Mark Rope Center?

NorthWoodsDiver

TreeHouser
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Duluth Minnesota
What's the best way to mark the middle of my rope? I recently heard that permanent markers can degrade rope and tape would interfere with the rope running through gear (I assume). Ideas?

T
 
I would use a permanent marker. In a technical sense licking your rope can probably degrade it, but the amount of degradation is minuscule and your rope is probably the strongest link in your life support chain anyway. So a permanent marker reduces your rope's technical strength from 8000 lbs to 7999.5 lbs. So what? Dragging it across a limb will wear the rope more than that.
 
well they used too.......My rock ropes have a pattern change at the center.
 
The AAC (or some climbing organization) did research on this. I never read it but got the impression a sharpie laundry marker worked fine.

Close to a year ago I marked a couple of rigging ropes with Yale Maxijacket and haven't noticed any problems.
 
The zealots will say not to use a marker. It will be fine in the real world, pitch, dirt, heat from friction do much more damage than a stain on a few strands of rope from a marker.
 
Probably do less damage than a whipping in the middle would.
Fwiw, I had a guy mark the middle (approxamatly) of a lowering line with a chainsaw once:X
 
It's gonna suck when we read about NWD in Awakenings after his lifeline parts in the middle.

I think you should blame Brian first, Wiley second, NoBivy third and me last.
 
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It's gonna suck when we read about NWD in Awakenings after his lifeline parts in the middle.

I think you should blame Brian first, Wiley second, NoBivy third and me last.

Na, it's cool. No reason to point blame. I am afterall a risk taker, I climb, drive, dive, skydive, and talk to women all of which could lead to serious injury or death.
 
A few years ago, I found metolius (rock climbing company) was marking ropes like this:

MET0193.jpg


I've done it on my rock climbing ropes and I really like it. I don't really have the need in treework to know where the mid point is, so I haven't done it to my arb ropes.

The threads really jump out at you when you're staring at a pile of rope. It takes less than a minute to do this to your ropes.

Metolius even marks each end of the rope about 10-15' away from the end (don't remember exactly where) but the idea is that if you are rappeling down the line, you'll see and/or feel the marker threads go through your hand or belay device and be warned that you are about to rap off the end of your line...

love
nick
 
"Tests done by the UIAA Safety Commission and by some rope manufacturers have shown that rope
marking with liquids such as those provided by felt-tipped pens can be dangerous, even with those
markers, sold specifically for marking ropes. The test results showed a decrease up to approximately
50% of the rope strength...."

and then in the next paragraph the president of UIAA says

"A damaged rope by marking is not a big problem, because such a marked rope can not break in practice (only when tested on the test machine
according to the standards, UIAA and EN (CEN)), such a marked rope can only break in practice when the two or three centimeters (about one inch), which are marked, are placed over a sharp rock edge when the rope is loaded by a fall".

This seems to be fairly contradictory. A 50% strength loss sounds fairly significant to me.
 
such a marked rope can only break in practice when the two or three centimeters (about one inch), which are marked, are placed over a sharp rock edge when the rope is loaded by a fall".

This seems to be fairly contradictory. A 50% strength loss sounds fairly significant to me.

Ummmmmm this sounds like how I would not run ANY rope.
 
Seems odd to test rope in a extreme situation that would probably not happen ever in every day use, so if you don't mark an inch of rope then test it over a sharp rock edge will it still break?

I am holding my head and nursing a strong coffee right now.
 
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