Patent ID: 7234283

Claim:
A method for making retaining net knots, wherein a knot comprises a first and a second rope crossing over each other and a junction binding said ropes in a given crossover area, said ropes having the same rope diameter, the method comprising the steps of: placing a first U-shaped element having a curved base and a second U-shaped element having a curved base positioned side-by-side astride said first rope, each U-shaped element with the same orientation at a distance from one another approximately equal to the rope diameter so that they lie close to said second rope on opposite sides thereof; linking ends of the first U-shaped element to ends of the second U-shaped element by means of at least one bridge element overlying said second rope; and clamping with a clamping means said at least one bridge element on said second rope, wherein, during the clamping step by the action of the clamping means, the ropes press each other at their crossover area, because of the displacement of contacting rope strands, reducing the overall thickness of the first and second ropes pressed together to 1 to 4/3 of the rope diameter in such a way that the ropes are forced to lie substantially in the same plane at each knot of the net, and wherein the curvature of the curved base of each U-shaped element is semicircular, with an intrados radius of approximately one half the rope diameter, wherein said bridge element comprises a separable yoke linking an end of a wing of the first U-shaped element to an adjacent end of a wing of the second U-shaped element, and wherein said clamping means clamps said yoke on said second rope.