- Location
- Retired in Minneapolis
After seeing false crotches a number of years ago I made my first one. Taking some three strand rope I spliced a round metal thimble in one end. For the large end I used a plastic thimble and spliced a small figure eight. Soon after that I saw someone's FC with a biner and pulley setup. This is a much more flexible system.
New Tribe started to make variations on the FC. I bought a couple of the plain eye & eye FC slings. In the picture you'll see that they came with large eyes. My preference is for very tight eyes to keep the biner and screw link oriented in the right direction. The NT sling has the original size eye on the biner side. On the screw link side you can see the yellow arrows for my stitching. There are three lines of stitching to make a tight eye and a box to sew the large eye flat.
The yellow lines and arrows are my stitching.
The next itteration is a pretty much homemade FC. The basis is a 1" tubular webbing sling. The splice is worked over to one end and tacked in place with a couple of passes of stitches. Leave an eye about 1.5" long. Then make a small, tight eye with more passes. Box or parallel stitch the rest of the eye. Next, I run a line of stitches from the splice to the other end, stopping about 1.5" again. Run another row of stitching on the other side of the webbing. Make a tight eye in the second end like on the spliced end. Finish up by connecting the cross stitch for the eye to the parallel stitching.
The homemade FC has been in use for a while and shows little signs of wear. The stitching that I do has no added strength. For more information on sewing gear take a look at the book, "On Rope" I think the ISA sells it for about $35, pound for pound, one of the best book deals around.
New Tribe started to make variations on the FC. I bought a couple of the plain eye & eye FC slings. In the picture you'll see that they came with large eyes. My preference is for very tight eyes to keep the biner and screw link oriented in the right direction. The NT sling has the original size eye on the biner side. On the screw link side you can see the yellow arrows for my stitching. There are three lines of stitching to make a tight eye and a box to sew the large eye flat.
The yellow lines and arrows are my stitching.
The next itteration is a pretty much homemade FC. The basis is a 1" tubular webbing sling. The splice is worked over to one end and tacked in place with a couple of passes of stitches. Leave an eye about 1.5" long. Then make a small, tight eye with more passes. Box or parallel stitch the rest of the eye. Next, I run a line of stitches from the splice to the other end, stopping about 1.5" again. Run another row of stitching on the other side of the webbing. Make a tight eye in the second end like on the spliced end. Finish up by connecting the cross stitch for the eye to the parallel stitching.
The homemade FC has been in use for a while and shows little signs of wear. The stitching that I do has no added strength. For more information on sewing gear take a look at the book, "On Rope" I think the ISA sells it for about $35, pound for pound, one of the best book deals around.
