I thought most of you probably already know how to do this, and either do it or choose not to because its unnecessary. But then I reckoned that some might not have figured this out yet so I took pictures while building my newest sling. This sling is made from scraps or trimmings of hemp from my other slings, spliced together. Splicing is also a good way to hide trimmed strings in tapered cords, or hide string ends in introduced cords. It won't work with cordage that is braided around a core such as nylon cord. Here's how:

To splice two strings within a braid together, untwist the ends for at least an inch and grab and pull apart the fibers:



Place the unraveled ends together, press them together in the middle and twist them together. It helps to hold down the ends a bit if you can. If you do it right the transition will be very smooth:


Continue braiding, making sure the spliced portion remains twisted.

As a bonus, to make a whipped end, or if you like tying a half hitch at the end but don't want a bulky knot, fray out the strings at the end of your sling. Trim the fibers at an angle so that when you twist them back together they are also tapered:



Continue the braid until you can go no further and tie the knot. (Note: I had to go back and redo this. You will have to make the frayed and tapered ends at least twice as long as I have here.)

The finished sling:

That should be in the how to section. Thanks for that.

Great tutorial! 

Thanks.  Good idea.  I will try it.
timann

No problem! I'm glad this was helpful to some of you guys.

great tutrorial, this will come in handy.. thanks for posting!

Oh man, if only I thought of doing this with my tapered release cord on my "Baleric" sling, it would be much prettier. (And save me some stitching for reenforcement... )