Author Topic: A Bad Splice Gone Good??  (Read 3023 times)

Jimbo_The_Kinky

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A Bad Splice Gone Good??
« on: March 23, 2006, 12:06:25 AM »
Hail and Howdy, fellow kinkers of cordage!

Recently, a dire warning drifted by without much ado or fanfare.  The basic lesson to learn from that would be:

The Tucked Splice (what CWA calls the "Marline Splice") can kill you, if you use it wrong.

Well, I guess that's true of anything, but this is a "bad splice"...


Or is it?


Recently, I was fortunate to find myself at Bowens Island Restaurant, and amongst the flotsam and jetsam used there for "atmosphere", I couldn't help notice a Monkey's Fist in some prickly Manila-looking cordage.  Someone had made a dandy MF, but with a wee tail about a foot long, ending in a textbook Tucked/Marline/Compression Splice!  Having read the above-referenced warning, I had to ask...

The hoary old proprietor (PABPRES' ugly brother, I sweartagawd) didn't shine to chit-chat, what with the incoming queue stretching out onto the marsh, but I did manage to tease a syllable or two out of him over his knottery.  Quoth he:

"Yeah, sometimes you have an eye on the end & this makes it easy to take on & off!  What're you drinking, beer? Tea?  C'mon, man!!"

And thus was Jimbo Enlightened!!

NO, he won't be bothered by having to wrangle a long heaving line!  He'll grab whatever's at hand & get to work (almost) instantly!  (swoons effusively)

So my point is, even a "bad" knot, splice, or other confabulation of cordage can be "good", if used properly, with care and consideration.

Sometimes a death-dealing splice can be used to save lives.

Crazy ol' world, idn't it?


Jimbo

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Re: A Bad Splice Gone Good??
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2006, 09:08:54 AM »
Hi Jimbo,
 Good to hear from you.  Yepum, expedient measures often work just fine.  If you say it in print the lawyers may show up on your door step but we all do things that work when pressed for time.  It is odd that your post came today when I was using some salvaged slings from the very Cedar Block harvest that was in your "dire warning".  I am too old and dibilated to lift my cyleder head onto  my Montero engine.  I rig a gin pole (you; who know me; would think of it as a "vodka pole") to lift and drop the head gently into position... to not harm the gasket or get anything out of kilter.  I use a handy billy to lower it into place.   Alice "slacks away" upon request.  So what better cord to use for the rig than some salvaged 3/4" poly with the "killer splice" as a foot knot for the "vodka pole"?  I also lashed the pole to the brush guard with totaly unacceptable fake 550 nylon.  When you can cheat death (or at least cheat a messed up headgasket) why not rejoice?
 Of course I do not endorse slipshod practice when life or limb are at risk but for many other tasks expedient methods and practices save a lot of time and cost nothing.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2006, 09:35:45 PM by PABPRES »
ROY S. CHAPMAN, IGKT-PAB BOARD.