Eye splice

Eye splice
Instructions	[1]

The eye splice is a method of creating a permanent loop in the end of a rope by means of rope splicing.

The Flemish eye is a type of circular loop at the end of a thread. There are several techniques of creating the eye with its knot tied back to the line, rope or wire.

There are various splicing techniques, and relate to whether a rope is braided or plaited, whether it has a core and whether the core is made of high-performance fibers. Techniques include:

For conventional stranded ropes, the ends of the rope are tucked (plaited) back into the standing end to form the loop. Three tucks are the minimum for natural fibers, five tucks are necessary for synthetics. Variations of this more traditional eye splice include:

The ends of the rope are first wrapped in tape or heated with a flame to prevent each end from fraying completely. The rope is unlayed for a distance equal to three times the diameter for each "tuck", e.g., for five tucks in half inch rope, undo about 7.5 inches. Wrap the rope at that point to prevent it unwinding further. Form the loop and plait the three ends back against the twist of the rope. Practice is required to keep each end to retain its twist and lie neatly. In stiff old rope or in new rope which has been tightly wound, a marlinspike or fid can facilitate opening up the strands and threading each end.

In some cases, the splice is tapered by trimming the working strands after each tuck. Also, the splice can be whipped to protect and strengthen the splice. A rope thimble can be inserted in the eye to prevent chafing if the eye is to be permanently attached to a fixture (used when attaching a rope to a chain, for example).

An eight-strand rope consists of two left-twisting and two right-twisting pairs. Make sure the left-twisting strands are fed below left-twisting strands, and right-twisting strands below the right-twisting ones. Work systematically with different tape coulours to keep from getting lost in the mess of strands. An eight-strand square plaited rope can be used as mooring line or anchor rode.

This technique is mostly used for Dyneema ropes. The principle of a Dyneema eye is a core-to-core splice, in which a length of at least 60 times the diameter of the rope is taken back into itself. DSM advises using 60 times the diameter for coated Dyneema, and 100 times the diameter for uncoated Dyneema. For 6mm coated rope, this would mean 36 cm. Under tension the rope will pull into itself tightly, which produces a strong eye. One can pull out the eye when the rope is not under tension, unless one makes a lock-splice (also called brummel splice).

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Wikipedia