Spliced Camera Strap

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Here’s a tiny 2 hr project with very little technical merit, but I enjoy it quite a bit and it’s red so maybe it’s topically appropriate ;)

I lost my prior camera strap for my Sony A7 II digital camera and saw a splicing tutorial on YT so I decided to follow it.

I ended up ordering some 8mm dyneema rope (link), a 7.5mm splicing fid (link) and using some upholstery thread and a needle I had lying around.

Completed eye is so stiff it retains its position after bending. This is the minimum bend radius.

First Attempt

I experimented with some twine and figured a strap 30cm long would be a good size. Since this only gave ~12cm on either side to terminate each eye, I wanted to go with the strongest eye possible since the smaller termination would weaken it, so I wend with the video on the left.

Unfortunately, with my rope this made the completed splice so stiff it wouldn’t bend easily. It took almost 30 minutes of tension and pounding with a hammer to loosen the fibers to make the final connection.

Finished Strap

I decided to go with a different tutorial, this time prioritizing the flexibility of the strap. The one I went with was a reeving eye commonly used for lanyards that only uses the cover of the rope.

I’m quite happy with the finished strap!

I’m also really happy to have experimented with splicing ropes. I could make another in <30 minutes, so it’s totally feasible to integrate something like this in future projects.