For a long time I have wanted to test the locked Brummel. Up till now I had considered it to be a useless gimmick, much like the cute little whippings applied to factory-spliced eyes on climbing ropes and split tails.
What use is it? Does it do something that the standard hollow-braid splice doesn't do? Maybe. If it allows one to make an eye-to-eye split tail that is much shorter than standard, then the answer is yes.
I just happened to have 100 feet of cheap hardware-store hollow braid, 1/4 inch polypro, that I had used the last couple of years for various tasks. I really hate the stuff; this would be the perfect rope for some destructive tests of the locked Brummel.
I really wanted to know two things:
1. in a pull test, where will the rope break?
2. what part does the buried tail play, if any, in the security of the Brummel?
I took about 5 feet of rope and spliced a normal eye at one end and a locked Brummel eye at the other. Since a Brummel with a normal-length bury has no advantage over an ordinary splice, I purposely made the first Brummel with a very short bury, the only configuration in which it might have an advantage.
The photo shows the eye used in the first test.
The red line marks the approximate end of the Brummel section; the bury extends from the red line to the black line.
I had hardly begun to pull in the first test when the Brummel eye came completely apart. It happened too fast for me to see, but it was clear that nothing broke. The last inch of rope was unravelled, so I surmised that first the tail had pulled out of the rope, then the last inch had unravelled, destroying the "lock", and finally, with nothing holding it, what was left came apart.
I love an experiment that surprises me; this one did. Even though the Brummel is "locked", there is still significant force trying to pull the buried tail out of the rope. The obvious next step was to repeat the experiment, this time with the buried tail stitched in place.
What use is it? Does it do something that the standard hollow-braid splice doesn't do? Maybe. If it allows one to make an eye-to-eye split tail that is much shorter than standard, then the answer is yes.
I just happened to have 100 feet of cheap hardware-store hollow braid, 1/4 inch polypro, that I had used the last couple of years for various tasks. I really hate the stuff; this would be the perfect rope for some destructive tests of the locked Brummel.
I really wanted to know two things:
1. in a pull test, where will the rope break?
2. what part does the buried tail play, if any, in the security of the Brummel?
I took about 5 feet of rope and spliced a normal eye at one end and a locked Brummel eye at the other. Since a Brummel with a normal-length bury has no advantage over an ordinary splice, I purposely made the first Brummel with a very short bury, the only configuration in which it might have an advantage.
The photo shows the eye used in the first test.
The red line marks the approximate end of the Brummel section; the bury extends from the red line to the black line.
I had hardly begun to pull in the first test when the Brummel eye came completely apart. It happened too fast for me to see, but it was clear that nothing broke. The last inch of rope was unravelled, so I surmised that first the tail had pulled out of the rope, then the last inch had unravelled, destroying the "lock", and finally, with nothing holding it, what was left came apart.
I love an experiment that surprises me; this one did. Even though the Brummel is "locked", there is still significant force trying to pull the buried tail out of the rope. The obvious next step was to repeat the experiment, this time with the buried tail stitched in place.