Dragging crap up the hill
To the street, so the town can haul it off: Less fun than one might imagine. But it requires a lot of rope and chain and blood sweat and tears.
I kept pulling knots too tight to loosen so I put in an eye, and thought this would be a good time to demonstrate how that’s done.
First you need a hardwood block and a damned sharp knife. Cut the end of the rope off square and sieze the ends of the three strands- I used electrical tape but you can use thread or string or heat shrink or anything you want. With poly rope you can also just melt the end.
The knife I use was given to me by Jim of Sunk New Dawn. I don’t use it for anything else, and I keep it razor sharp.
Next, unlay the rope about six full turns
Fold the rope over until it gives you an eye the size you want. At the point where the unlayed rope meets the standing part, spread the top two strands
Put the bottom two strands of the unlaid rope into the two holes this creates.
From this point on it’s pretty easy. You go in the opposite direction of the rope twist, over the adjacent strand and under the next, doing one strand at a time This is the first run tucked through
And this is the completed piece. On hemp rope or manila I will put some strain on it and cut the tails off a little proud and beat them down with a rubber mallet, which sort of “peens” them and keeps them from pulling out.
On poly rope I often just leave the seizings.
here’s a pretty good video showing it done- the guy has a little different technique than I do but the basics are the same.
18 comments Og | Uncategorized
Looked at the linked video – he used a pretty neat phid I haven’t seen before – any idea where it might be available? I’m guessing England, but there might be a purveyor in the US.
I was looking at that too. I bet i could make one out of a piece of conduit.
Very nice. Thanks. That doesn’t appear to be too difficult. I’m going to have to learn this skill as I need to do this for steel cable as well as rope.
It really is very simple. Wire rope is a bit different but not a lot.
Wire rope is stiffer, but the theory is the same.
Good looking splice. At one time a guy could make a living doing that for people.
I bought a full reel, 300′ of 3/4″ three braid poly, at a garage sale last fall.
Thirty bucks.
That reel is worth nearly a grand, at retail.
So, I’ve got a bit to spare for practice, and your technique is far easier than the one I’d learned in my yoot. Ima give it a try.
Cool job for the wee knife, too! I’ve been carrying mine for nearly fifteen years now, and it still serves me well, and daily.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Best thing to start with is an eye. Then do two eyes for a sling, and a crown end splice. Ooh, I’ll do a long splice next, that’s a good one.
Learned this at my daddy’s knee. He was in the WW II US Navy.
MC
To finish the eye splice, just lat it on the ground and roll it under your boot sole a few times…
Now that you are a Marlinspike sailor, Og, try a backsplice, which is how to finish off the end of a line so that it doesn’t un-reeve.
yep. Sailors and farmers do this shit all the time.
The colonel had a fid he made from a piece of 1.5″ oak dowel. LOcked it in the chuck on g-pa’s ShopSmith and turned one end to a point, the other to a round crown. Drill a hole in the rounded end and pass a loop of rawhide through to serve as a lanyard. I used it in maintaining tackle for a decade or more.
yeah, Dog, I pulled a crown end splice OFF of that segment of rope to put in the eye. that’s usually the first thing I do to a piece of rope, is put a crown end splice on it.
Mark: The video shows a fid which is sort of like a shoe, that allows you to run the new strand under the separated piece of the standing part of the rope.
Learned to do this stuff in Boy Scout Wood Badge back in ’93. Such fun :)
I don’t know why we never did pioneering in my troop when I was a kid, or I would have learned it then. Lord knows we did just about everything else.
Og – found it – http://www.defender.com has small and large phids like the one used in the video. Probably other places do, too). Ordered a large for ten bucks, I figure it’ll be easier and faster to use than the sharpened punch and long nose pliers I’ve been using.
Like Nathan, I learned these skills in Boy Scouts. I was able to impress my father-in-law by fashioning a lead rope with an eye splice (capturing a clip) and a crown end splice. He, having been a sailor with a front-row seat at the Leyte Gulf soirée, said that it was not half bad for a landlubber.
Ditto the Boy Scout knowledge. I think the last time I did any eye & back splicing was for Pioneering and Small Boat Sailing merit badges…
At work, with three strand. We used three different colored tapes or Sharpied the ends of the line.
Made remembering which one went next a little easier.