Winch extension rope - hard or soft eyes?

[AndyRevill]

Hi,

Some 3/8" Amsteel blue has come my way and I want to make up one or two winch extension ropes but I can't decide between splicing hard eyes with thimbles or soft eyes with wear protectors - I can see pros and cons to each and you see both being sold.

Anyone see any particular benefit of going one way or the other?

cheers, Andy

[Yorkshire_Jon]

I guess the benefit of wear protectors is that the rope is ultimately lighter and splicing needs to be less accurate with regard to loop lengths.

With the eyes, I think the biggest bonus is that you are spreading the load into the rope over a larger surface area and therefore you will place less stress on the loading point of the rope. It will therefore be less susceptible to fatigue at the load point.

I recently had the same dilema and decided that my winch extensions would have thimbles in them.

HTH
Jon

[willem]

I guess the benefit of wear protectors is that the rope is ultimately lighter and splicing needs to be less accurate with regard to loop lengths.

With the eyes, I think the biggest bonus is that you are spreading the load into the rope over a larger surface area and therefore you will place less stress on the loading point of the rope. It will therefore be less susceptible to fatigue at the load point.

I recently had the same dilema and decided that my winch extensions would have thimbles in them.

HTH
Jon

Makes sense to me!

Willem

[AndyRevill]

I guess the benefit of wear protectors is that the rope is ultimately lighter and splicing needs to be less accurate with regard to loop lengths.

With the eyes, I think the biggest bonus is that you are spreading the load into the rope over a larger surface area and therefore you will place less stress on the loading point of the rope. It will therefore be less susceptible to fatigue at the load point.

I recently had the same dilema and decided that my winch extensions would have thimbles in them.

HTH
Jon

I agree with hard eyes having better load bearing characteristics. The only thing pushing me towards soft eyes is the ability to join lengths together easily without shackles.

Out of interest did you settle on any one particular type of thimble - gal? stainless? I've seen some nice tube thimbles, often referred to as crush proof?

cheers, Andy

[Yorkshire_Jon]

I agree with hard eyes having better load bearing characteristics. The only thing pushing me towards soft eyes is the ability to join lengths together easily without shackles.

Out of interest did you settle on any one particular type of thimble - gal? stainless? I've seen some nice tube thimbles, often referred to as crush proof?

cheers, Andy

OK, I maybe being an idiot here, but how do you easily join them together without shackles? Presumably thread one end of the rope through the eye of the other rope and back through itself?

Why not a thimble at one end and competition safety hook on the other? Then they'll just clip together and you can get a shackle through the hook at the end if need be.

Jon

[long stroke]

Bad news if the strap breaks and they are joined my shackles
People have been killed (one just resently)
There is an effective way of joining straps, but i can't explain it without two straps to work it out

TIM.

[AndyRevill]

OK, I maybe being an idiot here, but how do you easily join them together without shackles? Presumably thread one end of the rope through the eye of the other rope and back through itself?

Jon

That's the way. having thought about it a bit more it should be possible to have a short length with soft eyes that could act like a rope "shackle" for the few times two lengths might need to be joined. That way the main extensions can have proper hard eyes. Might have to have a play

cheers, Andy