crossover bury help with poison ivy

[texasmossball]

This is sort of a revival of a post by Marden back in January. I just tried my first "real" splice (not counting brummels in hollow braid). From what I saw on that thread, maybe poison ivy calamine wasn't the wisest choice, but I had one I bought from Tree Stuff that was nicely spliced on one end. I had heard that that line milks and so splicing on both ends is not recommended. Then I heard, no, it's tight enough that it won't.

So I decided to use just one end of this 150 footer for a few months, then milk it and try splicing the other end. Over 50 feet of this rope never left my bag. It was pristine and limp, and I milked about two inches off of it and began my journey.

I used the Samson splicing instructions and borrowed a fid that is marked 7/16 - 10mm (strangely, the fid package calls it a 7/16 - 11mm fid). Just like Marden, I could not for the world get that fid through the throat (this could be why Nick Bonner at TreeStuff says he doesn't use tube fids for this splice), and ended up devising a wire fid from an EHS cable strand. Even with that, pulling the core tail through was a BEAR.

I followed the instructions with absolute precision. Or so I thought. When I got to the bury, I milked and yanked and squeezed and bent and hammered, but that last tiny bulge of the cross over just would not go in. Picture attached. The throat of the splice is rock hard and as you can see, very stretched out and fat.


I did not try any lubing, as Nick A. suggests in some threads, and I honestly didn't hammer too aggressively, as it just doesn't seem like something I want to do to a life support line, but I tried yanking/ snapping the line with the fid in the eye, and milking the eye, and every other trick I could find. Spent over 30 minutes, easy.


My questions: First, why did this happen? My tapering was exactly as the instructions called for. Is lubing and/or hammering standard for splicing this rope? And any ideas on how to bury the rest of this crossover? My whipstitching is not very thorough as I will remove if I get a solution to finishing this bury and I intentionally kept a bit of milked cover just above the whipstitch for this same reason.

And finally, what is the structural integrity impact of not finishing this bury?

If I learned anything from this, it is that you splicing experts have a far greater understanding of spatial relations than I'll ever have!

 

[texasmossball]

picture did not attach. trying again

 

[grappleyarder]

An early mistake I had is (as per Sampson's definitions) putting the crossover at "R" rather than at "Mark T". This places the crossover 8-pics/strands further back and with a tighter rope its just not going to happen.

In the picture your eye is already pretty small. So to have the crossover properly in the cover would make the eye impossibly small. Again an indication that you may have made the crossover at "R".

 

[oldoakman]

Looks like things got bunched up where you have the whip stitch. Not sure what happened there. I have found that when you run the final bury you have to hold the crossover tight and smooth out the eye as it buries and keep tension on as you milk it home. If you set it up right it is fairly easy, if you don't it drives you crazy. Don't give up.

 

[jmcscrap]

Oldoak made a great point - I use to struggle,battle, hammer and try everything else to get that bulge out. I started keeping quite a bit of tension on the eye right from the start of the splice as I sucked it in - that did the trick for me at least!

 

[tuttle]

There are ways to achieve the sweet splice, but the instructions are just out there.

I'm sure you have seen my thread, with all the up's and downs.

I can offer some thoughts to help, you need to make sure the the rope is not bunching when finishing the eye, its best to pull it back out, think if there is enough taper going on and redo the rope so the bunching and slack is taken up.

A good thing to remember that the tightened cover can be pulled more.

A good mallet to own is a Thorex nylon hammer, gentle on the rope and helps send it home, Also consider setting up a 5:1 or greater pulley rig, and pull the eye in with that.

Its also easier to whip nearer the throat, by giving it some right hard hits with the mallet.

 

[texasmossball]

Thanks everyone. It seems this is a common problem with splicing this type of line. The thread titled "I thought it couldn't be done" is also along these lines. Someone responding there recommended pulling on the eye while milking, and I think Tuttle recommended that too. Someone else said try a 5 to 1. Well, I took out the whip stitching and put my 230 pound clean up contractor on milking it while I pulled on the eye. Problem solved. See attached.

 

[evo]

Wow looks good. I have at times set up a two to one which really helps keep things snug and frees up both hands.. Also sewing the cross over a with a few loose stitches really helps.

 

[Tommy_B]

I agree, I've done a couple of Poison Ivy splices and they were relativley easy once I'd stitched the crossover. I was using a wire fid