Ex merchant marine, so of course i can splice, learned three stranded from my father when i was a boy, (he was merchant marine) taught myself to splice four stranded from a book, due to the ship buying ropes in spain, that were all four stranded, Was taught to splice multi plat, (which is eight stranded kind of platted rope) by an older man on a ship i was on, did a wire splice for my AB certificate, (one and only wire splice ever done, well before I left the ship to do the course, the bosun showed me how to do a wire splice, and got me to do one, so i guess i did two) Never learned to do those yachti ropes though, the guy i got my boat from was very proud in telling me he did all his own splices, i thought "yea three stranded piece of cake" then i saw, it was all the hose line type ropes though he had done some three stranded too. I know a bit of the theory about the hose line ropes, that you cut the casing, pull it apart, then do the splice, then push the casing back over the splice, but when i have looked under the casing, their is just so many strands, cant figure it out. No cant do double braid, looked at the video, and i cant do that stuff. My father could pretty much splice anything, but, double braid wasnt about in his day, he could do a long splice in wire. I have argued with people in the merchant marine about doing a long splice in a wire (a long splice is done, so the wire has the same diameter, even at the spice, so a one inch wire, can run through a one inch block, had guys at sea tell me it was imposible, i said, those old guys could do it, they would have splice five feet long, with strands cut away at varying lenghths from each direction, so their was always the same number of strands in the splice, as their was in the wire rope. Wish i had got him to teach me that. He used to make some cash in retirement, by going to the ports with trawlers, and splicing their wires back together.
You are not really alowed to splice wires on ships today, well you can do it, but the wire (for insurance purposes) has to be taken ashore and tested before you can use it, so its not really done.
I made a monkeys fist, which is what is on the end of a heaving line, to give it weight, and i made a matt out of rope, which i had at my front door, and some of the guys, would do really intricate work with thin line, and make real fancy bell cords, like to attach to a ships bell, where they would make it really ornamental.
Its a kind of diying art, pretty soon, all ropes will come with a factory splice, done by a machine. Just like wire splicing is no longer done, rope will go that way.
