Rope demo at TCIA

Jman

Jman

Location
Philly
My bosses today told me that there was a man setup at TCIA using a sharpened silky and cutting 11mm rope by barely touching it. The rope was tensioned with a regulars person weight and was not over tightened. If anyone has more information I would like to see what his test was actually about. Something seems fishy but it might be a valid test. I have touched my 11mm-11.7mm with my brand new silky and barley broke 3-4 strands on the cover. They made it sound like this one test would limit us to 1/2" rope.

Today I took a few good swipes at my blaze and my poison ivy and cut right though it but I also cut right though 1/2" line. Any help or clarification would be great we where just allowed to use smaller diameter rope and I would hate to loose it so soon.
 
My friend Greg Liu showed me a trick where he took scissors and cut neatly down on one side of a 16 strand climbing rope. 16 strands was all he cut,, all straight in a row. The damage to the rope was barely visible from most angles of view, and when you did see it, it just looked like fuzz on one side of a perfectly fine rope. But then he jerked on the rope with his bare two hands and pulled the sheath completely apart.

The point he was making by doing that is the whole continuity of the rope was broken from just one small barely detectable nick. And he went on to say, "Many times when you nick your rope with the chain saw it only occurs on one side! And seemingly only appears to be only slightly damaged."

It was a very enlightening demonstration.
 
They didn't give me a lot of detail so curiosity has gotten the best of me today. I hope they take it as enlightening and not overboard.
 
dang 100 veiws and no one has anymore information must have been a small booth or not worth taking note.
frown.gif
 
I asked two of the guys from our company that went if they saw this demonstration, and they didn't know what I was talking about.

It sounds really interesting, especially as we have all heard about recent rope cutting incidents with handsaws.


SZ
 
When looking to buy my first Silky, I barely touched the blade to see how sharp the point was. Didn't think I did anything, until a minute later saw a little blood on the finger. I bought the saw.

Later in a tree, I accidentally bumped the blade on the rope. Ended up cutting the rope section off, just to be safe, fortunately lost only a couple ft. Now I often lanyard in before using the handsaw, tho probably most guys don't do that.
 
[ QUOTE ]


Later in a tree, I accidentally bumped the blade on the rope. Ended up cutting the rope section off, just to be safe, fortunately lost only a couple ft. Now I often lanyard in before using the handsaw, tho probably most guys don't do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

for the same reason I often do the same -

peace,

mk
 
destroyed a couple perfectly good ropes doing the same. just lil touches. one scary incident cut through about half the rope causing me to ask for another rope just so i could get down.
 
Jman,

It is simple enough to duplicate this. Take some retired or short chunks of rope. Hang a 150-200# log from the rope...keep it real close to the ground. Drag a saw across the rope and see how little it takes to get the rope to fail.

A better setup would be to setup a DdRT scenario with the logs so that it's more like a climbing setup.

Whenever I cut anywhere near my climbing rope I lanyard in. In fact, I'd guess that about 50% of my handsaw cuts are made with lanyard around a bomber, second TIP...just in case!
 
Wasn't there but it does saw plausible given a rope under tension is much easier to cut then not. More so it sounds like a demonstration of the value of a second TIP. Like Tom, I'll throw my lanyard around a limb to position me and free up my hands mainly but, when my line is close to the saw it is also a backup.
 
I'm with all of you guys with being very careful while near my line and every now and then when I'm super close I'll lanyard in.

They only gave me vague details. I'll update and maybe record some of my testing when I get around to it. I can see swiping your line would cut it all the way though but just a simple tap of the saw is a bit extreme in my eyes. I'll try getting more details Monday.
 
Here's just a quick note that I recall there being some
testing done on rockclimbing (IIRC) rope that showed that
the same cut done on tensioned rope that would explode it
(into two pieces) under some given force would HOLD if the
load were later applied. So, in addition to the increased
vulnerability of rope to be cut when under tension, there
might be this aggravating aspect on the severity of the cut.
(I'll hope to find some better reference to this; maybe it
was something at or linked from the UIAA site.)

*kN*
 
KnudeNoggin
I will look through my Technical Rescue Symposium Data from a few years back. This was tested with a Static Kernmantle and a 600lb load. If I remember correctly the kernmantle rope had to be cut almost all the way through before the load dropped. Maybe we can get SPRAT to test braid on braid and a few of our other favorite arborist lines....

I will find the info (it's in a box somewhere from 2000)
 
Well I did get the details. It wasn't a demo they must have misunderstood but it was an inter office demo they did with one one the life like dummies. Basically the tester hung the dummy from inside the shop and cut a few of the common 11mm lines. Until I see the video I can't tell you how the "swipes" looks but it sounds like its a real hard swipe not taps. Basically don't cut your line and if your cutting near your line lanyard in.
 
True Story,

Working during the 97 ice storm in Ottawa. A good buddy of mine and I were working with a young fella and his dad as foreman (working for municipality) Young guy was late for work and really hung over when he did arrive. Dad was furious as it was not the first time. We told him to leave it to us and said we were finally going to let the young guy try out our ascenders to get up in a tree. We set a line high up and a safety belay hooked to his back. He didnt really look in the mood to climb but had wanted to try the ascenders and did not want to say no in front of his fuming dad. Up he went slowly at first but picked up a bit of speed. When he was about 40 ft up we yelled to him to look down. We said that we were fed up with his attitude and to punish him we were going to cut his rope. He looked down at us with the stereotypical adolescent smarkyness and said "yeah right" I pulled my handsaw from my scabbard and swung it at his anchor line, I remember barely feeling the rope as I swung. The look on his face was priceless as my friend "let him run" on belay and stopped him just short of the ground. That seemed to sober him up real fast and he apologized to everyone and got to work. I hear he now has his own tree company.
 
I won't go into why but I had to cut the end of my rope off under tension. I used a little Silky Pro Sentei and it took one easy swipe to completely severe it. Poison Hi-vy

Cutting rope under tension is a classic scenario in mountain rescue. People do it waaay to often because they don't realize how much quicker it will give up with body weight on it.
 
Man,the first year I was climbing I knicked ropes and lanyards several times... got myself a few times to boot. Now, I avoid letting the blade of my handsaw face a rope or skin when I'm moving it. No more knicks.
 
Same here, just move the saw backwards. The top, or spine, of the blade goes first until it gets into wood, then don't have any body or rope parts in line with the teeth while cutting, in case of a wild cut through. I learned this the hard way, got the shark teeth scars on my left forearm to always remind me.
 
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