Sweet Monkey Fist Idea

Ok, so here is what I'm thinking. Wraps are a VERY important part of my routine, but I have never been able to find a poi wick that i was satisfied with for wraps. I think that the monkey fist wicks look ALMOST perfect, except that I dont want ANY extraneous metal where the chain attatches to the wick. So what I am thinking of doing is attaching a washer at the end of ball-chain, and then placing this washer INSIDE the monkey fist knot prior to tightening the knot. This way, when it is tightened, the ball chain goes directly INSIDE the knot, without any attachments or extra metal near the wick.
Can anyone see any flaws with this idea, or does anyone have any additional improvements?
The only thing I havent figured out yet, is how to secure the ends of the kevlar rope used to tie the monkey fist knot so that they dont unravel with continued use. How the hell do the monkey fist wicks sold in the HOP store secure/fasten each loose end of the rope so that it doesn't unravel? That is the only thing I cant figure out from the pictures in the store.
Please, any help or comments would be appreciated...

Awesome idea.

I think you would want a more ball shaped core for a monkeyfist knot though (im just guessing here, I have never tied one) Maybe if you took a ball bearing and drilled holes in it to put the ballchain through.

Cmon people, someone must know how the hell to finish a monkey knot so I dont have any loose ends. I just need a way so that it stays a solid ball of kevlar, and doesnt unravel.
I like the idea of a solid ball core, but I need to finish the knot somehow without loose ends.

I posted a while back about finishing off some wicks and found out that the best way (for me) was to pull out threads from kevlar strip and sew the kevlar together with that.

This seemed to be the general consensus form those i spoke to and enabled me to make poi with no metal bits which is a bonus.

I never had any fail on me and two sets of poi/ropes were stolen, must be cos they were lovely

I think PVA glue is used by some people to finish off fraying ends too but sewing usually did the trick for me.

Maybe you could just use kevlar rope and thread through the fist itself or extend ends as the portion leading up to the handle?

just an idea, hope it's some help

i have just wrapped them round with a bit of kevlar thread and stuck them back into the knot.

it has worked ok so far!!

hola! could try whipping the ends to stop them fraying if u can find some fireproof twine (didn't think of that one when i tried whipping frayed ends for burning tails!)

what does "whipping the end" mean??
Pardon my ignorance

S'like i said in my post, (but a bit less technically!).... wrap the fraying ends with kevlar thread.

I think thats what it means anyway!!!!

Hey people, im making a set of monkey fist poi heads and i was just wondering what a suitable core would be??

1. A smaller monkey fist (for extra fuel soakage)
2. A block of wood (like HoP monkey fists)

Whipping is where you tightly wrap thread around the end of a rope to bind it all together. Part way through wrapping you put a seperate loop of thread along the rope, with the end sticking out, and continue to wrap over that, then when you've finished you can stick the end of the wrapping thread through the loop and pull it under the wrapping, so it doesn't come unravelled.

Thought this might be useful. Animations of different whipping.

Sailors whipping

Sailmakers whipping

West country whipping

Hope this helps, I find the site very useful. You might like to try here as well.

Knots on the web

Mine and Kierons solution to no metal parts monkey fists

"what you mean no metal... there is metal all over that lol"

He only specifies:

"except that I dont want ANY extraneous metal where the chain attatches to the wick."

Ok, there is metal attached to the wick but it's not relevant as I believe the aim is not to have burning metal against skin during wraps. The no metal attachment appears to be in consideration of poi with just a head, I don't believe it considers head+rope poi like the Monkey Ropes.

As you don't have to worry about burning metal during wraps with those, which is the main aim crazycarl is trying to achieve from what I understand, Aimee's suggestion could probably meet his requirements or at least provide useful ideas.

(Though we still need to make the next ones which will be infinitely better, hopefully with less metal)

sounds like a neat idea- I just finished my first ever monkey fist, and I didn't have any trouble with the loose ends. I just went through the whole thing and tightened everything up as much as I could, once it was tight enough I cut the loose ends close to the ball, and it seems fine so far, but I havent used it much.

I think the key to a monkeyfist is getting it super UBER tight.

Good luck.

cant you just do what ive seen nick do in one of his videos where he puts a cover down the chain thats like a tube so it covers the metal then stays in place?