Glossary

A Flemish splice (in industrial rigging, you’ll also hear “Flemish eye splice”) is a mechanical wire-rope splice used to form a permanent eye (loop) at the end of a wire rope, most commonly for wire rope slings. It’s called “mechanical” because the finished termination is typically secured with a swaged metal sleeve (pressed on with a hydraulic swager), often with a thimble inside the eye to protect the rope from wear and crushing where it bears on a hook, shackle, or pin.

The way it’s made is very specific: the wire rope is opened/unlaid into two parts (commonly described as three strands in one group and three strands plus the core in the other), those two bundles are looped in opposite directions to form the eye, and then the strands are laid back together and “rolled” back around the rope body. The “tails” (the ends of the unlaid strands) are then captured under a metal sleeve that gets swaged to lock everything in place.

In plant life, the Flemish eye is popular because it’s rugged, repeatable, and tolerant of abuse compared to some other eye constructions—especially when properly fabricated by a qualified sling shop. The sleeve’s job is primarily to secure the strand ends around the rope body; the overall strength comes from how the rope is re-laid and how the load is distributed through the eye and body of the sling.

A couple of important “specifier notes” show up in real purchasing and inspection. Flemish eye splicing is commonly presented as the go-to option for many industrial sling applications, but it is also often stated to be limited to certain rope constructions (for example, 6-strand ropes in some manufacturers’ guidance). In terms of safety governance, sling inspection and use requirements are typically tied back to the sling standards many shops follow (for example, ASME B30.9 is commonly referenced in industry guidance for sling inspection).

One last nuance: outside of rigging, you’ll sometimes see “Flemish” used in other contexts (knots/loops, even bowstrings), but if you’re in an industrial shop and someone says “Flemish splice”, they almost always mean the wire-rope Flemish eye mechanical splice termination used on slings.

AKA: Flemish Eye Splice