Hey Dave, Neato! I used to do knots and splices too, but that was many years ago, when I wanted to be a seagull and had this unrequited dream that someday I was going to own a sailboat. But after 25 years without much leisure time, the idea sort of faded. Can't even remember the names of all of them now. What is the splice called that has the big lump on the end? One thing I do remember is that there is a knot called a Catspaw.

Do you have any photos you can post?

I took a course in biological illustration a few years ago and have a good stereo microscope on order finally (it was an ebay thing, so hopefully I'm not getting screwed). If everything turns out OK, I'll finally be able to proceed with my hobby and continue to do stuff like this