I'm making some bags out of an old windsurf sail and I'd really like to give them some spliced rope handles to complete the nautical look. I'm hoping for some rope advice about making splices that sacrifice strength for being less of a pain in the poop deck to form.
Some facts:
- the handles will be short-ish segments of rope with an eye on either end (32" eye-to-eye)
- I have some pieces of 5/8" sta-set that I'm planning to use (the bag is kind of tote-bag like and the "handles" are really intended to go over the shoulders so I figured a big chunky rope would be comfier)
- I suck at and dislike making eye splices in double braid rope. I've had basically acceptable results in much smaller diameter rope but my attempt in the 5/8" rope was a dismal failure. I'm sure that with practice I'd figure out how to do it well, but I have a limited amount of this big rope and basically no desire to develop that particular skill 🙃
- I don't own any fids, especially not for this humongous rope - my attempt was done with a long wire loop pulling the ends through instead of pushing them with the fid.
Some thoughts:
- even if I didn't suck at splicing, it seems like given the relatively short length of the handles makes me think I wouldn't be very successful at putting a splice in both ends (i.e. a full fid length is almost half the length of the entire handle piece) just because I'd barely have enough real estate to push the cover back far enough and milk everything into place
- as I do not plan to put 8 tons of ultra-dense neutron star material in this tote bag, I don't need anything close to the full breaking strength of the rope, I just need the splice to look clean and not fall apart under the mildest of loads
- If I was using a smaller rope I'd probably just do a figure-8 knot but it'd be massively chunky with this 5/8" rope
Some of my ideas:
- Stitched or siezed eye instead of a splice - apparently a lot of rock climbers do stitched eyes to form permanent eyes in climbing rope (which I gather has a tighter braid and is not practical to splice). I tried one, but dont really like the look of it - it leaves the (huge, chunky, 5/8") end of the rope sticking out where it will rub arms and catch on things.
- Make an eye splice without cross-burying the core (sorta like making a splice in single-braid dyneema) - my idea is to push the outer cover back and remove the last 6" or 8" of the core, then just bury the end of the cover inbetween the cover and core of the main rope. My thought is that this would be way easier to stuff in there and get everything milked out smoothly. I'd probably put a seizing right at the base of the eye to keep it from slipping.
- skip the splice alltogether, stuff a few inches of the end of the rope into a piece of tubular webbing, stitch it in with waxed whipping twine and then sew the end of the webbing directly to the bag
What would you do? Are there nice decorative/low-strength options for forming an eye that I'm not thinking of?
My attempts so far: signal-2024-03-13-123025.jpeg
Update: I tried out the stuff-in-in-webbing technique and i think that actually looks pretty nice (plus it's very low bulk). It just so happens that 5/8 sta-set is a perfect snug fit in 1" tubular webbing.
IMG_7025.jpeg
Since you have had no answers so far I'll put in an opinion. A splice has strength but I don't think your life and safety will depend on its strength in this application. I like the tube idea.
Some judicious stitches along the idea of whipping work should hold for you and be smooth-ish with no bulk.
If it wouldn't make it too bulky you could also stich and eye and cover the splice with proper diameter tubing to get a cleaner look and a bit of chosen color.
I'd be tempted to use the webbing for the handles.
I would probably just fire some grommets into the bag body, and then tie overhand knots in the ends of your rope. Good enough stopper knots that will jam, plus you could heat them some to melt and prevent them untying, but I don't think they would.
That being said, I have a sailcloth bag which uses 3/8" double braid rope as a drawstring to cinch the top up, and then configures either like a single strap cross body bag, or a keeper to turn it into a backpack where the rope goes over each shoulder. Loaded up with brochures and water bottles and some gear I bought at the boat show, I found it to be pretty uncomfortable biting into my shoulders.
That tubular webbing would be far more comfortable over your shoulder. But I get the idea of a nautical look. Going farther with it, and far easier, would be to get some tan colored laid line (3 strand), because an eye splice in laid line is about as easy as you can get.