Volume 3,
Chapter 14. How to tie the “Fly-heads”
All
seven strings have a “fly-head” (ying-t’ou, 蠅頭).[1] They go through the “yarn fasteners” (絨扣) to secure the string, and
thus (the strings) cannot slip out. Take
the head of the string and twist it into three parts (total). (On the left) make two parts (of the three)
with the string head in the center and (overall) facing up[2]
(Of the left hand two parts), the first bend should be below and twisted to the
right. The second part should be above
and bent to the left. The string head remains in the center, and is face
up. Using the left hand, thumb and index
fingers, pinch (the left-hand portion), and with the right hand put the (right)
circular part out over it (the left-hand part), slipping it over the center of
the (left-hand) two folds and drawing it tight.[3] Tie it up like a fly’s head. On the left, and right, it should seem to
have two eyes. The top center should be
like a straight nose. The back ply
should have the form seen in the bottom picture.[4] Put it
through the yarn fastener, tighten, and arrange it in a straight manner, on top
of the (ch’in) bridge. Make sure the
round circular hole is pulled tight to the limit, thus perfecting the
form. Ideally the result should be neat
and small.. Hopefully the pictures will aid the understanding.
Figure 1: Picture 1 (the first picture at the top, going from top to
bottom) shows the starting position for making the “fly-head”, with the string
folded into three parts. Picture 2 shows
how to fold the right hand circular part over the left-hand part to construct
the nearly completed knot. The bottom
two pictures show the nearly finished knot from the top view, and from the
bottom view. Each of the bottom two
pictures has a smaller, tighter cousin on the side.