Splicing Advice for 8 Strand Braid

[Don Z.]

I posted this on the WoodenBoat Forum, but I thought it would help to come here as well.

OK, so I've been taken down a peg. I thought I could splice nearly anything made from fiber...

So I was wandering around Bacon's the other day, and scored a roll of what they called 5/8 braided nylon, at only about $0.58 a foot. Needing new docklines, it seemed a score.

The rope looks to be made in Poland. I'm making this assumption from the maker's lable on it which lists a telephone number starting with "48". I'd quote the whole label, but I left it on the boat (now 400 miles from here). Further, there was another label which listed its diameter as 16mm.

The rope is a single braid (no core) nylon, and looks to be not 12 strand (as I originally thought, and can splice well), but rather 8 strand. The strands are actually doubled, making for 16 yarns total.

Normally, if I had 12 strand single braid, following Toss' advice in The Rigger's Apprentice , I would mark by eye, make the tail 24 diameters long, and taper by cutting every fifth "chevron".

With this line, two problems come to play. The first is that clearly, every fifth chevron is not the answer. I'm sure there's a way to figure out how many it should be for eight strand vice twelve, I just don't know what it is. I can overcome this by faking it, that is by unlaying the mess, tapering appropriately, and then trying to get the nylon to be somewhat compliant by stiffening it with hair gel, or some such technique.

The bigger problem I am running into is that the braid is so tight, I cannot fit the tail as a "core". That is to say, when you "squish" the rope in order to take up slack in the braid, making the hollow core larger, there still is not enough room to stuff the tail.

This leads me to wonder, is there another way to splice eight strand? Perhaps by tucking strands, as I would with three strand laid? Based on what I can tell so far, stuffing the tail into the core is the proverbial ten pounds into a five pound bag. Any suggestions?