# Homemade eye splice



## treemandan (Oct 17, 2009)

Nothing to special but cheap and bombproof one would think. This is the last bit of that dynamic support rope that I was going to use attach a pulley with a timber hitch. I just strung up an oak for a client and only had a few feet left. Its like a buck oh five a foot and easy as pie to splice why I did it while I gave my 3 year old a bath. She did a lot of the work, I would say just as much as I did.







Of course the fid. I suppose it wasn't the safest thing to have in the bath but she had no problem with it.








The rope is kinda like that Tenex stuff which I really have never used anyway. It is very strong but I thought it would always get snagged running through the tree and it does so I avoided it. Also the strech, not only in this dynamic cable rope but in the Tenex... just never liked it. I think it will work good in this application though.


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## CaseyForrest (Oct 18, 2009)

Why not just bury and lock it?

Not being a smart ass, but splicing rope is something im taking a liking to.


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## treemandan (Oct 18, 2009)

CaseyForrest said:


> Why not just bury and lock it?
> 
> Not being a smart ass, but splicing rope is something im taking a liking to.



I don't know. And I am not being a smart ass either, I just don't know why not. I did like they want you to when cabling a tree. I suppose I could have just run the end up the middle of the rope but like I said. I don't really know. Gonna find out soon though. It seems like it will be fine and I am sure there are different ways to splice the stuff.


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## tomtrees58 (Oct 18, 2009)

that's good for tying your boat but not for treesi have spliced for over 30 years now get a book or get a samson splicing manual& splicing kit but do not used that mess tom trees


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## treemandan (Oct 19, 2009)

tomtrees58 said:


> that's good for tying your boat but not for treesi have spliced for over 30 years now get a book or get a samson splicing manual& splicing kit but do not used that mess tom trees



Oh it can't be as bad as you say.

Just today I looked at my stable braid eye splice, it had come undone. I just bought it this year. I use it for in the the tree. I don't know what to do with it. I will post some pics when I drag it back out.


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## RacerX (Oct 19, 2009)

Looks similar to a locking Brummel Splice:

http://www.neropes.com/SPL_12Strand_EyeSpliceBrummel.aspx


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## pdqdl (Oct 20, 2009)

1. That is nowhere as good as a locking brummel. They CANNOT be pulled out without breaking the rope, even if it is loose in your hands.

2. There is apparently no taper. According to Moray (and others), the rope will break first where the tail is buried without a taper to it.

3. Those crossovers do not squeeze nearly as hard as one rope inside the other. It just isn't a good way to do it, and it doesn't look as cool either.


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## pdqdl (Oct 20, 2009)

RacerX said:


> Looks similar to a locking Brummel Splice:
> 
> http://www.neropes.com/SPL_12Strand_EyeSpliceBrummel.aspx



That is the sophisticated way to do the locking brummel. It is quite a bit easier to cross the rope with the tail, and then just cross the tail with the entire length of rope. Then bury the tail. No guess work, no measuring errors.

Same results, much easier in most circumstances. Best to know both methods!


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## moray (Oct 23, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> ...3. Those crossovers do not squeeze nearly as hard as one rope inside the other. It just isn't a good way to do it, and it doesn't look as cool either.



A month ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with this, but then I had a long and interesting conversation about loopies with Brion Toss on another forum (TB). To cut to the chase, he was using a loopie to lift heavy boat masts, and the loopie was holding together when I would have predicted it would slip. The spot where the adjustable tail of the loopie emerges from the spliced section of the rope is exactly like one of the tucks (crossovers) in treemandan's splice, and apparently that single tuck was supplying a lot of friction.

When this thread appeared, it seemed like the moment to do a few tests. I used 5/16-inch Tenex Tec for the experiments, and in each one there was a woven treemandan splice on one end of the rope, and a short bury splice on the other. 

Initially it seemed reasonable to compare equal lengths of splices. For the first test, there were 2 tucks in the woven splice and it had a length of about 2 inches. I made the bury on the other end a little bit longer than that and started pulling. The normal splice came apart at 358 lbs.

I then respliced the same rope with a 5-inch bury and pulled again. This time the woven splice started slipping at 1304 lbs., and finally pulled apart at 1990 lbs. The normal splice was unaffected.






The photo shows the setup for the third test. This time there were 5 crossovers in the woven splice and a 7-inch bury in the normal splice. Tension was applied. This time there was no slippage, and the rope broke at the arrow at 3754 lbs. 

