Documenting my hand-sewn eye process

[TimBr]

@Jimmycrackcorn; Again, beautiful work, beautiful photos. Forgive me, but I'm losing track in this thread. Have you ever had any of your sewn splices break tested? I have the strong feeling that the sewn splice that you've just shown us above would pass a break test with flying colors.

I would be willing to climb on that without a break test, as long as I had a second tie-in. In that way you could get some real world use out of it to observe how it acts, while still having a backup in the unlikely event of an issue. I'm forgetting now what @moss did in his early days of hand stitching. I think he might have just gone with his gut, and used his sewn eyes for life support once he liked the look of his end results. What say you, moss? How do you think Jimmy should proceed from here, with such a good-looking sewn spliced eye as he's made above?

Again, beautiful work!

Tim

 

[moss]

@Jimmycrackcorn; Again, beautiful work, beautiful photos. Forgive me, but I'm losing track in this thread. Have you ever had any of your sewn splices break tested? I have the strong feeling that the sewn splice that you've just shown us above would pass a break test with flying colors.

I would be willing to climb on that without a break test, as long as I had a second tie-in. In that way you could get some real world use out of it to observe how it acts, while still having a backup in the unlikely event of an issue. I'm forgetting now what @moss did in his early days of hand stitching. I think he might have just gone with his gut, and used his sewn eyes for life support once he liked the look of his end results. What say you, moss? How do you think Jimmy should proceed from here, with such a good-looking sewn spliced eye as he's made above?

Again, beautiful work!

Tim

Basically what you said Tim, went with my gut and climbed low and slow while backed up to observe how the eyes performed. I had them break tested early on, they were up in the 4500 lb breaking range, a single eye on 10mm Ocean Polyester. One of my early hitch cords in basket mode broke a steel carabiner. I was advised to precompress the join before sewing, which I did as previously documented, I upped the thread strength from 40 lb. to 70 lb. and improved my sewing technique. Last round of testing was unable to break an eye, various cordage broke first well away from the eyes, the eyes/stitching showed no signs of degradation after the tests (granted the eyes and rope were retired), 10mm or maybe 8mm Globe 3000 (retired bridge with hand-sewn eyes) broke at 10,000 lbs in basket config at the center of the bridge, eyes did not budge. That was with the 40 lb strength polyester thread, too difficult to use heaverier thread with Globe 3000. As I recall I finished sewing that bridge at the base of a tree at a climber gathering in New Jersey, didn't have my reading glasses with me so it was interesting, could barely see what I was doing but not surprising a lot of this is muscle memory once you get your technique down ;-)
-AJ

 

[moss]

@Jimmycrackcorn; Again, beautiful work, beautiful photos. Forgive me, but I'm losing track in this thread. Have you ever had any of your sewn splices break tested? I have the strong feeling that the sewn splice that you've just shown us above would pass a break test with flying colors.

I would be willing to climb on that without a break test, as long as I had a second tie-in. In that way you could get some real world use out of it to observe how it acts, while still having a backup in the unlikely event of an issue. I'm forgetting now what @moss did in his early days of hand stitching. I think he might have just gone with his gut, and used his sewn eyes for life support once he liked the look of his end results. What say you, moss? How do you think Jimmy should proceed from here, with such a good-looking sewn spliced eye as he's made above?

Again, beautiful work!

Tim

I would climb on the recent sewing by JimmyCrackCorn. I would also break test a couple going forward to confirm quality. Stitching is like a well formed knot or hitch, if you know the materials you used, followed proven technique, and it "looks right" based on comparing to your earlier stitching that did not look right ;-) it is likely right. Same with inspecting a spliced eye, assuming you formed and made the splice following accepted steps and technique, when you inspect it you can tell a lot about the quality of the splice examining the finished eye, throat, bury and taper smoothness, etc. etc.
-AJ

 

[moss]

Here is the latest Ocean job.. just one eye so far.. on this one I'm trying to take advantage of sewn over Spliced & trying to see how short i can make the e2e.. i think i measured 24 or 26..

