Best way to count cover/core strands?

[Brock Mayo]

i finally cut and dissected a short piece of 3/8 stable braid to discover 16 cover strands and 8 core.
Is there a better way? If you have a good pattern, counting left or right strands until they repeat and doubling it, seems to work. Not for core strands though with no pattern?
The dyed core strands didn’t help my counting either, I don’t think I’ve seen that before.

 

[lumberjack]

I don't have a good answer for this... if you're splicing you're already in the rope. If you're buying, you should have access to the specs... beyond that, I haven't found the interest/need.

 

[Burnham]

I don't either...but the splice looks very good @Brock Mayo.

 

[Brock Mayo]

Thanks Burnham!
Seems like a pro splicer would have a spreadsheet for all the common ropes. I haven’t found too many specs that talk about much more than the cover strands.
I was surprised that stable braid was 16 strands, always just assumed 24. It does look way different than the common climbing double braids.

 

[Kaveman]

We recently evicted the rope autistic. He'd certianly have chimed in with loads of useless information and much conviction whilst speaking of something he's never actually done...

That said, splicing is a bit beyond my skill set, I'm happy to be able to tie knots in the stuff and it hold me up. Beyond that, it's all black magick beyond the ken of mortal man.

 

[lxskllr]

Is there a practical application for this knowledge? If you don't need a million different ropes, writing to the manufacturer would probably be easiest.

Also, like Kave, I don't splice, and don't think about the intricacies of rope much, but if you know how many strands a rope is supposed to have, you'd only have to count the cover OR the core. If you have 16 cover strands, then the core must be 8 with a 24strand rope. That's how it works, right?

 

[friedrich]

Is there a practical application for this knowledge? If you don't need a million different ropes, writing to the manufacturer would probably be easiest.

Also, like Kave, I don't splice, and don't think about the intricacies of rope much, but if you know how many strands a rope is supposed to have, you'd only have to count the cover OR the core. If you have 16 cover strands, then the core must be 8 with a 24strand rope. That's how it works, right?

it‘s about the cover, a 24 strand rope has 24 cover strands.

 

[friedrich]

i tend to look it up.. counting is confusing

 

[Naturarbo]

My crew splices a few types of ropes for toll lanyards, rigging and climbing ropes, mostly double braids.
The best counting is from user manual, next best cut a piece and dissect it.
By the way great splice @Brock Mayo

 

[Brock Mayo]

So where do you all look up these numbers? As far as I can tell most companies only publish the cover strand numbers and that’s usually just for climbing ropes. Ixskllr the number of strands changes how you do your taper, when I’ve gotten it wrong (with my limited knowledge) it usually means starting over.
I was surprised it looks like stable braid goes from 16 to 20 to 24 cover strands as you go from 3/8 to 3/4 inch diameter. Not sure what goes on with the core strands?
Anyone who has too much time on your hands (and an interest in splicing) check out Eric Forsman on YouTube. He’s got some great videos showing some of the most common rope splices.