A better rope tie-down knot

WilliamA

I have been experimenting with making knotless rope ends for tent, awning etc tiedown ropes. I've grown frustrated by the fact that the braided nylon rope is a great product in every area save that of holding a good knot. I happened upon an unrelated topic on youtube about re-stringing winch cable and thought it must work the same for smaller ropes. A few experiments later and it turns out that it does indeed work just fine.

To do this, of course you need to use the appropriate braided kind of rope. I don't have any on hand, but I assume the ubiquitous parachute chord would work as well. I happened to have this kind of rope so I used it for a bit of messing about. The black collar is simply a few wraps of masking tape. If I wanted to make this more permanent, I'd use a short piece of shrink-wrap but I don't have any handy in this size.



I'd take a dozen or so photos and demonstrate, but it's easier to just post this link to the video I watched. You can get to the rope repair How-to about halfway through. CPO uses a sort of knitting needle end device to thread the rope through, but I just did a tight wrap of masking tape on the end of the rope so it came to a point and it worked fine for me. It would take a bit of experimenting to get the lengths right, but it's easy once you get the hang.
The one thing CPO doesn't cover (as it doesn't apply for winch rope) is that most braided ropes used for smaller jobs have a solid center core that needs to be cut off about 6-8 inches back from the end in order to be able to loop the end back within itself. As I said, a bit of experimenting is in order to get the length right but it's pretty obvious how much needs to be cut off. To cut the center core out, take a small straight tool of some kind and go back 6-8 inches from the rope end, then work between the braids of the rope until you can poke the center rope out the other side, then cut it off. Yes, this will make your rope that much less strong, but I'm assuming you aren't using it for either rappelling or winch duty.. It will still be mucho plenty strong for holding down an awning or tent corner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-uYHCCzmcE
WilliamA

LuckyJ

@WilliamA. I do this type of work, heck, I even did s splice of a 3 inch ferry boat morning line for to show a guy who had got the rope for free, to show him how, but also just for the fun of it and to prove my self that I coild do it.

And yep, those type of rope loke winch line are very easy to do, but like you mentioned, paracord have a multi strand core, but you can also find some similar size nylon rope w/o that core.

Very nice of you to think about showing this stuff here. I just do not think about it. These type of eye loop can be used for so many things aroind the house of camping and so much more.

As for the tape of heat shrink sleeve, by experience, it is not needed. Only for look. I have never used it either on 3 strand braiding.

Thank you for all of us.

WilliamA

LuckyJ,
Yeah, I figured the collar was just for looks as I've never seen it used on winch ropes or utility ties. I think it looks more finished myself and will probably get some heat shrink for my own tie-down needs. Just looks better I think. If I were tying down ferries or barges though, I'd probably ignore that part too! lol

WilliamA

Michigan_Mike

And if you really want to get serious about rope splicing you could buy one of these. We use to splice out the Samson ropes at the power company and regular nylon ropes. We used a fid to make the splices and as Luc noted, never used any type of heat shrink. Our fleet people spliced out the winch cables too and used a compression tool and loop splice for the cable as otherwise they were unable to certify them. Back in the day of "climbin' lineman" we had to get to pole locations in deep right of way as best we could and I remember winching trucks in and out of job sites just to make the job easier, easier access to tools & equipment on the location, etc. Then came mo-mats, driving trucks in across landscaped areas (minimizing damage from truck tire ruts, etc.) and using skids to get into locations easier. Ropes and splicing them were a big part of the job and I still revert back to that knowledge today when handling/moving large loads, tying knots (bowline knot is my fav knot), and adapting to whatever situation comes up.

LuckyJ

@WilliamA said:
LuckyJ,
Yeah, I figured the collar was just for looks as I've never seen it used on winch ropes or utility ties. I think it looks more finished myself and will probably get some heat shrink for my own tie-down needs. Just looks better I think. If I were tying down ferries or barges though, I'd probably ignore that part too! lol

WilliamA

I just got a memory flash. If you want to use heat shrink, make a test run, cause I remember triyng to use heat shrink on a rope, do not rmember why, but even using a heat gun, it was very easy to melt the rope at the same time.

TomD

MichiganMike..i’m speechless. I’ve sailed for many years and have seen these tools. It always looked so difficult. Hats off to you and WilliamA for moving it forward.