# Tying split tail to caribiner



## hda31 (Jan 3, 2011)

Hi guys, 
I got a question and found this site when I searched and it seems to be pretty cool forum! 

Anyway, I just ordered some climbing gear and want to use the split tail system, however, I'm a little confused on tying my split tail between my caribiner and climbing line. When I tie the split tail with a anchor hitch to the caribiner and a blake's hitch to the climbing line, there is just not enough rope to do this...

However, the split tail has an eyelet...now, the eyelet is too small as is to run the other end through to tie a girth hitch around the caribiner (which would leave plenty of slack for the blake hitch to the climbing line), my question is, can i loosen the eyelet to make the girth hitch fit, or, is it safe enough to run the caribiner through the eyelet and leave it just like that? Sorry for the long question but didn't know any other way to word it without details...

Thanks for input!!!!!!


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## Blakesmaster (Jan 4, 2011)

Just clip your biner into the eyelet, you're good to go, assuming it's a professionally spliced split tail. BTW, welcome to the site.


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## ropensaddle (Jan 4, 2011)

Blakesmaster said:


> Just clip your biner into the eyelet, you're good to go, assuming it's a professionally spliced split tail. BTW, welcome to the site.


 
Yup


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## RacerX (Jan 4, 2011)

If you split tail was spliced with a tight eye just slip the carabiner through it. If it has a larger eye (usually professionally tied at about 5") it should be large enough for a girth hitch.


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## hda31 (Jan 4, 2011)

yea i bought the gear off of wesspur, so it's legitamate gear, it also makes sense that it can be just slipped onto the biner because there's just not enough rope to tie it any other way, thanks a lot guys!


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## PinnaclePete (Jan 4, 2011)

TreeCo said:


> Hopefully the eye is tight enough that it will not move around on the biner. If it can move on the biner keep very close watch on it as it may end up on the gate of the biner and biner gates are not rated to carry a load.


 
Use a corner keeper, steel or preferably rubber to keep the eye in the small end of the biner. Do not try to loosen the eye. It should have a 6 - 8 inch tuck and be whipped with a waxy thread to keep splice in place.

All commercially spliced products should have a label shrink wrapped over the splice to indicate ANSI ratings, rope type and splicer, etc.

Happy Climbing and Welcome.


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## treemandan (Jan 4, 2011)

Its supposed to be used with a girth. What do you mean there is not enough left to tie? Ya got me worried now.


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## Rickytree (Jan 4, 2011)

treemandan said:


> Its supposed to be used with a girth. What do you mean there is not enough left to tie? Ya got me worried now.


 
Cuz he thinking of tying the split tail to the beaner. The only time I tyed a split tail to a beaner is when I make my own out of a 6 foot piece of rope and tie a fisherman's knot. It is compact and stays out of your way. I hope you know what you are getting into. This is a pretty easy question for a complex, life threatening occupation. That last part is not addressed to you TreeManDAN


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## hda31 (Jan 4, 2011)

Ricky,
That is partly why I am confused on the split tail i received. The tree climber's companion book shows to tie a fisherman's knot to the biner and then the blakes hitch to the climbing line. HOwever, the split tail i received has an eye and is hardly 4' long, probably more like 3' 6"...so, there is just not enough rope for me to tie all those knots safely alontg with a figure 8 off the end of teh blake's hitch????


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## hda31 (Jan 4, 2011)

o, the other thing is that i can't fit the end of the split tail back through the eye for a girth hitch


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## 046 (Jan 4, 2011)

you might post a picture of what you got... there's several styles of spliced eyes. 

prefer a triple fisherman personally as I don't trust splices that I didn't do. 
how ever you do it... objective is to have rope capture the biner and not slip around. 

you might consider using a steel biner or steel maillons rapides screw link for this critical application. New Tribe store







here's instruction from Buckingham 
http://www.buckinghammfg.com/instructionsandwarnings/38STWARN.pdf


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## hda31 (Jan 4, 2011)

i see i see, yea, i may just cut rope off of another climbing line and make my own split tail as i think tying my own knot to the caribiner makes me feel more secure than a spliced eye from a manufacturer...great info though guys thanks


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## Rickytree (Jan 4, 2011)

Perhaps the split tail is the wrong one for the application. What is the thickness of the rope in the split tail? If the eye is a couple inches in length then you girth hitch it to the beaner, but if the eye is small then attach the beaner through the eye then tie your hitch. You can use tape to keep the split tail centered in the dip of the beaner but don't conceal rope with tape. Tape can be put on either side. I like to see what I am looking at when doin a preflight inspection.


