Eye Splice With My Little Eye

There’s no denying that we absolutely need ropes to do about 90% of our job, but should our ropes include eye splices? An eye splice is a technique used to create a permanent termination at the end of a rope for the use of connecting”. Creating an eye splice is done by hand and follows a formula that entails rope to feed back into itself and creating a tight eye splice or whatever eye size you so choose. This process is delicate and tedious depending on the rope, it’s material, core structure and the diameter.

To Splice or Not to Splice

Normally I always recommend having a spliced eye as your rope termination and I’ll tell you why: safety! Sure, you could tie a termination knot at the end of the rope if you are using some variation of an open system. However, this opens your error rate if you ask me. Especially if a more static style rope is being used. Static ropes tend to be more static as the name suggests. This means their knot-holding capabilities may not be as good as other ropes. A rope with an eye splice will retain up to 85%-90% of the rope strength! Knots as a general rule can reduce rope strength by up to 50%-60%!!!

Are All Splices the Same?

No, not all splices are equal! Let me explain by comparing 16-strand to 24-strand double braid rope. The load is distributed through the cover and very minimal, if any in the core. In a 16-strand eye splice, the core is actually removed in order to form the splice. Does this make it dangerous or weaker? No, because the load is on the cover.

A 24-strand rope is a rope inside of a rope. This means that the load is distributed evenly through cover and core. The process on a 24-strand does involve some additional steps but the core is still present in the eye splice. During the splicing process, the core gets extracted and separated from the cover strands, which will get worked back into the rope after some measuring and trimming is done to it. Getting these splicing techniques perfected take time and A LOT of repetition! They do say that practice makes perfect, so “pitter patter”!