Page 213 - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

Figure 6-22. As you enter the spike into the stand-
ing part, your left thumb acts as a fulcrum while you
push in and down with your right hand. (See expla-
nation on page 191.)

Figure 6-23. To roll the spike, keep the shaft parallel
with the lay, and rotate the handle around the wire.
This action will cause the spike to shuttle back and
forth. Practice keeping the same length of spike in the
wire at all times.

The Splice
Preliminaries over. Look at Figure 6-24, at the one
strand that is separated. That’s the first one to be
tucked. It’s the innermost tail strand you can see
from above at the thimble. By the way, most riggers
just unlay the whole bundle immediately, but doing
one strand at a time is considerably easier; you’ll be
dealing with a squid soon enough.
The strands are numbered 1 through 6, and the
strand you have just unlaid is #6. I can’t explain now Figure 6-24. After separating strand #6, the inner-
why you’re starting with the last strand, except to most of the tail strands at the base of the thimble
say that how the splice starts is important and that as seen from above, pick out the two strands that
this start is unusually smooth. You’ll see why later. correspond to those shaded, and enter the spike
Look again at Figure 6-24, at the two shaded under both.
strands on the standing part. Like #6, they intersect

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