Thanks for the tips, Brion. They are certainly helpful. I totally agree about visuals being much better to learn this wire rope splicing and in person training even better. I don't have your video, but despite being a book learner for most things, I did take the rigging course at WoodenBoat a couple of summers ago and was fortunate enough to have Myles Thurlow guide me through me first two splice in fiber-core galvanized wire rope. I'm on splice #5 now and finally managed to get the heart in there without too much complaint:
https://plus.google.com/116402644190...ts/jFGmSCRACfW
I didn't get the heart to taper quite as nice as I would have preferred. I feel like this is my first splice that could see service and wouldn't cause me endless worry. I will, of course, throw it out and practice some more, till I get consistent and know how to work all the measurements out. I feel like only one of the tucks in this splice laid badly (as you can see in the pic) and I barely faired this splice at all, so I feel like I'm starting to get there. Heck, I only cut myself once on this splice which was a new record (by a lot
. There's only one piece of 3/8" on my boat (the bobstay), but I'm using it for practice because it was the only size that had extra available. The mercy should be that the 5/16" and 1/4" will seem like cake later, or, at least, I hope so.