The weaving, as expected, weakens the rope, but still 3754 lbs. represents 80% of nominal rope strength. This is far better than any knot I tested in the same rope, but somewhat weaker than a proper bury splice. But the wholly surprising result here is that the woven splice is inch for inch far superior security-wise to the conventional splice. The woven splice wasn't even 3 inches long!! This is not even 1/4 the length specified for a proper bury splice, and hardly longer than a double fisherman's loop!


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## pdqdl (Oct 24, 2009)

I have been thinking about that splice, too. TheDan says that it is dynamic rope, (application & brand?) and that he was instructed to splice it that way. It occurred to me that a real stretchy rope might not hold too well with a conventional bury since stretch cycles might cause the tail to creep out more than in a non-dynamic rope.

As usual, it is great to have someone able to test these situations with some real numbers, rather than speculation. I had presumed that the rope would be weakened by the weave, but I did not think that it would hold better "per inch" than the conventional bury.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense. I seem to recall that you did some mathematics on the trigonometry of the squeezing force applied by the cover on the buried tail. This weave would certainly increase the angle of force applied by the cover, but it would decrease the number of strands per inch of rope that were applying force. 

Surface area of interacting ropes should not be a factor, so it would boil down to counting strands and measuring angles, wouldn't it?


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## Philbert (Oct 24, 2009)

I have a copy of this if anyone wants it. Bought it. Read it. Don't need it.
$10, shipped USPS media mail in the USA. 
(Or trade for a couple of clean plastic wedges).

http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=99660

2006. 159 pages. Used in new condition.
Send me a PM if interested.

Philbert


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## treemandan (Oct 24, 2009)

Thanks for responding Moray, your positive feedback confirmed my own thoughts which are that while my new homemade eye splice was not made perfect this is a great easy reliable splice. I think I like it way more the the blind splices and when I saw the Grizzly splice I actually did crap my pants. What is up with that pile of junk? 
Anyway, I did make the 3 strand eyes too. Not bragging and that is the extent of my splicing prowness... they are pretty much to whupped for the big game but still are very useful. There is one now used as a rope capture for the bollard.






But I have lifted trees with it before.

I also like the rope it was made from, light and very strong though it gets frayed by easily on the tree.


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## treemandan (Oct 24, 2009)

Philbert said:


> I have a copy of this if anyone wants it. Bought it. Read it. Don't need it.
> $10, shipped USPS media mail in the USA.
> (Or trade for a couple of clean plastic wedges).
> 
> ...



OOOH! Candy! I'll send 20.00.


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## moray (Oct 26, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> ...It occurred to me that a real stretchy rope might not hold too well with a conventional bury since stretch cycles might cause the tail to creep out more than in a non-dynamic rope.


I have a few splices in nylon but have never tested them. But Samson considers nylon a type 1 material, so the splicing instructions for nylon and polyester are the same...



pdqdl said:


> In retrospect, it makes perfect sense. I seem to recall that you did some mathematics on the trigonometry of the squeezing force applied by the cover on the buried tail. This weave would certainly increase the angle of force applied by the cover, but it would decrease the number of strands per inch of rope that were applying force.
> 
> Surface area of interacting ropes should not be a factor, so it would boil down to counting strands and measuring angles, wouldn't it?



Exactly! Whereas this is fairly straightforward in the case of a standard bury, and all the cover strands are equivalent, it is much messier with this woven affair. As the tail weaves through the main rope, each time it penetrates the rope it creates two apertures. The strands right at the mouth of an aperture are more disturbed from their original lay than any other strands, and form a tight curve that grips the tail. Under tension these strands close like a pair of scissors on the tail. The radius of curvature is much tighter than the lazy helix of cover strands in a normal bury splice, so the squeeze force is correspondingly that much greater per strand than for the bury splice. 

Since this scenario seems much too complicated to calculate, we are left to measure it. I would like to know how many tucks are needed for a secure splice, and what is the effect of burying the tail? And it would be nice to know this for both polyester and a type 2 material like Dyneema (Amsteel Blue). I have some data already, but I want to do a few tests on Amsteel Blue before I post the results.

Why is this interesting or worthwhile? Because this is a very strong termination that is much neater than a knot but much shorter than a bury splice. It comes closer than anything except maybe a grizzly splice to the ideal termination: one with no bulk and no length but as strong as the rope. On the negative side of the ledger is the fact that it requires considerably more labor to make and is probably nowhere near as forgiving of sloppy execution as the standard bury splice.

The picture shows the adjusting tail of a loopie (5/16-inch Amsteel Blue) after being subjected to 2500 lbs. tension a few weeks ago. The tail was partly pulled into the loopie as the loopie slipped, builing up a fat loose collar on the tail (green arrow) that put up ever greater resistance to being pulled in. The same mechanism is probably at work in the case of the woven splice.


