toggle strength

[benz]

I use toggles from time to time on my boat, and wanting to use them more (cheaper and lighter than shackles), I began to wonder how much force they're subjected to when loaded. Has anyone calculated this? What percentage of the load on the halyard, say, translates into a bending force on the (getting technical here!) sticky-out bits that the loop rests on? If anyone cares to do some destruction testing, I'll gladly spare a few toggles (I turn them myself out of hardwood on a lathe).
Ben

[Stumble]

Benz,

I have pretty much removed them, and shackles from my boat. For about $3 you can make dyneema soft shackles that have a working strength of 4,000lbs, and weigh nothing.

[benz]

Dyneema shackles are not always suitable. If you put a thin dyneema cord through a eye spliced in a fatter dacron cord, the thinner line can chafe and cut at the dacron, which is softer. But speaking of dyneema soft shackes, why not splice a toggle into the soft shackle and not lose the strength that the knot takes away?

[Ian McColgin]

Do you mean toggles like you use on standing rigging, usually eye and fork but sometimes fork and fork? Like with clevis and cotter? They are for a given pin size almost always stronger than shackles and given that they are drilled for pins are more suited for the high loads of rigging. But you'd not want to feed anything flexable - wire or fibre - through the eye. So I'm thinking you mean something other than what I know as a toggle.

[benz]

Hi Ian,

Not that sort of toggle. What I mean is a little hardwood rod which you splice a line around tightly (so it can't slip out). Then you can quickly work the toggle through a loop spliced in another line, and presto! The lines are joined without a knot or a shackle. Harken is making something similar out of aluminum that they call a "Dog bone", but those are expensive and (I think) ugly. if I can find a picture of one I have made up, I'll try and post it later.
Ben

[Ian McColgin]

Ah. Of course. I should have thought of that.

[benz]

Here's a pic--not mine, but a toggle in use. Sorry I couldn't get to load as a picture.
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...-3PCSo1_-o3x4w