Made up two soft shackles following this video.
Congratulations Seabird.
I now have no excuse but to bring out the set of stainless steel fids I bought in 2014!
This one may be better. Check out the Edwards soft shackle.
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Great thing they are, the best thing about being able to make your own is that you can make them any size, for example I use one I made as the clew strap, much better than a velvro strap.
I use this method as I find being able to 'push' the opening open rather than pulling open means you don't grab strands and make the shackle look crap.
Select to expand quoteseabird said..
Made up two soft shackles following this video.
I kept the inner section of the pen that they use as a splicing fid and taped the line to the end of the pen. Slide the core over the pen rather than trying to push the pen.
Not too hard just take your time doing the 'diamond knot'
I got the 5mm 12 strand UHMWPE from Wet Teck Rigging on eBay $4.50/ m delivered
I have just read the article in "Yachting World" where they tested the various soft shackles this video comes from. It was mainly about the knot used and they concluded the Diamond knot was the best. They tested various soft shackles they made and bought ones and the breaking strains they achieved were quite startling [they tested them to destruction]. The bought ones were generally the best but I can see if you spent some time tensioning the knot and leaving plenty of tail you can expect similar results. I only have one I use on my genoa sheets but I shall be converting a lot of D shackles to soft.
