Polyester Cover Only?

[RainDog]

I am planning to replace a bunch of rigging with 1/4" Dyneema. I would like to put a poly cover on it where it will be wrapped around the winch. Where can I buy cover material? I have not been able to find it online. I have seen the NE ropes Dyneema cover material, but I think poly would grip the winch better and be easier on the hands.

[delmarrey]

Try this stuff.

Running Rigging - Colligo Marine - Synthetic Rigging

[Ocean Girl]

Seems cheaper to just buy some cheap double braid and steal its cover, I can find polyester double braid for about .50 cents/foot . Any problems with that idea?
Do you usually go up a size when choosing a cover?

[Stumble]

Ocean,

There are a number of different covers you can buy. NER has one called ARC, Samson makes a cover called Ice and another called Black Ice (different materials), I think most of the major players that made a range of ropes make covers as well. In many cases these are specialty covers made with vectran or PBO for heat dissipation, very high abrasion resistance, ect... Which make them very expensive.

I tend to strip old sta-set when I can find it, or just add a bulking splice of additional dyneema.

[Weyalan]

Any sail maker or chandlery worth a pinch of salt will sell you cover. They may not necessarily hold it in stock, but they will all be able to order it in for you.

[Ocean Girl]

Thanks for the feedback.

[RainDog]

Most of the covers seem to be absurdly priced. As Ocean Girl points out, one option is to buy a cheap double braid and strip the cover. The question is, for 1/4' inch Dyneema, what size double braid would be best for cannibalizing the cover?

Weyalan - Thanks for the suggestion. I will contact my local shop.

[s/v Jedi]

I have plenty available but for 3/8" rope. Try Yale Cordage. It comes with a messenger line to make life easy

Edit: not sure, it might be for 5/16" and become 3/8"

[Weyalan]

You want the cover a nice snug fit. I'd take a punt at 5/16" (or 8mm) doubl-braid if you were intending to cannibalize (at worst, buy 1 foot of 5/16 and try it out).

The there are 2 potential tricky points about your plan

First is at the ends of the cover. If your ropes are going through conventional clutches, you need to make sure that you don't have a "step-up" from the inner Dyneema to the poly cover that could, potentially snag at the clutch - I think the ideal thing is to do a tapered bury of the of the cover into the core, with appropriate whipping, but this is a damn hard and time consuming process, so if you are good and neat with your whipping and a razor shapr knife you might get away with just a whip and trim.

Second is that Dyneema is hell slippery, so I think that you would want to be sure that the cover is well attached to the core to prevent any possibility of slipping between the cover and the core. I'd guess that a local sailmaker would run a line of stitching (with an approporaite heavy duty sewing machine and thread) along the full length of the cover).

[Stumble]

Weylan,

When burying dyneema it always needs a taper. But locking taper splices are very well understood and I think I have provided a link to one already in this thread. It isn't a hard splice, certainly no harder than an eye splice in any double braid line, since the hard part is pulling the core out thru the cover.

[Ocean Girl]

You guys make everything sound easy

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

You guys make everything sound easy

That's because it is . Take a look at

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0aol6bS...%3D0aol6bSQLo4

which is a nice video of how to taper the line. Personally I like to lock stitch the bury, not just do a stitched whip, and do a longer taper... But I get a little finicky about these things.



Thanks to the pointer from Jadi I now have to go buy more rope. The Yale cover only at (see URL below it won't hyperlink) seems like a very reasonable price, and it is sized by what size line fits into it.

http://www.livedigitaleditions.com/publication/?i=153075&p=152#{"page":152,"issue_id":153075}

[RainDog]

Originally Posted by Stumble

Thanks to the pointer from Jadi I now have to go buy more rope. The Yale cover only at (see URL below it won't hyperlink) seems like a very reasonable price, and it is sized by what size line fits into it.

http://www.livedigitaleditions.com/publication/?i=153075&p=152#{"page":152,"issue_id":153075}

Perfect. Thanks for the link!

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Stumble

Thanks to the pointer from Jadi I now have to go buy more rope. The Yale cover only at (see URL below it won't hyperlink) seems like a very reasonable price, and it is sized by what size line fits into it.

http://www.livedigitaleditions.com/publication/?i=153075&p=152#{"page":152,"issue_id":153075}

Here is what I have:

and what I do with it:

[Weyalan]

Originally Posted by Stumble

Weylan,

When burying dyneema it always needs a taper. But locking taper splices are very well understood and I think I have provided a link to one already in this thread. It isn't a hard splice, certainly no harder than an eye splice in any double braid line, since the hard part is pulling the core out thru the cover.

I'm know how to splice Dyneema. My comments were about fitting a cover over single-braid Dyneema (for the portion that would go on the winch and through a jammer or clutch).