Acquired a eight rope spider from a local tower where it has sat for many decades and is of no use. Seemingly a homemade unit but now painted and back in proper use. Nice heavy metal weight so enough to pull the cord down on its own which works well.

My new ropes arrived today as the nylon ones were not a success at the long term strength and kept breaking. These ropes made by Maypole Bells and look really smart. Make the bells much easier to ring as well now that there are proper sallies to look for and use. 

Had an experiment tonight with the nylon rope attempting quite successfully to join the sally rope and the normal thin bell rope. So now the principle is proved the work can begin properly to make one up to test it.

Seaside towns always have ships chandlers which sell rope you can feel and check before you buy. Cowes in the Isle of Wight is just such a place where I found reasonably priced 6mm nylon rope to replace the short and joined current ropes. Also found some lovely thicker 15mm rope coloured in the traditional red whit blue sally colours which I hope to melt into the ropes to represent proper ropes. Should end up with ropes at a fraction of the cost. Could end up with eight ropes for £26!