Brummel Eye Splice Tail Bury
Out tail is 12 inches long and will cause the line we bury it in to shrink to 85% of its normal length. That would mean we need just over 14 inches of line to hold the 12 inch bury. Measure off 15 inches and make a mark.
Insert the dull pick in the standing part below the eye splice.
Tape the fid on the end of the line. I like to use a piece of 1/4 inch cooper tubing gently pounded into a bullet point by tapping on the end 100 times as I turn the tube around. You might like to use a commercial fid. Use smooth tape. Scotch tape works fine. The green masking tape works fine. The blue masking tape, not so fine.
Put the fid into the hole you made with your dull pick.
Work the fid and line through toward the standing part until you get to your mark and then bring the fid through the line.
Pull the tail all the way out, bunching up the rest of the line to make room. You need to bring out a bit more than 1/3 of the tail.
We want to taper 1/3 of the tail. The tail is 12 inches so we want to taper 4 inches. We are going to cut half the strands (6). mark every other pair, one right hand and one left hand strand. Mark 3 pairs.
Pull these strands out.
And cut them off. Some scissors have a very difficult time cutting Amsteel. People use exotic ceramic knives and sharpen them every few days. I use these Fiskars Children's scissors. Go figure. It is a nice touch to cut the last 6 strands at an angle just to relieve any small ridge you might otherwise notice in the finished splice. Kind of work you scissors down from a point about 1/2 inch from the end pointing at the end and the fibers will cut at a nice taper for just that last bit.Splices are actually very strong, theoretically twice as strong as the line less any loss due to distortions the splice puts into the line and that occurs at the end of this taper. Most samples tested break at the end of the taper. If the taper is smooth enough, the splice will never break and the line will break at some random spot away from the splice. I say this just to point out that the taper is important.
Here is the tapered tail. I would taper it more that what I have shown to make the taper more gradual. One way to do that is to unbraid the last inch or so and cut the strands that way. I believe it is the taper that determines if the splice is 90% or 100% of line strength. That said, most sailing applications are looking at stretch and not strength so it may not be that important.
Milk the body back over the tail and you are done.
NOTICE: Some pages have affiliate links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read website Cookie, Privacy, and Disclamers by clicking HERE. To contact me click HERE. For my YouTube page click HERE