tapered sheets

I have had some success with tapering my own sheets and wonder if anyone cares and wants a thread on that as when I asked the riggers around here they said they could not do it or wanted $70 a pop.

It is really easy, just need a little practice and patience. There are plenty of resources around- I taught myself off the samsonrope web page.

I only charge $20, your riggers are wack...

70 seemed a little excessive.
The splice I can't do (because I don't have the patience) is the double braid eye splice. that sucks.

I think the price refleects the fact they do not do it regularly and are not sure of how but want to charge out the hour as an expert.

how long does it take to do ?

About an hour with two practices so I think a half hour.

I'd be interested to hear your approach. I did it this weekend, but went for a very quick and dirty method of feeding a 3.5mm line down the core of my mainsheet. Effective, but leaves a fair lump between the two different sections.

I've always thought it would be good to document this sort of "how to" stuff on a wiki. We set one up for F16 stuff last year, but it hasn't really been used - you're welcome to add content to http://www.formula16.org/wiki. If it ends up with lots of non-F16 stuff on it, I'll happily rebrand it.

Paul

OK, so how much does the rope cost and what labour cost ?

70bucks is 35 GBP - does not sound expensive to me for 12m+ of rope and 30mins of someones time....

Marlow has some good information about DIY splicing:
http://www.marlowropes.com/public/pageManager.cfm?page_id=21

No..they quoted $55 for the hour and could not guarantee that it would not take longer than the hour and wold not guarantee the splice. I was supplying the cordage.

Sounds like they didn't want to be bothered with the job.

wow, for that kind of money, just learn to do it yourself. I did and can now strip a cover and finish off the taper in about 20 minutes and it didn't take alot of practice. My splicing is not the prettiest, but it works. Once you know how to do it, you will find yourself using it on alot of smaller lines that you would not otherwise think it is worthwhile to pay to have done. Just pick up a set of needles, some wipping twine, a couple of fids (the swedish ones are nice) and a pusher. Take a look here:

www.samsonrope.com

you will want the class 2 splicing instructions. Once you figure it out, it really is quite easy. I just checked and the site doesn't seem to be working. If it's not up by tomorrow, PM me and I can email you the instructions (i have them downloaded on my home computer).

Good Luck!!

My larger line is a favourite English style. It has an outer braid, an inner braid and a core.
I cut two inches of the core, one inch off the inner brais and then pull the inner through from the small line and melt the two small cores together. This must be a very tidy small join so no hard spot.
I then pull small lines out over the join and melt the frayed end voer so it is smoth, wont pull back over join but has no large hard spot. I then pull braided inner of larger line over and then pull out two of the braided sections back to the joing of the two core lines and cut and remove. This ensures there is no swelling in the finnished sheet. I pull the large outer over the lot and whip it it good.
No swelling, very strong, nop creep and only a half inch or smaller hard spot where the whipping is.

Yes, and I suppose my problem is that I live three hours from the nearest seroiuus sailing city and know none of the sailors. There is probably someone who does a great job for a good price but I got sick of looking and asking. Up side of that is now I don't have to and I am self sufficient....a good thing where sailing is concerned.