Construction reference
The Bench Manual.
How every Rope Lead is made — the splices, the dimensions, the tolerances. Print it, laminate it, hang it over the bench. If it's not in here, it doesn't go in a lead.
Rev C — dimensions, taper schedules, traffic handle, care & the guarantee
Materials
Rope & hardware
One rope, one source, no substitutions between batches without a re-test: double-braided polyester, cover and core both polyester, marine grade (Cordage Institute CI 1500 class). Polyester because it doesn't rot, holds knot and splice geometry, and survives Australian UV better than nylon.
| Component | Specification | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rope | Double-braid polyester, 6–14 mm | Same construction across the range |
| Carabiner — No. 6 / 8 | Alloy screw-lock, 20 kN gate-closed | Anodised, keylock nose |
| Carabiner — No. 10 / 12 | HMS alloy screw-lock, 25 kN | Larger basket for the bigger eye |
| Snap — No. 14 | Solid brass panic snap | Quick release under load |
| Whipping twine | Waxed polyester, 1 mm | Sailmaker's whipping, every tail |
| Serving twine | Waxed polyester, 1.5 mm | Handle grip option |
Spec sheet
Dimensions per lead
Finished length is 1.5 m for the whole range, measured from the carabiner gate to the handle throat. One fid = 21 × rope diameter — the cordage industry's unit for splice work; every measurement below is a multiple of it.
| Lead | Rope Ø | 1 fid | Bury (each end) | Eye allowance | Cut length | Breaking strain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 6 | 6 mm | 12.6 cm | 18 cm | 6 cm | 200 cm | ~800 kg |
| No. 8 | 8 mm | 16.8 cm | 24 cm | 8 cm | 215 cm | ~1,400 kg |
| No. 10 | 10 mm | 21 cm | 30 cm | 10 cm | 230 cm | ~2,200 kg |
| No. 12 | 12 mm | 25 cm | 36 cm | 12 cm | 250 cm | ~3,000 kg |
| No. 14 | 14 mm | 29 cm | 42 cm | 14 cm | 265 cm | ~4,000 kg |
Cut length = 150 cm finished + 2 × bury + 2 × eye allowance. On No. 10 and up, add one more bury + 12 cm for the traffic handle — it comes out of the same continuous length. The bury is 30 × diameter — enough that a correctly tapered, lock-stitched splice holds well past any load a dog can produce, with margin to spare.
Taper schedule
A buried tail is never cut square. Divide the tail into thirds; at each mark, cut away a third of the strands (cover and core alike), so the tail feathers to nothing. A square-cut tail is a stress riser — it's where splices fail first on the test rig.
| Lead | Tail length | First cut — remove ⅓ of strands | Second cut — remove ½ of what remains | Tip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 6 | 18 cm | at 6 cm | at 12 cm | feather to 18 cm |
| No. 8 | 24 cm | at 8 cm | at 16 cm | feather to 24 cm |
| No. 10 | 30 cm | at 10 cm | at 20 cm | feather to 30 cm |
| No. 12 | 36 cm | at 12 cm | at 24 cm | feather to 36 cm |
| No. 14 | 42 cm | at 14 cm | at 28 cm | feather to 42 cm |
The construction
Eye splice — the signature joint
Used at every termination: around the carabiner at the working end, as the handle, and again as the traffic handle on No. 10 and up. The rope is opened, fed back through itself, and buried. Under load it tightens. It retains ~90% of the rope's rated strength — the strongest knot in common use manages about 75%.
1Measure and mark
Mark A (throat) one eye-length from the end. Mark B at the tail, one bury past A.
2Extract the core
Open the cover at A with a fid and work the core out. Do not cut anything yet.
3Form the eye
Bend the rope back on itself. Feed the tail into the cover at A with the fid.
4Taper and bury
Cut the tail strands in a staggered taper, then milk the cover back — the tail disappears inside the rope.
5Lock and whip
Three lock stitches through the throat, then a sailmaker's whipping. The splice is now permanent.
✓The finished eye
No hardware in the joint, nothing to rot or chafe through. Loaded, it only tightens.
| Lock-stitch spec | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Stitches | 3, through both legs of the throat |
| Thread | Waxed whipping twine, doubled |
| Spacing | 1 × Ø apart, starting 1 × Ø from the throat |
| Finish | Each stitch seized, ends buried under the whipping |
Close control
The traffic handle — No. 10 and up
A second, short eye spliced into the standing part 35 cm above the working eye — close enough to hold a dog at your knee through a crossing or a vet door. It is the feature people didn't know they needed until the first time they use it, and the one no mass-produced lead bothers to splice properly.
| Dimension | Specification | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Position | 35 cm above the working eye | Measured to the loop's throat |
| Loop size | 12 cm flat length | Fits a gloved hand |
| Construction | Second eye splice, full bury both sides | Same spec as the main eye |
| Marker | Turk's head collar, accent twine | Find it by touch, not by looking |
The traffic handle is spliced from the same continuous length — never a second piece of rope sewn on. One rope, remember.
The finish
Sailmaker's whipping
Every cut end and every splice throat gets whipped. Friction alone holds it — no glue, no heat-shrink, nothing to crack off in five years.
1Lay the loop
Lay a loop of waxed twine along the rope, its bight pointing toward the rope's end.
2Wind
Wind firm, even turns over the loop, working toward the rope's end. Length ≈ 1.5 × rope diameter.
3Pull through
Pull the tail under its own turns until the loop vanishes, then trim both ends flush.
The grip
Serving — the handle option
The served handle: 15–20 cm of the grip wound hard in waxed twine over a thin leather or canvas underlay, like the tiller of a boat. It adds grip wet or dry, it never slips on the rope beneath it, and it's the most photographed detail we make. Standard on No. 10 and up, optional below.
◉Serve the grip
Wind waxed twine over an underlay, each turn hauled hard against the last. Finish with a whipping at both ends.
Why no knots
Strength of the join
A knot is a sharp bend, and rope fails at its sharpest bend. This is why the load path of a Rope Lead contains no knots — only splices. Knots appear only where they're decorative.
| Join | Strength retained | In a Rope Lead? |
|---|---|---|
| Eye splice | ~90% | Everywhere load travels |
| Figure-8 loop | ~75–80% | No |
| Bowline | ~60–70% | No |
| Overhand knot | ~45% | Never |
| Monkey's fist / turk's head | — | Decorative only |
Before anything ships
The test protocol
| Test | Standard | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Proof load | 100 kg for 60 s, no slip, no fibre damage | Every single lead |
| Destructive pull | To failure; must exceed 50% of rope rating at the splice | 1 in 50, recorded |
| Gate cycle | 500 open-close cycles, then proof load again | Each hardware batch |
| UV / salt | Salt-spray then 500 h UV, then proof load | Each rope batch |
Every result is logged against the lead's number. When a customer asks about lead #047 in ten years, we can tell them what it pulled on the rig.
In the field
Care — what we tell every customer
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| After the beach | Rinse in fresh water, dry in shade. Salt is cosmetic, UV is not. |
| Mud | Let it dry, brush it out. Machine washing is fine cold, no dryer. |
| Chewing | The cover wears first and warns you — but a chewed cover means roughly half the strength is gone, so retire it from duty. Send us a photo: chew damage is covered by the lifetime guarantee — we repair or replace. |
| Monthly check | Run the splice throats through your fingers. Any slip, lump, or gap — stop using it and contact us. |
| Storage | Hung by the handle, out of the sun. The way it hangs on our site, in fact. |