Splicing DB Nylon

[Bob Pingel]

I have spliced tons on dacron double braid, but have never played with nylon. I now have a customer that "must have" double braid nylon docklines.

In TRA, Brion suggests a longer core allowance for nylon to give more room in the cover. The field guide mentions nothing special for nylon. Is the extra room needed?

Any suggestions?

Bob

[Renoir]

I had more trouble splicing nylon double-braid than with polyester DB. I re-read Brion's instructions on the DB splicing and noticed a "by the way" kinda statement that I had overlooked which is quite meaninful (in the Riggers Apprentice book). It said that if you have trouble bringing the splice home that you might be splicing nylon! I guess that the fiber stretch of nylon conspires to make splicing much more difficult.

Man, once the double braid nylon gets used (stretched and strained and weathered and salty) I wouldn't even THINK about splicing it. Try again to convince your customer to go with black 12 strand nylon, it is great to splice and has much better shock absorption ability than any double braid and, after all, isn't that why you are using nylon in the first place? If not, just be stupid and use polyester and strain all of the cleat bedding in use in the system, that's what nylon double braid does, just not as much and with lower chafe resistance.

[Bob Pingel]

I used Brion's TRA advice to add 12 diameters of cover (pull the core out 12d) rather than just 8 and things worked fine.

Running home was a little wierd because the fibers seemed grippy and snaggy, and it difficult to shock load due to the elasticity.

Bob

[Renoir]

Thanks Bob, I'll try the extra length as mentioned. I'm moving towards the 8 and 12 strand nylon and still wish someone would "weigh in" with any comments regarding the advantages/disadvantages of the two.
Rick