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Japanese Square Lashing

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I’ve watched Scouts who struggle with the traditional square lashing (especially getting it tight enough) learn the Japanese square lashing quickly and go on to actually building stuff rather than fiddling with lashings. The Japanese Square Lashing is a vast improvement over the traditional square lashing Scouts normally use that involves tying clove hitches. It’s simpler and faster  to tie and can be drawn up much tighter.

There are three versions of the Japanese square lashing, my favorite is the ‘Mark II’ pictured below:

japanese square lashing

The other two types of Japanese square lashing are pictured in this PDF excerpt of  Gerald Findley’s excellent book Ropeworks Plus available on Amazon. Ropeworks Plus features clear drawings and directions and useful, practical information on knots , lashings, splicing and much more.

Check out This excellent set of directions at Scoutpioneering.com

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Comments

  1. You should try a prusik square lashing. It’s now a standard part of Australian badge work and great for synthetic ropes.

  2. It’s the same lashing. Wraps and fraps. It’s just started differently and executed slightly different.

    I’m assuming that it’s origin in the orient is partly because they lash together bamboo and not oak and pine logs? Maybe it tightens up better on those kinds of materials?

    • I don’t think the materials being lashed dictated the lashing method. It’s just a sensible alternative, which is a whole lot faster and more practical.

      • If you handed someone who had no idea of lashings two poles and asked them to tie them together they would probably end up with something like the Japanese square lashing – it seems more intuitive than the other methods.

        • I can see that. Maybe, to some extent it’s a matter of individual perception though. Like, I wonder how the “traditional” clove hitch, single strand approach got so established. That was how I was taught back in the 60s. But, I BET if our troop had been taught the “Japanese Mark II,” we’d have built a whole lot more and a wider range of pioneering projects. My definite impression is those countries where Scouts regularly erect enormous and complex structures, they’re using all kinds of different quick and efficient lashing techniques, e.g. the “Filipino Diagonal Lashing.” http://scoutpioneering.com/2012/12/30/filipino-diagonal-lashing/

  3. Just a note. For me, it was Pioneering Legend, Adolph Peschke who gave me my first introduction to the Japanese Mark II Square Lashing. And of course he credits John Thurman for introducing it to the USA. Back at the 1993 National Jamboree, he mandated that the whole Pioneering staff use only that version for all the pioneering projects in each Action Center.

  4. I first read about the Japanese square lashings in two books by John Thurman. He first describes it in Pioneering Principles (1962), explaining that he learned it in Japan. In Progressive Pionieering (1964), he describes the Mark II and Mark III lashings. Mark II was an improvement developed at Gilwell Park, and Mark III was sent in by a reader.

    Like you, Thurman prefers the Mark II lashing.

    This isn’t news to Clarke, but I’ll mention that all of John Thurman’s pioneering books (and quite a few others) are available for download as PDF’s here:

    http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/scouts.html