spliced up some poison ivy and 8mm beeline

[imagineero]

Was actually Poison Hi Vy (the green on green hi vis version of Poison Ivy) which is itself just a rebadged sherrill tree version of blue moon. Nice rope by the way. I was expecting it to be a lot harder after some tricky experiences brading some very tight double braid class 1 sailing ropes in past but it came together pretty nice without too much fuss. The first eye splice in the poison ivy took about 25 minutes, this is the first time I've spliced this rope. The Yale whiplock took another 10. The second eyesplice took only about 10 minutes because I had all the measurements marked out on my bench already and new what I was doing. I havent whiplocked the second eye yet.

I decided to do an eye splice on some 8mm beeline using the same double braid class 1 style splice since it's not a short i2i. Looking at the test results of the naked core style splices with the brumel, these fail at only about 30% of the rope strength which is pretty frightening. I like the full strength sheath and core splice. The beeline went pretty easy too, but a bit trickier to keep a nice tight sheath on the eye because the sheath on the beeline is generally not as tight.

A good splice like any knot needs to be dressed and set. When doing the splice, at each bury I always make sure the core/sheath is nicely smoothed out with no high points of picked strands. Buries are always carefully milked to set them well. After the splice I do a gradual load to further improve the bury. The tail does pull in just that little bit more under load, and after that I whiplock. My load regime consists of;

hand milk and put a load on the rope by hand
hang body weight on the rope, and bounce
hookup a 2:1 and hang body weight on rope then bounce
hookup a 4:1 and hang body weight on rope then bounce
hookup a 2:1 and then the 4:1 off that giving 8:1 and hang body weight on rope then bounce
With rope locked off in above configuration, pull/sit on rope.

I figure I'm probably loading at close to or just over 1000lbs at the last stage. After that I do the whiplock and say a little prayer.

Sorry for the crap photos, they were taken at night with a flash.

Shaun

 

[pdqdl]

Bump.

Say! That Beeline splice does not look right. Are you using that as an eye-to-eye prussic?

I might be wrong, but I don't think you can make a locking brummel in a core-dependent eye splice and keep the cover attached to the loop. Climbing on an eye-to-eye without a locking brummel in 8mm Beeline is not safe.

Beeline is a core-dependent double braid, and the length of the core bury is too great to allow you to make a short eye-to-eye. The alternative is to install locking brummels on both ends, which allows you to use the shorter bury necessary for a reasonably short eye-to-eye.

Of course my mind is open to being wrong, too.

 

[Ghillie]

Bump.

Say! That Beeline splice does not look right. Are you using that as an eye-to-eye prussic?

I might be wrong, but I don't think you can make a locking brummel in a core-dependent eye splice and keep the cover attached to the loop. Climbing on an eye-to-eye without a locking brummel in 8mm Beeline is not safe.

Beeline is a core-dependent double braid, and the length of the core bury is too great to allow you to make a short eye-to-eye. The alternative is to install locking brummels on both ends, which allows you to use the shorter bury necessary for a reasonably short eye-to-eye.

Of course my mind is open to being wrong, too.

I agree with PDQDL. Without looking it up, my understanding of beeline is the cover is just abrasion resistance, no strength. The cougar saddles had some recalls on their beeline attachment points because the core was failing for some reason that I cannot remember.

Edit: and that may be the problem with milking you were asking about.

 

[imagineero]

I agree with PDQDL. Without looking it up, my understanding of beeline is the cover is just abrasion resistance, no strength. The cougar saddles had some recalls on their beeline attachment points because the core was failing for some reason that I cannot remember.

Edit: and that may be the problem with milking you were asking about.

I've never liked the locking brummel as a splice. Destructive testing has shown it is a very weak splice, breaking at as little as 30-50% of rope strength. This is with new rope. Over time as rope degrades it wouldn't be hard to see as little as 20% strength.

8 and 10mm beeline are different. You are supposed to do the 8mm as a locking brummel but I spliced this eye as per double braid and then did some testing on it. I've loaded it to 800kg so far and intend to test it to destruction when I get the time and can work out some way of getting a measurable result. I'm not using it for anything, and only one end is spliced. I don't climb on e2e so it was more out of curiosity than anything. My feeling is that the full spliced eye is going to be a lot stronger and last longer than a locking brummel. You are right about the difficulty of getting a long enough bury on a short e2e.

From memory, 10mm beeline is spliced as per double braid.

Shaun