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## RacerX (Jan 4, 2011)

Some photo's of what you're working with will help.


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## hda31 (Jan 7, 2011)

heres some pics guys, sorry it took a few days, i've talked to some people about this question and they all say that a spliced eye on these biners is supposed to be safer than a knot, which i found suprising!

View attachment 167405
View attachment 167406
View attachment 167407
View attachment 167408


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## outonalimbts (Jan 7, 2011)

hda31 said:


> i've talked to some people about this question and they all say that a spliced eye on these biners is supposed to be safer than a knot, which i found suprising!




I only use steel carabiners to climb with. I also really like the swivel snaps as they allow me to move around in a tree without getting tangled up in the rope. Or having the rope twist up on itself. Seems to work awful nicely.

Good luck, be careful...

View attachment 167414


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## PinnaclePete (Jan 7, 2011)

TreeCo said:


> I see you are double crotched...........LOL!
> 
> ........


 
Seems like an excessive use of hardware and rope. The Hi-Vee is your split tail, Blue Streak your climbing line double crotched, but what is the Gold streak doing in there?


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## 046 (Jan 7, 2011)

that's absolutely not true!

a splice eye is not safer than a properly tied triplefisherman. 

a triplefisherman has the advantage of self cinching without a major loss of strength. VS a girth hitch loses substantially more strength, which is needed to cinch to biner. even a tight spliced eye will not cinch like a triplefisherman. 

All climbers should be aware that girth hitching any Dyneema slings, regardless of size, causes them to lose around 50% of their strength. girth hitching standard climbing line could result in strength loss of 30% vs a triplefisherman loses about 10% 

there's documented instances of factory spliced eyes failing. 
same could be also said of knots failing from being improperly tied. 

personally don't trust factory splices... my triplefisherman is tied by me...
I KNOW my life can be trusted to that knot. I cannot say the same about a splice not done by me. 

look at the triplefisherman on a split tail tied by me below... easy visual check that knot is 100% tied correctly and will not fail. can you say the same about any factory spliced eye?








hda31 said:


> heres some pics guys, sorry it took a few days, i've talked to some people about this question and they all say that a spliced eye on these biners is supposed to be safer than a knot, which i found suprising!
> 
> View attachment 167405
> View attachment 167406
> ...


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## Rickytree (Jan 8, 2011)

046 said:


> that's absolutely not true!
> 
> a splice eye is not safer than a properly tied triplefisherman.
> 
> ...


 
Nice post and split tail.


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## Rickytree (Jan 8, 2011)

hda31 said:


> heres some pics guys, sorry it took a few days, i've talked to some people about this question and they all say that a spliced eye on these biners is supposed to be safer than a knot, which i found suprising!
> 
> View attachment 167405
> View attachment 167406
> ...


 
The second pic you might want to try putting the pulley on first then the splittail. or ? just it will lay flatter if that's a word.


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## Rickytree (Jan 8, 2011)

outonalimbts said:


> I only use steel carabiners to climb with. I also really like the swivel snaps as they allow me to move around in a tree without getting tangled up in the rope. Or having the rope twist up on itself. Seems to work awful nicely.
> 
> Good luck, be careful...
> 
> View attachment 167414


 
What is the tie off on the yellow rope? sorry forgot the name. and what saddle is that? Buckingham ....?


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## hda31 (Jan 8, 2011)

046 said:


> that's absolutely not true!
> 
> a splice eye is not safer than a properly tied triplefisherman.
> 
> ...


 
thanks for the great info there!


