Braid on braid eye splice. Feckin thing!

[Oscarpop]

I bought a Marlowe splicing kit a couple of years back, and periodically I buy a line and try and do an eye splice using videos and PDFs from he interweb.

Can't blo&dy do them.

I understand the principal , and sometime I can get the core through and tucked in without too much blood ( alhough it's a massive effort ). The outer braid. Well forget it. Jaysus, you probably could have heard the cursing from 100m away.

What's the trick? Riggers seem to do this in under 5 minutes. I must have spent 5 hours over the years trying this, and nothing.

 

[rob2]

Got the kit and the tee-shirt. Someone told me it was only simple to do on a brand new rope. I tried it and still couldn't pull the beggar through! I'm fitter now, but considerably lighter so I don't hold out any hope for success... I just sew in an eye and then whip it.

Rob.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

What's the trick? Riggers seem to do this in under 5 minutes. I must have spent 5 hours over the years trying this, and nothing.

I find a rolling pin for tw@tting the darned thing useful. It doesn't help with the splice, but makes you feel better.

 

[lpdsn]

There's whole series of useful videos on YouTube - try watching a few different ones with variants on the technique.

I found usinga marker pen to mark where the core first came out of the braid very useful, as it helps you to choose where to put the outer braid of the loop into the core, so that you have a small margin when milking it through.

 

[Yngmar]

I've had no great difficulties doing it with a set of Selma fids (which are really quite clever and maybe even worth the outrageous price) and their video instructions. In fact, after hearing everyone moan about the splicing so much, I was surprised what the fuss was about.

From what I can tell, it's much much easier with brand new rope, and a complete b*!%h with old, stretched & weathered rope, as the new rope has some lubricant left over from the manufacturing process which makes splicing work smoothly like in those videos.

 

[jac]

+1 with Selma fids. For pulling the outer core through, use the smallest fid you can get away, I fold the core in half lengthwise to tuck it into smaller fid. also get as much slack into the core above the splice as you can. still hard but trying to push the larger fid through - forget it.

 

[ex-Gladys]

Because of the need to keep plenty of slack, don't try in a short piece of line, and use small diameter to start with as it's easier to manhandle. I used 6mm and Selma fids . It was also relatively unimportant since it was fender lines...

 

[ghostlymoron]

I've done some splices on old rope and it is difficult especially the final milking. I wonder if some Holt's dry lube would help. Should be fairly straightforward on new rope.

 

[oldbilbo]

Yup. I feel your pain.

Try some Fairy Liquid and different, looser-weave rope.

 

[davidwf]

I use selma fids but have found it much easier with English Braid rope, the outer sheath seems a lot looser when new than other ropes I have tried.

 

[temptress]

The key imo is to use new rope. I bought a 10 or so meters of 12mm Marlow braid and spet several full days over a couple of weeks to teach myself. EVENTUALLY the penny dropped. Keep at it.

 

[jac]

The key imo is to use new rope. I bought a 10 or so meters of 12mm Marlow braid and spet several full days over a couple of weeks to teach myself. EVENTUALLY the penny dropped. Keep at it.

The other thing is to feel free to use the smallest fids to pin the various bits into place / out of the way. Niothing worse than getting the outer core into the inner core and trimmed nicely before then trying to get the inner core back into the line only to find that the outer core is again outside.