It’s been around for awhile, but if you are learning to splice double braid, or other high tech lines, this tool designed by master rigger Brion Toss is pretty much indispensable. Basically, it’s a hollow fid, but the innovation is a loop of dental-floss-sized Spectra line that can grip and pull a line back through it’s cover. It’s such a handy tool it could very well prevent the kind of “this is impossible,” frustration of splicing fancy lines. Below is a nice link from the trailer sailor forums, with a nice photographic demonstration of an eye splice in a piece of double braid. I originally found the Splicing Wand at a West Marine in Seattle, but have since discovered that it must have been at the discretion of the local store manager, as it’s not a regularly stocked item, and is not in the current catalog. However, you can order it directly from Brion Toss Rigging in Port Townsend, Washington (the website isn’t very well designed, so you have to dig a bit to find it, but trust me, it’s there).
