safety blue

[chad]

i have been using new england's safety blue for two years now and it has been good rope, but the past two ropes ive had have separated the core from the sheath, and this is within only a few months use. this cannot be normal and milking it doesnt seem to be helping. is it possilbe to have a bad batch of rope? or am i missing someething? for what it is worth the same thing has happened to two other climbers i know within the past few months. no i do not have a splice eye on it.

 

[Mark Chisholm]

What do you mean by </font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
separated the core from the sheath

[/ QUOTE ] ?

 

[chad]

mark, when i am descending the tree on either my swabisch or an 8 i can feel the core moving independently from the sheath. on my last rope, a safety blue hi-vee the core actually pulled out of the sheath on my ascent. i was about 30' up and had to come out of the tree. it really spooked me and i couldnt climb for the rest of the day due to my own superstions about stuff like that. but now my new rope is starting to wet the bed. dissapointing because i do like new england ropes

 

[Mark Chisholm]

So, the sheath is slipping over the core so that all you have is sheath at one end?

 

[Colin]

AO-
It's called 'milking' and is a recognized, common trait for 16 strand or double braid ropes. Some milk more than others. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for milking the rope, cutting off the excess and redressing the end of the rope. There are also some older threads on that here.

The most popular 16 strand ropes are mostly the ones with the least amount of milking. Blue Streak, Safety Blue, XTC and the new Yellow Jacket are the four I would recommend. The Fly will milk more than any of these four 16 strand ropes.

 

[Mark Chisholm]

I think that our work is the worst for this milking. I remember being asked to try asn 11mm static line years ago to see if they should tweak it and market it for arborists and I milked out about 6' of sheath on a 50 meter line. They asked for it back because they never heard of such a thing.

My thought was that it was from our exclusive use of the friction hitch. It really squeezes a rope and twists it.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Once the intial milking is done, ropes are pretty stable. If you hot cut the ends, its a good idea to pull the core out about an inch or so, hot cut the core. then pull the sheath back and hot cut it seperatly. This allows the two parts to move and not bunch up so much. Keep cutting and sealing or taping the ends until it stops.

When Blue Streak first hit the market they had the sheath so loose that it wasn't unusual to get three feet of milking on a 120' rope. After a few batches, they stabilized the machines and got things dialed in.