What Am I Doing Wrong?

[Dave R]

It's been a while since I've put an eye splice in a piece of double braid so I was following "The Book". I managed to screw it up twice and now I'm out of ends.

When I pull up the cover after tucking the tail, I end up with a fair amount of looseness in the cover of the eye itself. Clearly the core would take all of the load. Any idea what I missed?

I have done this successfully in the past so this has me stumped.

I'd appreciate any tips. Thanks.

[Brion Toss]

Hello,
When you run the splice home, the standing part of the core slides along next to the end of the core; left unchecked, this action will tend to pull the end part of the core down into the rope. This produces the slack in the cover in the eye that you are talking about. It also means that you will be trying to bury more material than you meant to, as there's more length of core end getting buried. Clear?
That's one big reason why you keep both sides of the eye in tension, to keep that core end from being dragged in. And why, if that fails, you stop as soon as you see the eye starting to bunch, milk the slack out, working away from the crossover, and pull hard to get the core back where it belongs.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[Dave R]

Thank you, sir. I understand and that makes perfect sense to me. I did try to get that slack out as described in the instructions. Perhaps my problem comes partly from trying to make an eye with only a 2" circumference. It doesn't leave me with enough in the eye on which to get a strong grip. (1/4" diameter stuff) The piece of line I was working is now too short for what I was originally going to use it on so I'll call it practice line and keep working at.

Thank you again.

Dave

[Brion Toss]

Hi again,
Put a spike in that eye, and hold it like a T-handle with one hand, while you milk with the other.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss