splicing thimbles in amsteel or other 12 strand for lifelines
 

Hello all,
Regarding lifelines:
After reviewing archives, I noticed Brion had suggested splicing in round sail thimbles on the ends that are to be lashed to the pulpits or fittngs. Since I will also be ring hitching some CS Johnson gate eyes and gate hook on the other end of the lines, I want to make sure that the end with the thimble will pass through the eye that will be ring hitched, and still have a snug fit.
The ring hitches are used so the lines do not have to be cut to replace hardware in the future.
My Questions are:
How can you ring hitch a gate eye on one end of the line, go through a couple of stanchions and still have a sail thimble on the other end?
Would you not have to splice a thimble in after the ring hitch is complete and the line ran through the stanchions forward?
The line would still need to be cut to replace hardware in the future.
Am I missing something, or can you splice the round thimble in loosely so it can be removed for collapsing the eye to feed through the stanchions?

After we got that figured out,
what size round thimble would be used for 1/4 inch hi mod?

I plan on using 1/4 inch 12 strand dyneema and the holes through my stanchion caps are 7/16ths.
Please help with my confusion!
Thanks for the help.
Bob

ring hitch eye size
 

The spliced eye for a ring hitch only has to be as big inside as the smallest cross-section of the piece of hardware it attaches to. For a piece of gate hardware it'll be the fat part of the latch, or slightly smaller if you open the latch and thread it through the eye.

So- thread the whole spliced eye through the bail, pull it (and an inch or two of the standing/long part) to the farthest extent of the piece of hardware, open the splice and slide it down/over the piece of hardware toward the bail, snug up the tail. No access to the other end of the line needed.

ring hitch eye size
 

Cam,

I see what you are talking about.
I was confusing myself thinking of the cow hitch/ring hitch going over a spar or through a ring where the ends of the line are fed through the bight.
Thanks for the reply and fair winds.
Bob