Eye Splice in Plaited hollow rope

Splicing used to be an art form, if it looked neat, then it was good enough.  Just a tuck, taper and bury is fine for poly ski rope.  Now modern science has brought high strength ropes, 10 times the breaking strain of poly and a simple bowline knot in hollow plaited ropes reduces its strength by nearly half. So unless you like buying twice as much rope as you need a bit more science is required from the splicer.  The ropes are slippery, and the result of a high load failure can be really dangerous…So concentrate carefully and watch a demo of our kit ….

LOCK IN THE LOOP.  The Standing (long) part of the rope must pass through the centre of the Bury (the working end that you splice).  This is best achieved by running the whole length through (laborious), or by twisting a loop of the Bury through the Bury to form the eye (takes practice and looks a bit scruffy). Have a look at page 8 on Keepitsoaring.

The Bury then cross tucks through the standing part at right angles.  The Bury should be at least 50 times the diameter of the rope in length.  It should be tapered by peeling off and trimming strands to gradually reduce the diameter at the end.  It is very important to avoid a thick hard spot at the end of the splice as this discontinuation will cause a weak point and premature failure.   It might be sufficient to taper the end  with the hotknife, cutting a very fine angle and taping the end to pull through easily.

The standing part should be bunched up and the tool inserted perhaps 100mm from the cross tuck. In thin rope patience and practice is required and care must be taken avoid snagging a strand. The tool should be pushed in, twisted and then opened to spread the rope and then inserted further. The jaws should emerge two strands from the  cross tuck, Grab the Bury and pull it through, you will need to do this several times to vanish the Bury.  If you skip a couple of strands between each pull it will be stronger, but not look so neat.

The above procedure should produce a splice to 95% of the Breaking Strain of the rope, but splicing is still an art.  You can do it how you like, but if you do it differently to what is detailed above, please test the result with a good 4 wheel drive towball, or you may kill somebody!