Way back when I had bought a bunch of rope stuff and carabiners and stuff, I had the intention of making my own kayaksailing ropework, contact/short tow lines what nots. I bought some splicing manuals, assortment of fids, a marlinspike/pocket knife, whipping twine, sailmakers needles, single braid dyneema line of differing diameters, doublebraided polyester lines and on and on..
This all happened 3..4..5 years ago.. and nothing happened, nothing at all! None of the above mentioned ropeworks ever materialized.
Then some time ago while I was looking for some lost item (I forget which?) I tripped over a vaguely familiar box. I opened the box and it took awhile for the cobwebs to clear as I realized that here I was looking at yet another well intentioned but lackadaisically motivated makings of project!
Well.. it was either going back to trying to find that other lost wahtever item or washing the stack-pile of dirty dishes… or maybe, just maybe re-start this rope project!??..?
Rope project it is! đ
First I decided to give it a go at making a contact tow line. Those suckers cost between 32-40 euros a pop! And I had all the required stuff: 8mm line, carabiners, shackels. So it would be easy-peasy, eh?
Well.. not quite. There IS a multitude of pretty good online videos for free. But at first I did not have the patience to make much of diffrentiation between the terms ” single braided line or double braided line.. and if you were trying to use the instructions for a dyneema line on a polyester line.. then it might not work quite as well! No, you dont believe me? I got a bunch of popped blisters on my hands to prove it! đ
After about a week of banging my head on the walls and thoring bits of ropes and tools over the house.. I slowly started figuring out these nuances, and then after about the 15th attempt of making a proper eyesplice, it actally WORKED!! Hallelujah! I’d only used up about 4 meter of line on this!
closed loops of single braided dyneema 4mm, with assortment of fittings. mini blocks, a low friction ring
Turns out that while some of the single braided splicing stuff is mind boggling, But WHEN you strictly follow the instructional videos, working with dyneema IS somewhat easier!
The Internet is full of Instructionals of varying degrees of clarity, brevity. Some videos while show how to manufacture a said splice the maker also yammers on about the complete history of said splice. While most of the time this all is useful information, but when you want to learn how to make a particular splice you’re really just interested in how to make the darn splice! Below are a couple links to useful videos that helped me get started in this…
- How to make a eye in a double braided polyester rope – Premium ropes
- How to splice a dyneema loop – Premium ropes
Now… I have to try to figure out something else to do, other than start washing that stack of dirty dishes… đ
