Just made my first set of woopies and an adjustable ridgeline. Super happy with how these came out. A few things that I thought were important for me in my process.
1. The taper on the ends is REALLY important for the ease of this. Don't get that right and you will work way too hard to get satisfaction. I tried the pulling thread process and it just wasn't what worked for me. For me, using a sharp razor blade knife and cutting the amsteel at a long angle did the trick. I got a nice taper and the transition on the bury was really great.
2. A nice splicing tool (I have no idea what the proper name should be) is a huge benefit. I used a guitar string. Here are some picks of what I used.
I recommend an 18 gauge non twisted guitar string. This works really great and I did a twist/fold on mine as you'll see further down that left me with a flexible but rigid enough tool that measured about 18" overall. Plenty long enough to do any of the buries I need when splicing hollow core amsteel.
Here is a close up of the "twisted" end of the tool. I took the free end of the string and feed it back through the eye end and went past a few inches (white arrow). I then took some needle nose pliers and clamped down about three inches up from the eye end (yellow arrow) and used regular pliers at the eye end (blue arrow) to twist the wire on itself. This keeps it from coming apart and also gives me an area of purchase for pulling on the tool. I then took the free end and using the pliers tied a square knot in the end and clipped off the excess.
On the opposite end I pinched it over a little to make the eye for grabbing the tapered end of the line I'm splicing. You can make this fairly pointy. With the twist at the far end it makes it possible to spread the wire a bit at the business end to get the line in there and have it still hold nicely for the pull through.
Lastly, 3. This is addictive. I did the two woopies at the office in about half an hour and waited till I got home so my son could learn the process on the ridgeline. That took all of 10 minutes. I found myself wishing I had a lot more amsteel to make more of these. For what use I have no idea. Guess I'll be making some more to give away on the PIF and as fun freebies to those I meet on the forum.
Addictive to say the least. Had to make the boy a new paracord bracelet (his buckle broke) just to get it out of my system.
God help me when I make the hammock this weekend. I going down folks. Somebody throw me a line...(I can splice it for ya or make a bracelet if needed).
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Originally Posted by WV
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