So, again.. i haven't quite mastered the art of splitting the strands & keeping things aligned.. i have no clue how the top got that much skinnier than the bottom.. after seeing it i even removed about 5 & restitched them.. and even then it still came out skinnier... hmm... odd.. In typical jimmy fashion, I probably paid close attention for the first two then forgot the purpose behind what i was doing..lol.

Also.. embarrassed to say.. I ran out of thread AGAIN!! I honestly have no clue how that happened as i used a good 7ft of thread & ran out on the SpeedyStitcher side with about a foot left on the lock side.. but i was able to recover alot cleaner this time..

One last note.. with this Ocean i must leave a bit more tail to account for the core sucking in.. as you can see, i have very little core tail inside the cover there..

Yeah, best to leave a few inches extra, trim after the sewing is done. I trim with a hot knife, just bend the cordage to get it out of way to make the cut, then shrink tube it. For my sewn Globe 3000 bridge I sewed it directly to my old-school Petzl Sequoia bridge rings so no shrink tubing happened. Later when the Petzl Open rings came out I cut the old bridge ring/anchors off and added shrink tubing over the stitching. At the very least the shrink tubing is a very good UV blocker to protect the thread from becoming brittle over the service life of the eye.
-AJ

 

[moss]

This is the Globe 3000 bridge after I switched it to the Petzl Open rings, the center eye is on my long-retired 150' Tachyon and the OP 10mm has the two eyes. From 2015, I believe Duane Hook in Ohio still has that hitch cord in use, gave it to him at a rec climb.

-AJ

 

[Jimmycrackcorn]

@Jimmycrackcorn; Again, beautiful work, beautiful photos. Forgive me, but I'm losing track in this thread. Have you ever had any of your sewn splices break tested? I have the strong feeling that the sewn splice that you've just shown us above would pass a break test with flying colors.

I would be willing to climb on that without a break test, as long as I had a second tie-in. In that way you could get some real world use out of it to observe how it acts, while still having a backup in the unlikely event of an issue. I'm forgetting now what @moss did in his early days of hand stitching. I think he might have just gone with his gut, and used his sewn eyes for life support once he liked the look of his end results. What say you, moss? How do you think Jimmy should proceed from here, with such a good-looking sewn spliced eye as he's made above?

Again, beautiful work!

Tim

Yeah, best to leave a few inches extra, trim after the sewing is done. I trim with a hot knife, just bend the cordage to get it out of way to make the cut, then shrink tube it. For my sewn Globe 3000 bridge I sewed it directly to my old-school Petzl Sequoia bridge rings so no shrink tubing happened. Later when the Petzl Open rings came out I cut the old bridge ring/anchors off and added shrink tubing over the stitching. At the very least the shrink tubing is a very good UV blocker to protect the thread from becoming brittle over the service life of the eye.
-AJ

Oh wow.. allot of posts here.. thanks for the vote of confidence.. to be honest, with a bit of insider help from you guys, I'm pretty much winging it.

My concern at this point is the compression.. more so when & where.. I've read of the two schools of thought, as well as seen the results from both. That first one i did had none.. This ocean poly one had a little but more so for reasons of keeping everything set in place. Then there's the compression between the stitches.. when it comes to that, i don't feel I'm pulling all that hard as I'm not using finger guards or tape wraps.. but those points on my fingers are the exact points I've been destroying for months splicing, so their rather callused. Idk.. i feel wrenching down makes the whole process harder to get thread packed in there.. however, they aren't loose by any means..

Just out of curiosity Moss, which of the eyes didn't look right to you.. was it the very first one i did with the Epi? I've lost track of how many ive done. If i was to tell you that shady looking one only had two passes, would you still have the same opinion?
I think i posted the second pass, got fed up with how hard it was to push through, decided to grind the needle smaller, got half way with the last pass & realized whatever i had just done to the needle had caused it to start cutting fibers after seeing the cover strands fraying up.. so i trashed the eye. I'm looking now for it..

