i look at Stillson and Cow hitches as the same knot. Both a girth hitch with a half hitch in the standing end around the working one. i think that a girth itself, descends from a muenter, begetted from the half hitch. Which if the Bowline is the King of all knots, and the Clove the mother as acclaimed; then i must vote the lowly half hitch as the grandmother, for i see it in this muenter, as well as doubled in the clove, and choking the looped tail of the bowline twice etc.!
When i put a Block or Porty on a rope mount i use an adjustable sling or Stillson/Cow Hitch. i have a 2-5' adjustable Whoopie (3' adjustable range) that i append SpanSet Slings to for extra length, joints of steel shackles. The sling lengths are 3, 6 and 12', giving me fair infinite adjsutability between 2 and 26'. Then i have a 12' was supposed to be 4x4 bog Web sling. For extra strength i will bring the hitching around and run it through the Karab holding the rescue pulley etc. More Strength can be also gotten by going to a basket (2 legs of line on device) rather than singlelegged choke formation, but baskets can slide unchecked. A round turn basket (double basket, choke basket) can grab hard and have more strength, but harder to cinch down but about 2.5x as strong.
When i use a girth or other lacing i always make sure that the first turn of the line immediately restricts the anticipated pull of the device when loaded, so as to positively and immediately pull the initial (grandma) half hitch closed and not open. i think in most situations of using any of these lacings we speak of here, that means the first turn on a Porty anchoring hitch should come over to immediately resist the upward pull towards the redirect/load support when loaded; as the first turn in the same mounting for a falsecrotch block would come underneath the working/block tail, so that it immediately resiststs the downward pull on loading. i do this the same as setting an other restriction; if on a taper i might make mini common notches in the side of a limb for the hitch to grab it (if removing the host limb). But on root swell, if i am removing the tree, i can too cut notches, but those notches would be mini humboldts, to lock against the upward pull. i like the Porty mounted low, as it gives more reachable/adjsutable length for pretightening with compression jig etc. Though once we beat that by mounting a block where the Proty would go, then mounted the Porty on another tree 20' away, just to have a reachable, adjustable area (horizontal, low) for us non-JP's to pretighten line with in single compressions quickly; when we ahd a lot of it to do at one time.
i tighten all of them the same, that i think is maximum. For example, in mounting the Porty; i make/adjust the initial half hitch/sling loop, so that it is tightened up too short; it is choked up the neck of the Porty and not at the base. Then i take the Porty (original model) and wrench/leverage the loop down it to the base of the Porty. Sometimes reset, and do again, but if ya stretch it right the first run when you make it too short, and leverage the line/sling down the length stretching more from there, usually it will be very tight. i usually look at the first load as a setting of everything and everyone; after which a fair time for re-evaluation before using again. i use the length of a pulley block as a too short and leverage in strategy, as well as the length of a karab for mounting a rescue pulley etc. with a loop runner(s) etc.
i've been 'better-halfing' stuff i guess for years, for security,as well as cleaning up any extra hanging tail, often lacing it with a bight in a slip formation, rather than the tail (sometimes passing the end tail through the slip for the extra paranoid or clipping a karab in that laced bight). Especially, when passing a line ofver a high crotch of a removal, and clove hitching to the lower backside to pull over. Here it keeps the tail of the line out of the way of the cutter. To me this is only a common sense security, by appending a short Timber Hitch as the next evolution of the lacing.
i break knots into throws and lacings. You can throw a clove onto a post, but you must lace it into a ring. When lacing, it is more common to give the imagery of setting, and tracing tightness and proper lay, machining it to task and mounting, into the knotting i think.
