arborist learning to eye splice

[ryangossen]

Dear experienced splicers,

I am an arborist and new to this site. I am trying to learn to make an eye splice on a new Yale Blaze for use as a climbing line, and having great difficulty. Ive been following Yale's double braid eye splice instructions:

http://www.yalecordage.com/html/pdf/...ust_dbraid.pdf

Im on my third attempt. The first was a big mess. The second produced a recognizable eye splice but with a little core showing in the corner. The current try is stalled because, again, I cant get the fid through the extremely tight crossover. Iím getting a discouraging amount of friction at this step and also in milking the cover back around the eye. Last time I got the core through by melting the its end until it had a hard cap that I molded into a point and pushed through behind a smaller fid. It sort of worked, but not well. I have many questions:

1. Am I following the right instructions for this rope?
2. Do I need specialized equipment other than the fid and pusher rod?
3. Is Blaze known as being difficult to splice?
4. Can you think of anything else Im doing wrong?

Thanks so much for your attention,

-Ryan