My hands hurt...

[Blinky]

A friend and semi-retired arborist lost all his gear in a fire but... he has replacement value insurance. I got to go shopping with him and we bought all new stuff. My man John Hartenburg at Knot and Rope Supply supplied all the soft goods and I spliced up a friction saver, a custom lanyard/adjuster, a lifeline, an 8mm split-tail, a long eye sling, a loopie and two throwlines. It was satifying but my hands are SORE.

The tricky bit was the 8mm Ocean Dyneema, the jacket is pretty stiff so getting into and out of it was a bitch, oddly enough so was the whipping because the twine doesn't bite into it well. It rides like a dream though. PI was much easier to splice than I thought it would be, that's the best double braid eye I've ever done.

Thanks to John for the advice on splicing the Ocean (class 1 rather than class 2 double braid) and for getting all that rope here fast.

 

[inztrees]

nice work

 

[UrbanTC]

Nice!!! You really have the splicing bug. What would it take to get one of them 8mm Ocean Dyneema split tails?

 

[Jamin_Mayer]

That's a good skill I wished I had. I'm lazy. I never set aside time to learn.

 

[GibsonTreeCare]

Nice Stuff Chip, looks good

 

[maarten]

Really nice work!

I bet that you got a few blisters along the way!

My hands are full of them, what a satisfaction a nice bury gives!

I was wondering how you chose the place for the wipping?

Sometimes close to the eye others a good way down.

Cheers,
maarten

 

[Blinky]

The whipping close to the eye on the lanyard is window dressing, just for looks. It was a gift.

I generally whiplock down the throat a ways to keep the bury from bunching up... and on the double braids the jacket gets too packed to get a needle through it.

 

[Blinky]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice!!! You really have the splicing bug. What would it take to get one of them 8mm Ocean Dyneema split tails?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well Jeremy...If you want one SOON, I recommend talking to Nick or John at Knot and Rope. I won't be getting into the splicing business anytime in the foreseeable future. If you come to Geezers next year I'll make you one.
The guy I did all that stuff for is close a friend... who knows lots of good looking women my age. Plus he bought me a splicing wand for helping him get his new gear and helping him learn to use it. Before he was on Arborplex and a tautline.

 

[chris_girard]

Very nice work!

That was a nice thing to do helping out a friend like that too.

 

[jerseygirl]

That is a great thing to do

 

[JesseHuffman]

You are a scholar and a gentleman
Way to go Chip!

 

[JesseHuffman]

Ill be at Geezers next year. Make sure my OP looks a little better than the one you make for Jeremy.
Thanks

 

[UrbanTC]

Oh, I'll be at Geezers fore sure. I can wait. I might even splice one up myself.

 

[Blinky]

I'll see you there... Jesse will cop out so don't worry about it looking tatty or anything.

But if you've done a few class one double braid eyes and have some good gloves you can bag this one. I hear the 10mm is harder though. I think I'll give it a try next.

That one in the pic is too long, 40". I just spliced a 4.5' piece and that's how it came out. I honestly didn't think I be able to do it until I saw the second eye go home but in retrospect it wasn't so hard... easier than Tachyon anyway. One thing that helped was to spread the braid with an ice pick at 'X' and 'Z' where you have to go through the jacket BEFORE you pull anything through. just be careful, it's hard to distinguish the carriers from each other with that funky yarn.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrog but I count 16 carriers in the jacket with two ends each.

It makes the best VT/XT I've used yet, never had to set it, just as responsive as HRC and the older version of Ocean.