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## pdqdl (Oct 26, 2009)

Why would you have a loopie made of 5/16-inch Amsteel Blue?

That is some pretty expensive stuff, and it is real slick, too. I consider Amsteel to only be suitable for places you need incredible strength without much bulk. No heat, please!

I'd just buy a larger diameter Tenex, and get the same strength with better heat resistance. I don't doubt that 5/16" amsteel would squeeze halfway through a chunk of soft wood before it broke.


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## treemandan (Oct 26, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> Why would you have a loopie made of 5/16-inch Amsteel Blue?
> 
> That is some pretty expensive stuff. I'd just buy a larger diameter Tenex, and get the same strength with better heat resistance. I don't doubt that 5/16" amsteel would squeeze halfway through a chunk of soft wood before it broke.



I have to read up on the ropes they have so many new kinds. That Amsteel sounds impressive but you are right it might be to thin. Do they make thicker?
Anyway, I sent Philbert the dollars for the splice book, maybe I will have some time to check it out and don't tell me to make time. Also it seems the eye splice that came undone will be replaced free of charge by the good boys at Penn-Holo though I am not sure I want to trust that maker again. I dunno.


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## pdqdl (Oct 26, 2009)

I have 150' hank of 3/8" for towing out stuck vehicles. I love it! 

I think you can buy Amsteel as thick as you want. I understand that they use about 4" hawsers made from that stuff for towing ocean liners. And it floats!

Think how heavy a steel cable that size would be?


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## moray (Oct 26, 2009)

It was just part of an experiment in which I was trying to duplicate the conditions under which Brion Toss used his Spectra slings. I agree--I can't really see a reason to use Amsteel in a loopie.

Slick as it is, Amsteel Blue is very reluctant to being sucked into a taut rope, so I am expecting I won't need very many tucks to make a secure treemandan splice in AB. If this turns out to be the case, I definitely have some uses for AB with these very short splices.


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## pdqdl (Oct 26, 2009)

Well...as much as that stuff costs per foot, I guess that is a cheaper splice, too.


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## SINGLE-JACK (Oct 27, 2009)

treemandan said:


> Thanks for responding Moray, your positive feedback confirmed my own thoughts which are that while my new homemade eye splice was not made perfect this is a great easy reliable splice. I think *I like it way more the the blind splices *...



Hey *treemandan*, check out the pic in this post:

http://www.arboristsite.com/showpost.php?p=1793578&postcount=19

It looks a lot like a commercial i2i version of the splices you've been working on.

I've been following your progress with great interest because I'm not a big fan of those "blind splices" either.

Regards, 
Jack


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## pdqdl (Oct 27, 2009)

No, not at all the same. 

That is a locking Brummel, with a conventional bury. Notice how the outside of the 1st crossover is the inside of the 2nd. That is what makes them "lock" into place.


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## treemandan (Oct 27, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> No, not at all the same.
> 
> That is a locking Brummel, with a conventional bury. Notice how the outside of the 1st crossover is the inside of the 2nd. That is what makes them "lock" into place.



I can't see the difference, the pic is to blurry but I sent Philbert the cash for the splice book so I hope to get involved in more of what is going on with splices


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## pdqdl (Oct 27, 2009)

I have that splice book. It includes NOTHING on the locking Brummel. I learned about that here at AS.

With your splice, you weave the tail back and forth through the rope, and it can come back out the same way. The locking Brummel sticks the tail through the rope, but then sticks the rope through the tail, then the tail is buried inside the rope. Loose in your hands, you cannot pull out the tail unless you break the rope.

While this makes a big difference in the security of the splice pulling out when not loaded, it doesn't make it any stronger. Lock stitching does the same thing. As many threads here have shown, particularly Moray's testing, the conventional splice just doesn't come apart under a load, it breaks where the taper joins the rest of the rope.


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## SINGLE-JACK (Oct 28, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> No, not at all the same.
> 
> That is a locking Brummel, with a conventional bury. Notice how the outside of the 1st crossover is the inside of the 2nd. That is what makes them "lock" into place.



I got it now - thanks!
This is a Locking Brummel:









And TMD is doing a Tucked Eye per ABOK 2772, with multiple tucks and buried end:








*IS THAT RIGHT?*

BTW, the Locking Brummel is the same knot saddlers use on their leather concho straps, without the buried end, of course.
Sometimes called a Saddlers Knot - *just some trivia*.


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## pdqdl (Oct 28, 2009)

Well! What a hoot.

Nice trivia, I don't know how you came up with that. I never looked in my ABOK for that splice either. More homework...

Gotta go bid snow removal for two Walmarts...


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