Lubricating the fid with McLube helped a lot. Thanks Larry!

This splice turned out looking pretty nice. What you don't see is that the cover is not buried quite as far as ideal. I'll add some stitching and whipping and call it good. Other stuff will fail before that splice, I'm sure of that.

We've had a larger Brion Toss splicing wand for a few years but have used it only once. My wife and a friend did that one while I remained intimidated.

Today my wife picked up a smaller splicing wand for me. I'll give that a go for my next one and report my results.

After that I'll be splicing shoelaces and every line in sight to justify the cost of the tool!