Splicing braids

[Alan Wheeler]

Hopefully this helps some. It is easy and fun to do. if you just follow the instrctions. It takes a bit of grunt to pull the sheath over the splice when you are working with the superbraids.
http://www.southernoceanropes.co.nz/...tor=10&page=15

http://www.southernoceanropes.co.nz/...tor=10&page=16

When they say that these splice should only be used on blah blah, it is refering to the type of rope and not just that it is Southern ocean.

Have fun

[Talbot]

A word of caution about splicing braid. It is very difficult to achieve a decent splice on old rope, it doesnt have the give of new stuff so takes a great deal of effort to get even a half decent attempt, thus reducing the strength of the splice considerably.


For anyone wanting to brush up on their knot tying, I suggest a look at Animated Knots

[Vasco]

Spent half a day and got a bunch of blisters once trying to splice eyes in the other ends of my couple of years old anchor lines. Finally found out it was impossible! Now if I use braided line for anchor lines I splice an eye in each end right away.

Rope is easy. Anyone have any sources (besides Brian Toss' book) for learning to splice wire? I have thought about changing the gang on Kittiwake, but I can not find anyone locally that can do the work, and I have not done it. I have talked to a couple of local riggers, and their response has been polite, but not very helpful. As for "The Rigger's Apprentice", it has some info on this, but is too vague. I have talked to Toss' people, but it is problematic sending the rigging out, and I am too far for them to go.

[Alan Wheeler]

Here's another couple of great sites on splicing.
http://www.neropes.com/splice/default.htm

http://samsonrope.com/home/recmarine/splicing/index.cfm

When splicing old rope, ensure you soak the rope end in water for five minutes. This loosens and lubricates the rope and will make it much easier.
Kai Nui, splicing braid to wire is not that difficult to do techinically, but it is physicaly. I haven't seen a site that explains it, so I will try and talk you through.
Start with taping the end of the wire to keep the strands together. I have also used heatshrink which seems to work well. Pull the cover back on the braid and trim back to shorten the inner by about 6". Unbraid the inner and tie into three seperate bundles. You can go more if you want, it makes the job look better, but just fiddlier and time consuming. Insert the wire cable up into the inside of the inner braid about 6". I now wrap tape around tight to hold the braid to the wire so I can concentrate on the tails without the wire falling out. Now the hard part, split the wire strands, but keep them in their core bunches if that made sense. Simply splice the rope through the wire strands as if you were splicing nylon. After you have gone about three weaves down, cut the braid down a few strands, then continue splicing another three weaves and cut down again till you get down to one. That forms a taper. Now run a flame quickly over the splice and burn off any frayed stuff. Don't melt the main braid of inner of course. Nown bring the outer cover down over the top and tape the cover tight to hold it in position, just above the end of the inner braids. Now split the cover into fingers as just as you did with the inner earlier. Split the wire strands and repeat the weave following the exact same exercise as you did with the inner.
I hope my english translated to your english OK. Feel free to ask clarification if it didn't.

[Euro Cruiser]

Somewhat inevitably, I picked up a new tool being hawked by one of the vendors at our local boat show yesterday. It's made in Ft. Lauderdale (Florida) and branded as 'ClampTite'. It is a wire wrapping tool that allows one to put a much tighter clamp around any hose fitting than a hose clamp/jubilee clip permits. The wire is not reusable but a wrap costs about 10 cents; in my mind, this tool won't save or cost any more in the long run. I purchased it for two reasons: first, I have occasionally found it hard to get a clamp as tight as I need it, but more importantly the tool allows me to attach a vareity of other things in a way that is impressively tight & inexpensive.

But...one of the exhibits at the booth was using several wraps of wire to seize double braid line around a stainless thimble, serving as an alternative to a splice. The claim made (no test data available but testing on a pull bench was claimed) is that the wire will hold the line to roughly the same strength as a splice.

Here's the question I'd like to place before this august body: what kinds of businesses are likely to have a pull bench or some other form of test device that I could take a few samples to for some informal testing? Can anyone think of an alternative way in which testing this might be possible? I'd like to do this for the heck of it and would spend a few dollars for the pleasure; suggestions?

Jack

Wheels, nothing lost in the translation. A bit confusing without holding the wire in my hands, but that is just how I comprehend things. I will give it a try in the next week or so, and pm you if I get stuck.
Jack, best tool ever!
I did not buy one 2 years ago when i first saw it, and had several occasions where i wished I had one. I bought it at last year's boat show, but did not use it until a few months ago. It works great. I added an inline filter to my water system, and forgat to buy the right size clamps. I used the tool, and without distorting the hose, it was tight enough to turn the fitting. No leaks after several months. Wire is cheap, and allot of jury rig repairs can be done with this tool. I had a cracked mount brkt on my muffler. I took a piece of flat stock, and wrapped wire around it, and secured it with the tool. No movement after about 5 hours of running. The company that sells this thing has a very in depth sales pitch, and it is all spot on from my experience.

[Pblais]

I would have serious doubts about using ClampTite as a substitute for a rope splice under loads. The splice would fail at the point where the crimp is made. The tighter the clamp, the weaker the rope. Just as if you had clamped the rope so tight you cut it. High loads fight the clamp to the point of cutting the rope even if the clamp never fails (probably wouldn't). The force loading on the standing end of the clamp is always a problem no matter how long you make the clamp.