Yeah here it is... half way completed..

 

[TimBr]

This is the Globe 3000 bridge after I switched it to the Petzl Open rings, the center eye is on my long-retired 150' Tachyon and the OP 10mm has the two eyes. From 2015, I believe Duane Hook in Ohio still has that hitch cord in use, gave it to him at a rec climb.

-AJ

Hey, moss! Beautiful work on your part, too, in this photo! A mild derail question is how well do you like those Petzl Open rings, and how much do you trust the way they are set up to function? Thanks.

Tim

 

[Jimmycrackcorn]

Question.. what ya'll think this is, machine or hand?

As far as those rings go.. i don't see why they wouldn't be as good as anything else..
It's gotta take allot of force to shear those screws off.. In fact, i wish most rings were made like this.


Also.. important question here.. Anyone know what's up with Rope logic/Grizzly Splices? It doesn't look like there is much thread at all inside those.. one of them i have almost looks as if a pass was done & then a weave inbetween the thread strands, like following the valley of the two peices of cordage.. like following the ropes orientation.. But weaved in & out between the "bridges" of the first pass.. Then covered by the second or third regular pass.. Also, on 8 & 10mm the length of stitch is also about an inch shorter than what I've been doing.. no wonder its been taking me so long.. if i went tit for tat with theirs on thread, i should have double the amount of eyes done..

 

[theatertech87]

Hey, moss! Beautiful work on your part, too, in this photo! A mild derail question is how well do you like those Petzl Open rings, and how much do you trust the way they are set up to function? Thanks.

Tim

I like the petzl open rings... But I think the olik by courant is a better design, both from a usability stand point as well as from a strength standpoint.

Hard to tell from the product picture, but the petzl relys on the bolt as part of the structure of the Ring (i.e. without it you can bend the ring apart) whereas the olik relys on the machined "dovetails" on each half of the Ring for strength and the bolts are only there to keep the halves aligned with each other. I have pictures at home that makes it clearer to see. Only thing petzl has going for it is it's a slightly smaller diameter.

 

[Brocky]

One of their Tangas over the connector doesn’t allow it to get loaded.

 

[moss]

Question.. what ya'll think this is, machine or hand?

As far as those rings go.. i don't see why they wouldn't be as good as anything else..
It's gotta take allot of force to shear those screws off.. In fact, i wish most rings were made like this.


Also.. important question here.. Anyone know what's up with Rope logic/Grizzly Splices? It doesn't look like there is much thread at all inside those.. one of them i have almost looks as if a pass was done & then a weave inbetween the thread strands, like following the valley of the two peices of cordage.. like following the ropes orientation.. But weaved in & out between the "bridges" of the first pass.. Then covered by the second or third regular pass.. Also, on 8 & 10mm the length of stitch is also about an inch shorter than what I've been doing.. no wonder its been taking me so long.. if i went tit for tat with theirs on thread, i should have double the amount of eyes done..

That's a weird one, looks machine-made then it goes all tilty-like at the bottom ;-) Did you notice how weak the 10mm Reep Schnur broke on one of my test sewn eyes YoYoMan did? I believe around 2900 lbs, cordage was close to being new, very low use and treated well before the break test.

I haven't examined Rope Logic sewing but I've been wondering for awhile why it seems no one who machine sews eyes professionally ever posts or shows info on break test results. Machines are getting a free ride ;-)
-AJ

 

[moss]

Oh wow.. allot of posts here.. thanks for the vote of confidence.. to be honest, with a bit of insider help from you guys, I'm pretty much winging it.

My concern at this point is the compression.. more so when & where.. I've read of the two schools of thought, as well as seen the results from both. That first one i did had none.. This ocean poly one had a little but more so for reasons of keeping everything set in place. Then there's the compression between the stitches.. when it comes to that, i don't feel I'm pulling all that hard as I'm not using finger guards or tape wraps.. but those points on my fingers are the exact points I've been destroying for months splicing, so their rather callused. Idk.. i feel wrenching down makes the whole process harder to get thread packed in there.. however, they aren't loose by any means..

