EN
A point x is a (bow) tie-point of a space X if X∖{x} can be partitioned into (relatively) clopen sets each with x in its closure. We denote this as $X = A {⋈ \limits_{x}} B$ where A, B are the closed sets which have a unique common accumulation point x. Tie-points have appeared in the construction of non-trivial autohomeomorphisms of βℕ = ℕ* (by Veličković and Shelah & Steprans) and in the recent study (by Levy and Dow & Techanie) of precisely 2-to-1 maps on ℕ*. In these cases the tie-points have been the unique fixed point of an involution on ℕ*. One application of the results in this paper is the consistency of there being a 2-to-1 continuous image of ℕ* which is not a homeomorph of ℕ*.