In all the other applications it appears to be a great tool and handy for fixing things. The limitations would be more a factor of the wire used than anything else.

[Euro Cruiser]

Yes, I concur: the concern is the stress riser or hard spot created by the wire wrap (or multiple wire wraps)...and that's the purpose of the testing I'd like to do. Let's assume 3 samples, each using a double wrap (4 wires around both the standing part and bitter end, just below the thimble). Sample 1 = one double wrap. Sample 2 = two double wraps, etc. It seems as tho' the two things I am interested in learning are at what percentage of rated breaking strength (of the line) does the splice fail, and does this percentage improve with multiple wraps. Are there other ways I could be looking at this?

I suppose a final learning would be whether the tool as sold is making a valid claim. After all, they claim the hard spot does not create any more loss of strength in the spliced line than a regular splice, based on their own testing. We'll see as someone has already offered to do the line pull testing for me.

Jack

[Pblais]

With ropes all testing is the same with this ClampTite tool. The last wrap of the wire towards the load source or attachment point creates the spot where it will break or perhaps melt assuming the clamp is not the failure point. There are two pints of failure so two wraps of the wire is better than one but the end wraps are where it dfails. 25 wraps won't fix it as there alwaysd will be two on each end.

being very hypothetical if you could make the outer wraps larger than the inner wraps you might be able to spread the shear forces along the length. I don;'t see how you can do this with this tool. It would take enormous precision to fabricate but with enough lod would fail for the same reasons.

Any rope that gets compressed in diameter will shear at the smallest diameter closest to the load or point of attachment. Rope in shear breaks pretty easy. Like a knife cuts. In theory you want all fibres in the rope parallel at all times. This is clearly impossible but a splice does this better than any knot. It disperses the expansion forces along the most length. Obvously some knots do this better than others too. Bowlines are pretty efficent knots and not surprising the most important marine knot. In other applications not always so. A bunt line hitch with many modern fibres does not hold. Unthinkable to sailors of old.

Even wire rope has to be carefully swaged. Too tight and it will fail at the joint for the same reason. I think this would be the case with the ClampTite on rope too. You can't keep it loose enough not to shear yet still hold fast.

Hey if you broke something and this tool could jury rig you home I'ld sure have one along, but it won't splice rope. A knot I think is actually better. Pipes and hose is a whole other deal<g>.

[Cadence10m]

Jack,

I agree with the concerns about how a wire wrap could adversely affect the "splice" strength. But of course the ultimate proof would be to do the testing you suggested.

If you wanted to do a tension failure test, there's a machine made just for that purpose. There was a Tinius Olsen machine where I went to school. It would pull a sample (usually a metal rod) while simultaneously measuring the displacement and the pull force. It gave a stress vs strain curve and would stop once the sample actually failed.

Their website shows a whole range of machines.(http://www.tiniusolsen.com/ )

Any technical or engineering school would probably have one. You could probably also find one at a well equiped structural, civil or metallurgical engineer's lab. Try calling any schools or enginers in your area.

I think the only problem you'd run into is the rope would have a lot more stretch than the metal samples that are usually tested. You'd just need to make sure the machine had the necessary travel to accomodate that stretching. And of course don't ba anywhee nearby when it's testing, because it WILL test to failure and bits of wire and rope will probably go flying!

I'd test a sample of solid rope (no splices, etc), another with a proper splice, and then the others with the wire wraps. You may have to create an epoxy slug on each end of the samples so the machine could grab them, but that should work.

Craig

[Euro Cruiser]

I have an offer of help from Bill, one of the members of this board, and I'll report back on what we learn with the pull tests. His equipment limits us to 1/4" line, which my wallet was very happy about.

I do understand the point loading problem; I think the issue on the table is not 'if' but 'at what point', which is why I want to do the testing. I also notice everyone is ignoring the possibility the splice itself won't hold, which could occur before the splice fails. That's my rationale for two separate wraps.

I've purchased some Sta-Set line and s/s thimbles and will be mailing them off tomorrow. The test plan I've cooked up is:

Line with no splice - pull to 1000# (limit of hardware; breaking strength for this line is 1200# so we shouldn't see a failure)

Line with one double wrap splice

Line with two separate double wrap splices

Line with bowline

Jack

[Vasco]

Good luck with your tests, Jack. My concern is how well the wire would stand up under constant immersion in salt water.

[Euro Cruiser]

Gosh, I'd hope we'll never find out...!

[Euro Cruiser]

Thanks to Bill Balme's kindness (and some clever digital recording) I was able to actually watch the pull tests he did on the ClampTite 'wire splices' mentioned above. The test protocol problem we had was the limited range of his Ingstrom Tensile Tester, only able to measure up to 1000#. That forced me to do the wire wraps on small 1/4" Sta-Set (breaking strength 1200#), which in turn created a mismatch as trying to wrap line that small with relatively large diameter 304 stainless wire was a bit awkward and left me doubtful about the 'splices'.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of sharing the data here are Bill's results:

Line breaking strength = 1200#
Single wire wrap ("splice"), 1/4" line = 883# with the splice slipping; believe the failure point was a sharp edge of the thimble
Single wire wrap = 676# with even more slippage; break believed to be at wire wrap
Double wire wrap = 882# with slippage until 1st wrap butted up against 2nd wrap; adding wraps doesn't buy us more strength
As a "control", a Bowline = 1000# and still holding

Wouldn't win anything at the high school science fair but it was fun and confirmed most expectations.

Jack