There is no lock stitch. You need the eye to slide. When pressure is applied on the loop the eye closes locking the knot in place. To open or close the loop you just slide the eye open and push the knot through, and you can only do that when there is no tension on the loop.

It's a simple bury, the outside is bunched up a little so when pressure is applied the inside slides and close the eye. The knot is done with the two end of the line still inside each other. At the center of the turk knot there is a stopper knot made at the end of the lines. There is no need for a lock stitch anywhere, the turk knot acts as the lock stich.

Now that I know how it's done I need to take measurements to make it right everytime: judging how much line you need to do a turk knot is hard!

I will trade you a couple 4 packs of Tennent's Super Lager for a set

I make those the lazy way.
-Make the eye just like a normal splice by pulling the end back into the core.
-Then cut both the inner and outer core at the same time at the desired length.
-Burn the ends together so that it kind of forms a little stub.
-Then just put a single of figure eight knot in and you are done.

IMHO the Turk knot in the expensive version is just for show.

Sorry man, I only drink real ale or champagne. Not super lager!

sounds like my technique, except I torch the end after tying the knot with what I call a "flame thrower" type lighter that gets to high enough temp to melt the dyneema a little.

I just tried Tony's method. Duh. Doesn't look as good as a turk knot, but works just fine and it's way way way quicker to make. I don't think I'm going to do a turk knot again! Thanks!

Well, I went ahead and made a couple.

In my first attempt, I tied a chinese button knot first, and buried the end. Then I put an eye in the other end. Unfortunately, I tested opening and closing the eye before putting in a lockstitch and I inadvertently pulled the eye out. At that point, I decided that the bury wasn't long enough anyway, and I should splice the eye first.

On the second try, I did an extra-long bury on the eye, and put a lockstitch in (near the tail of the bury) just to keep the loop in place while I tied the button knot. Then I tied a knife-lanyard-knot and cut off the end flush under the knot. I don't think the lockstitch is structurally necessary, as the stop-knot binds the core in place.

It wasn't that difficult. The hardest part was burying the tail of the eye, and only because I was using too large a fid. It was an interesting exercise, and I'm glad I did it even though I use a snap shackle and don't plan to change it out.

Regards,
Eric

I no longer use a fid for burying, I use stainless wire. Starting with around 1m50 of wire bend it over onto itself, crimp the free ends toguether and then slide a plastic ball with the small hole toward the crimp. To do a bury slide the wire inside the cover from far back, exit where you want to finish the eye, put the free end in between the two wires, pull it back using the plastic ball to bunch up the cover.

A wire is the only way to deal with a 3mm dynnema line anyway as the smallest fid only works to 4mm.

Anything wrong with just using a normal pin type shackle like this other than it take a bit longer...?

Nothing wrong with shakles except that using HM line can save miniscule amounts of weight (that can add up), probably costs a little less, requires skills and most importantly (as Tami used to say) and it sure looks cool!

I am simply looking for excuses to use splices as i have now purchased 3 different sets (or types) of fids... (for the cost of about 50 shackles)

PS the Brion Toss Fid (about $75) works almost the same exact way as Pepin's wire except it has a 1mm loop of dyneema to "grab" the tail and pull it through (instead of pushing like a Sampson/Selma fid does) for the bury

All that is well and good but don't you still need a shackle to go through the "swivel/button" at the top of the block? So your actually adding weight and an extra failure point unless your running the line through the little hole in the swivel,in which case it would seem to cut it alot faster.

I agree.. i think the thread got off track a bit and we were no longer talking just about connecting the blocks but how to make dyneema loops (to be used in other places)

In 7 years I never had one of these fail. Boom connection to mast did. But not this. And easy to connect when the wind to blowing good.

Doug

I went ahead and made another dyneema loop. This one is intended to replace the wire loop that connects my mainsail tack to the downhaul blocks (around the boom gooseneck). I did a simple bury for the eye, exited the line, put in a locking brummel, and then reburied the tail. At the other end, I tied a chinese-button-knot and buried it's tail as well. The entire loop (except for cutting off the button tail and burying it) was tied from the "spool-end", so I only wasted a few inches of line.

I'm going to have to do something to keep the line from snagging on the gooseneck (I think wrapping with tape may suffice). My hope is that this will be a little easier to connect than getting the pin in the small shackle.

Again, it was fun to do. I hope it works.

looks good.

Eric - I am doing something very similar on my boat with Dynema, I have that same cable for the downhaul but it was too long. I am just using a doubled over loop of dynema and it works like a champ, I can get more adjustment out of the downhaul now as its not block to block right away like it was with the cable.

I like the fast pin solution of my Cap very much. Absolutely reliable and easy to release in difficult situations.

where is the fast pin? i only see shackles

My preference. Just attach to top of the upper block.

The bolt of the twisted shackle has no screw thread. It keeps in place due to the tension of the sail and is secured by the loop of (in this case) black shock cord.