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## JeffL (Jan 8, 2011)

Wait, so your double locking steel rope snaps are safer than a triple locking aluminum snap or biner? The ONLY piece of hardware I've ever had open up on me are the double locking steel and AI rope snaps. Talk about unsafe. Throw those pieces of trash in the garbage if you want to talk about safety.


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## outonalimbts (Jan 9, 2011)

JeffL said:


> Wait, so your double locking steel rope snaps are safer than a triple locking aluminum snap or biner? The ONLY piece of hardware I've ever had open up on me are the double locking steel and AI rope snaps. Talk about unsafe. Throw those pieces of trash in the garbage if you want to talk about safety.


 
Of course that would be true if you were correct about double locking instead of triple- action locking carabiners, but both steel biners shown here are triple action, slotted key mated carabiners. The steel snaps are swivels and they are double action, it is possible to load the side of the snap, thus causing it to unlock, but it takes a separate action to open the gate. I have been climbing on a system like this for years, once (on one occasion) both gate and lock were disengaged, but the snap didn't roll out of the "D" Ring, this happened when I was climbing a White Pine, only after the snap was covered in pitch- I was above my climbing system, and the snap was hanging without any tension on it.

My set up, notice the tight eye splice, on the screw connector, no movement/rolling around.
[url]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-9/1076198/0109111204a.jpg[/url][img]
This photo shows the type D.M.M. 45kn[img][url]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-9/1076198/0109111204b.jpg[/url][img]

But, had you known, you would have been correct.

:chainsawguy:


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## outonalimbts (Jan 9, 2011)

Rickytree said:


> What is the tie off on the yellow rope? sorry forgot the name. and what saddle is that? Buckingham ....?


 
Buckingham high backed leather and canvas, boson seat with leg straps- uncomfortable but serviceable- Have up graded to Ergovation, it allows for infinite adjustments and or un adjustments depending on how you climb...

The tie in / termination knot, is called the "Anchor Bend", this results in approx 10-20% loss of strength in rope, however after using this termination knot for 12 years I have never seen it fail under normal climbing loads, and only once fail due to over loading at this point (interestingly, the aluminum carabiner failed as well) This was after winching with a 10K winch, to test the strength of the bend.

This bend holds very well, doesn't allow the climbing line to slip around on the biner, and is easy to untie even after it has gotten wet. The only problem with this hitch is that it can interfere with the gate on the biner, if tied opposite of the way it is in the attached picture.


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## jaketcole (Jan 16, 2011)

hi, i use 3m of marlow 13mm rope for a split tail. i tie the biner on with a fishermans or bowline. works for me!


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## NickfromWI (Jan 16, 2011)

046 said:


> that's absolutely not true!
> 
> a splice eye is not safer than a properly tied triplefisherman.
> 
> a triplefisherman has the advantage of self cinching without a major loss of strength. VS a girth hitch loses substantially more strength, which is needed to cinch to biner. even a tight spliced eye will not cinch like a triplefisherman.



A good tight spliced eye can cinch as good as that triple fisherman.

You expressed valid concerns about factory splices, but a splice can be inspected in the same way a knot can. What you're pointing out is that you are not looking close enough at the splice to determine if it is done right or not.

You like the triple fisherman because it is what you know and are used to. But the benefits of that knot all exist with the splices, too. 

Don't be too rough on the splices! :cute:

View attachment 168586


And besides...how sexy is this?!?!?

love
nick


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## 046 (Jan 16, 2011)

welcome to AS... never terminate your lifeline with a bowline, unless you back it up with a backup knot. like a double fisherman. triplefisherman is a MUCH better choice for multiple reasons. it cinches down, keeping knot from moving to lateral or weak points of biner. 

bowline knot naturally loosens up when load is released. there's documented instances of bowline failing from loosening up by being unloaded. 

Triple Fisherman knot is the only termination knot I'd trust without a backup knot and hands down the termination knot of choice. 

IMHO below is the only safe way, to use bowline as a termination knot. 







jaketcole said:


> hi, i use 3m of marlow 13mm rope for a split tail. i tie the biner on with a fishermans or bowline. works for me!


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