Page 270 - Brion Toss - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

With a pair of nippers, unlay and cut the wire until the tape on the wire is completely buried in the
strands one at a time to form a tapered end (Figure rope core. Now anchor the wire by taping very firmly
6-69B). Cut the core strand short, near the shortest over the core at the point where the wire exits. Both
surface strand. wire and core must be made immobile with the tape.
Use a small Swedish Fid or similar tool to Count the number of yarns in the core. Divide
make your tucks. It is easiest to use if the handle is this number by three. Then use an awl to extri-
clamped in a machinist’s vise, so that you can open cate three even groups of adjacent yarns out of the
the lay of the rope a little, and push it down over braid—you pry them out back at the tape. If the
the fid. number of yarns isn’t evenly divisible by three, one
group will have one more yarn than the others. Wax
Transformation each bundle thoroughly as you extricate it, running
Insert the tapered wire end into the core on the end a cake of sailmaker’s wax repeatedly over the bun-
side of the bit of tape on the core. Thread the wire dle, always rubbing toward the end, until the bundle
in, being very careful to avoid snagging core yarns, feels firm, with all yarns stretched out evenly.

Figure 6-69C. Insert the tapered-and-taped wire end into the core, then tape the core tightly around
the wire in the vicinity of the original piece of tape on the core. Unbraid the core end back to the tape
and group the strands into three bundles. Wax each bundle thoroughly by drawing a cake of sailmak-
er’s wax firmly along the bundle several times. Insert the end of a clamped fid under two wire strands,
then tuck the most convenient bundle under those strands. Note: the angle of the tuck is important. It
should be neither too square to the wire, nor too parallel. At just the right angle, each successive tuck
will not be bulky, but will completely cover the pair of strands that each bundle of fiber strands is
tucking around. See subsequent illustrations for an idea of what the correct angle is.

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