remaining two

strands in the manner illustrated. Thrums are sometimes called "rov-

ings," and they have also been called "rovens," "fillers," and "filling."

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