Double braid with tightly woven cover

[seawolf]

Hello all,
I have made a few splices in Sta-set double braid with good results. A friend asked if I could splice a line for him. He wanted to end for end his main halyard. I noticed the cover had more strands woven then that of the sta-set, and it looked like it would be difficult to open the strands to pull the core out.It looks like the cover uses pair strands interwoven. Where the sta-set had 3 strands interwoven but not so tightly. Should I be able to pull the core out of any kind of double braid line, no matter how tightly the cover is woven?
Sorry I do not know the brand of line.
Thanks for any advise to come.
Happy sailing holidays
Bob
1962 Columbia 29

[Clyde Jenkins]

The short answer is that any polyester line like Sta-Set, or its Samson or Yale equivalents, is going to be hell to splice after it's been in use for a while. When the line is new it's more slippery and easier to splice. After a year or more in use it gets much less slippery, probably due to weathering, some UV induced shrinkage, and salt or dirt getting into the braid.

If you are determined to try the splice you can try washing the line with laundry detergent, then fabric softener. I've tried this with not much success.

You don't mention what the core of the line is. The type of splice will depend on this.

Another thing to consider is that you will lose some length if you do complete the splice -- approximately 24 diameters plus some shrinkage as the cover expands to fit the splice. Plus you will lose some length cutting off the old splice back to where the line is its normal diameter. Will losing this length be acceptable?

To answer your original question, the cover construction should not have much impact on the splicing process. Isn't there a splice already at the other end?

If it were me, I'd tell your friend that a knot is the best solution if he wants to end for end the line.

Good luck,
Clyde

[Brion Toss]

Hello,
Double-braid can indeed get difficult to splice, after even a little time. There are ways to mitigate this, but the most important thing, at the moment, is to determine what the rope core is made of. If there are marker yarns in the cover you can use them to determine the make and model of the rope. If it has a high-modulus core, you have to do a core-to-core (Class II) splice. And you don't want to tie a knot in an HM halyard.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[seawolf]

Thanks gentlemen for your reply. The core is a loosely braided core like you find in sta-set.
I cut off a little from the end to find out what it was. What would be my source to find out the manufacturer by using the marker yarns? Not knowing proper terminology it may be difficult for me to explain to you, but in this particular 3/8" line the line is white and the marker yarns are blue and 1/2" long. spaced from bottom of last marker yarn to the top of the next by seven two strand yarns between them. How best to mitigate around the difficult cover?

[Clyde Jenkins]

http://www.yalecordage.com/pleasure-...dandtrade.html

[seawolf]

Clyde,
It is very similar. The marker yarns on my sample are all blue, but the braid on the cover looks the same.

[allene]

Samson Rope has a PDF on how to do an eye splice on used double braid. I have tried it and it works. Unlike a normal splice where both the cover and core are buried making the eye part of the splice 2 times as strong as the line, they only use half the line so one side of the splice is half the line strength. But as it is only taking half the load, the basic theoretical strength of the splice should be line strength. But given that the alternative is probably a knot and that knot is going to cut the strength in half, you are most likely better off even if the used splice is not line strength. At least that is how I looked at it.