Rope knot making a loop.

A search for "eye splice" should get you lots of relevant methods, many with animations to make the method clearer. Takes a little practice to get it to look good, but you can usually end up with something servicable after the first one or two tries...

Hope that helps, --Glenn Lyford

"Perry Templeton" wrote in news:4m%Sg.42480 $ snipped-for-privacy@bignews8.bellsouth.net:

You need to search for and "eye splice". The instructions vary, depending on the type of rope and the type of eye you want. For something simpler, you should use a bowline knot.

Get your hands on a 1950's thru 60's Buy Scout manual. Knots galore.... Maybe the new BSA manuals have it too, but doubtfully. These days they are probably all computer logic and such. Kids these days dont learn anything useful.

I dunk the rope ends in a can of paint.

Whip a small section on main bite where you want to stop the line from untwisting. Whip the end of each strand before starting braid. This will help to keep it neat until you gain more experiance.

This gets easier and more neat in appearance with practice. Once the three strands are started correctly you simply put each strand over one and under the next as it is braided together.

Keep in mind that many types of rope today simply aren't splicable. Unless you have an overriding reason to splice, it's much faster and easier to use a good knot.

For examples:

Around boats and in marine use, this would be called an "eye splice" Try a book on seamanship.

You won't find splices in the BSA Handbook but there a fair number of basic knots. Much of the campcraft has been moved into the Fieldbook and some of the merit badge booklets. But that doesn't mean that scouts don't learn the fundamentals. Our troop does a fair amount of backpacking and hiking and usually have a least one campout per year devoted to Pioneering where they learn/practice lashings, splicing and more advanced knots.

There are lots of different approaches to running a scout troop. Your comments may apply to some, but not all.

Check these... be sure to look through the links included at the end of each article.