Tested to failure

I'm a river guy. My ground tackle needs are not extravagant. I use 15' of 8mm chain spliced to 5/8" nylon 8 plait (unknown brand - but getting soft). I will replace the 8 plait because I like the way it lays in the locker, and keep the chain. But I NEVER want to splice 8 plait again. What a PITA! So I began to look for alternate methods to connect the two media. Nobody talks about it, like it is forbidden. I'm something of a rule breaker. I cut off a few feet of the wrong end of my 8 plait to play with. I bought a 1/4" and a 5/16" proof coil lap link from the hardware store. For each, I pierced the 8 plait with a spike and followed it with the lap link. For the 5/16 link, I wrapped the 8 plait with SS tie wire, in the other I left open. Then saturated both with Super Glue. I closed the lap link to a chain wrapped around a tree. I tied a bowline in the 8 plait and dropped it over my trailer hitch. Applied tension to failure. See pic for results. The 8 plait broke at the bowline with the 5/16 link. The 1/4 link simply spread. In both cases, the super-glued 8 plait held. Just sayin'.

Very cool! Thanks for posting.

I am surprised you could break it, pulling with a pickup truck presumably.

That 5/8” 8 plait has an ultimate tensile strength of 5,000+ lbs.

David

DavidM said:

I am surprised you could break it, pulling with a pickup truck presumably.

That 5/8” 8 plait has an ultimate tensile strength of 5,000+ lbs.

David

Click to expand...

Once a knot is tied in a rope, in this case a bowline, the strength declines as much
as half or more depending on many variables.

The plait shows some wear and It broke at the knot, so maybe half or less rated strength. 6000 lb truck, 4WDLow, 285 tires; pretty sure it would develop enough tension. The 5/16" lap link has an advertised working load of 660 lbs, so expect a catastrophic failure and >3x that. It held.

I’m with you. I love my brait 8 plait, but man is it hard to splice. It took me four tries, like 2 hours total, on my rope to chain connection and it is still super ugly.