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Sean here! One of my "assignments" when I left for Maryland was that Morgan had seen a great idea to make a monkey fist knot doorstop. It's a great idea for anywhere, but especially for any nautical-themed room in your house.
I'm an Eagle Scout, so I know a lot of knots, but I needed a refresher since it's been a few years. I watched this video on YouTube which gave a great step-by-step.
I started out with about 15 feet of ¾" rope from Lowe's. It was like $0.58 per foot so it was way cheaper than buying one of these doorstops online for anywhere between $25-50.
First, wrap the rope around your hand three times.
Then, wrap it around the other direction, starting with the loop on the bottom.
Then comes the tricky part. Now you have to thread the rope around the second set loops in the same direction as the first set up loops (I'd recommend watching the video here to really know where the rope needs to go).
The knot is going to be very loose if you did it right. At this point, if you really want to use this as a doorstop, you probably need some weight to it to hold the door open. So find a small round rock, and slide it into the knot in one of the gaps.
Now comes the next tricky part. You have to tighten the knot around the rock. You're going to want to tighten using end you were using to wrap it. The original end you had wrapped around your hand is going to get longer, but that's going to be good for making the handle later.
Tada!!! Now you have a tightened monkey fist doorstop!! But you're going to have two ends of rope now. The short one, you're going to want to cut off.
Now just loop the end of rope over and super glue it to another corner of rope and you have a handle!
How awesome is that? And it could totally hold open the automatically-closing door of my hotel room! It's going to look great in the subtlety-nautical living room.
Ever made a monkey fist doorstop? Any other nautical projects?
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Hey there, I'm Sean, the woodworking enthusiast and builder behind CharlestonCrafted.com! Since 2012, I've been sharing the magic of turning raw materials into beautiful creations. I love teaching others the art and satisfaction of woodworking and DIY. I try to inspire fellow crafters to make something extraordinary out of nothing at all.
Allyson says
this is very confusing to me, because I am a total klutz! It came out so cute though! Thanks for sharing this on Domestic Superhero's link party this week!
Sean says
I'm sorry! It isn't the easiest thing to convey on a blog post with words. I really recommend that video, it helps a lot!
Jen says
Hi, I came across your website while looking for a tutorial on this, and was wondering approx how large the completed knot was. The door I'm making this for has about 7" clearance above the ground, so I need it to be pretty big. Could I adjust the size easily by using a larger rock and a little more rope?? Thank you!
Sean says
Hey Jen! Thanks for checking it out. Mine turned out to be probably six inches in diameter. You could definitely make it as big as you wanted with a bigger rock and more rope. The only thing I'd watch out for would be making it too big because it would be tough to manage in your hands. Good luck though! Share a picture when you're done!
Jen says
Great, thank you! This will hopefully be my weekend project; I'll let you know how it goes!