securing wire rope at right angles

[Brion Toss]

Hi again,
Apologies for being slow in responding.
For the first question, seizing wire is tougher than twine -- more chafe- and UV-resistant in particular. You can slush the twine to prevent UV, and/or schedule replacement of lashings for the long term. For your application, I think it would be much easier to achieve appropriate tension with the twine than with wire. And I think I'd rather use nylon or Dacron, as both are quite strong enough, and much less slick than Dyneema.
Wire seizings for standing rigging are a bit more difficult to do than with twine, and though I have seen twine used instead, I've never seen destruction tests for them, nor am I confident about using something so relatively vulnerable for standing rigging terminations.
As for oxygen starvation, if you can keep out both air and water, it won't happen. My field experience with old served splices in stainless, over spreader ends, and under other short pieces of service, is that the water doesn't usually stay in place long enough for crevice corrosion to occur. But I have seen damage under longer stretches of served stainless, where the water was in far enough to be trapped. It couldn't evaporate or drain out -- or be rinsed out, in the case of salt water -- and it went to work on the wire. I always put some kind of slush on the bare wire, to limit surface area for water to work on, but I have seen old Concordia splices, unslushed, that were fine.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[njl]

Interesting. Thanks a lot for explaining both. I've wondered about those issues for a while.

By the way, I'm an avid novice user of the Rigger's Apprentice. I use the shoelace knot I learned in it every day, and I look for knots and techniques I can apply all the time. Thanks for creating such a great resource.