Just out of curiosity Moss, which of the eyes didn't look right to you.. was it the very first one i did with the Epi? I've lost track of how many ive done. If i was to tell you that shady looking one only had two passes, would you still have the same opinion?
I think i posted the second pass, got fed up with how hard it was to push through, decided to grind the needle smaller, got half way with the last pass & realized whatever i had just done to the needle had caused it to start cutting fibers after seeing the cover strands fraying up.. so i trashed the eye. I'm looking now for it..

Yeah here it is... half way completed..

Haha, I knew you'd only done two passes ;-)

About pre-join compression or not... I know one thing absolutely: I don't want to see my stitching or two sides of the cordage join move during the service life or in break testing. I see movement as leading to "cycles to failure". The only way to test is to do cycles to failure testing which sounds like it could get expensive to do. Requires a custom automated rig and some tuning to get it running and recording properly.

That's why I sewed a Globe 3000 bridge for my Petzl Sequoia, I handled one of their sewn cordage bridges at a gear retailer and it looked terrible, loose, short run of stitching, no protection on the stitched area, etc. No way, no way.

I will say this about pre-join compression, it allows me to align the cordage weave perfectly through the joins and the eye (relaxed, no twist whatsoever) and keeps it that way while I stitch. I did some recent eyes without precompression and both eyes have a touch of twist captured in the eye, not much but enough to make me think the eyes are not quite good enough.
-AJ

 

[moss]

I like the petzl open rings... But I think the olik by courant is a better design, both from a usability stand point as well as from a strength standpoint.

Hard to tell from the product picture, but the petzl relys on the bolt as part of the structure of the Ring (i.e. without it you can bend the ring apart) whereas the olik relys on the machined "dovetails" on each half of the Ring for strength and the bolts are only there to keep the halves aligned with each other. I have pictures at home that makes it clearer to see. Only thing petzl has going for it is it's a slightly smaller diameter.

I like the open ring keeper/protector that Brocky posted, gives me other ideas. I don't like it when it rotates and the bridge is pulling exactly on the "join insert". Otherwise in a straight pull for the intended use (harness bridge) it appears to be quite strong. I recently cut the modified F8 off a test lanyard I'd made so I could free up the sewn eye for carabiner use. I was very impressed at how much force was required to bend the ring enough to get the eye out. It required "off axis" loading to achieve, no way I was going to bend it on axis without getting major mechanical advantage involved. The Courant ring looks excellent.
-AJ

 

[theatertech87]

The courant ring locking pieces for those that are curious

 

[Jimmycrackcorn]

That's a weird one, looks machine-made then it goes all tilty-like at the bottom ;-) Did you notice how weak the 10mm Reep Schnur broke on one of my test sewn eyes YoYoMan did? I believe around 2900 lbs, cordage was close to being new, very low use and treated well before the break test.

I haven't examined Rope Logic sewing but I've been wondering for awhile why it seems no one who machine sews eyes professionally ever posts or shows info on break test results. Machines are getting a free ride ;-)
-AJ

The courant ring locking pieces for those that are curious

It does goes all tilty like! Son of a bitch! Drunk ass machine! I'm sending that back!!!

Yes i did take note at that Reep break test.. it was odd to see it break that low, especially considering the drum was used.. Honestly though.. i get lost within all that.. very rarely do i ever see anything breaking at suggested strengths.. Except of course that one the Brockster did..[emoji123][emoji123][emoji123] somehow it's the smallest Cordage, with a unconventional stitch pattern, yet the second highest number I've seen on Richards bench..

Idk how Teufelberger is coming up with their 5,000lb number.. What's kinda ironic, is, if you look at their products made out of Reep, the numbers don't increase very significantly.. it makes me think they got something mixed up in their data & posted a basket configuration for the cordage's actual "free length" mbs.. Idk.. maybe I'm wrong.. it's just suprisingly weak in that test.

You know what i want to do is, i bought some of that Chi com 8mm "GM climbing line".. I spliced some eyes up just goofing off, to see what it was all about.. i want to send it down to Richard for breaking.. most likley it will break very low as the cover on it just doesn't feel very quality.. should be interesting to see.

@Theatretech-
Pretty cool bud. I been eye balling those for a while.. I do like the design & the fact that they are smaller than the Petzl ring. Big rings are always good, especially if you have sewn eyes you need to retrieve through them, but sometimes you just don't want a 40+ mm ring for the purpose at hand & the olink bridges that gap.

Where did you find them? Stateside? How much? Do i even want to know considering just the simple DMM rings get marked up 195% over just normal retail in the UK, nevermind actual cost.

I think Stein has something similar too..

 

[Richard Mumford-yoyoman]

This is kind of a question and a comment. I wonder if the rope manufacturers will ever, I mean ever, come out with any recommendations or suggestions or comments or criticisms about sewing rope terminations.
Has anyone ever called and asked or had feedback from the manufacturers?

 

[moss]

This is kind of a question and a comment. I wonder if the rope manufacturers will ever, I mean ever, come out with any recommendations or suggestions or comments or criticisms about sewing rope terminations.
Has anyone ever called and asked or had feedback from the manufacturers?

I haven't. I just feel like going forward like others have and try and do quality work that tests well when it makes sense for my climbing and gear. Since there is no threat that hand sewn life support work will ever become a commercial activity, there's no incentive to invest time and money from the manufacturer side. And from a legal/liability point of view the lawyers would likely never let a rope manufacturer give the slighted idea that hand sewing is legit. I'm probably cutting off my options for manufacturer feedback by thinking that way, I have to choose my battles, life dishes out plenty and I have to focus where I need to.

This does remind me of when I met with Nick Bonner on the phone to try and have a reasonable discussion about hand sewn work after he accused me of contributing to potential deaths by publishing my sewing technique online. He proposed a head-to-head test of my work against a CE rope with a machine sewn eye. As proposed the results would be published only if my eyes lost. I lost interest. This is not a slight against Bonner as much as he is a favorite punching bag. His thinking represents the default attitude out there in the rope manufacturing and retail industry.
-AJ

 

[TimBr]

This does remind me of when I met with Nick Bonner on the phone to try and have a reasonable discussion about hand sewn work after he accused me of contributing to potential deaths by publishing my sewing technique online. He proposed a head-to-head test of my work against a CE rope with a machine sewn eye. As proposed the results would be published only if my eyes lost. I lost interest.

I can see why you lost interest. That is just not a fair proposition. He wants you to risk it all and be willing to be publicly embarrassed if you lose the competition, but he was unwilling to risk the same. It was for him, a no-lose proposition. A fairly gutless offering, in my opinion. He was depending on you to be a stupid individual, and you were not. Good on ya.

Tim

 

[RopeShield]

Sounds very familiar.

 

[Richard Mumford-yoyoman]

I haven't. I just feel like going forward like others have and try and do quality work that tests well when it makes sense for my climbing and gear. Since there is no threat that hand sewn life support work will ever become a commercial activity, there's no incentive to invest time and money from the manufacturer side. And from a legal/liability point of view the lawyers would likely never let a rope manufacturer give the slighted idea that hand sewing is legit. I'm probably cutting off my options for manufacturer feedback by thinking that way, I have to choose my battles, life dishes out plenty and I have to focus where I need to.

This does remind me of when I met with Nick Bonner on the phone to try and have a reasonable discussion about hand sewn work after he accused me of contributing to potential deaths by publishing my sewing technique online. He proposed a head-to-head test of my work against a CE rope with a machine sewn eye. As proposed the results would be published only if my eyes lost. I lost interest. This is not a slight against Bonner as much as he is a favorite punching bag. His thinking represents the default attitude out there in the rope manufacturing and retail industry.
-AJ

For so many reasons, it's not easy nowadays to keep an open mind is it.