Seeing the foliage shake high up as I climb makes me nervous.

I believe, that by the nature of the beast, we're much better at assessing what's a safe TIP than what's an unsafe TIP. If a TIP doesn't fail, you don't know it's ultimate strength and how much safety factor you had. Professing knowledge of TIP strength seems a bit presumptuous in the absence of having failed a bunch of TIPs, which is probably rare (for good reason.) And what safety factor is desired for a TIP? If you test load with 2 people and call it good, does that mean you're happy as long as the safety factor is at least 2:1?
 
I think what Richard pointed out in the videos is important information. When using a rope walker system to ascend, he's found (through measurement not speculation) that he's only putting a maximum of just a little over his bodyweight on the TIP. I think we all want more than a 2:1 safety factor for a TIP, but without testing before climbing we don't know for sure that we have even that much safety factor. A two-person static load test, IMO, gives you that. Since I usually work solo, what Richard describes allows me to test to that same level. A 4:1 test would make me feel even better about the safety of my TIP, but it would be more cumbersome to set up. If you've got a groundie, you could do the 2:1 with them to get a 4:1.

There are lots of ways to make things safer for a climb. This is just a great (IMO) simple addition.
 
Isn't it a standard conundrum, applying nearer to overload just increases the odds of initiating the onset of whatever failure mechanism you happen to believe in, but not applying "test" loading means you won't catch those nature's oddity weak spots?

Three things. 1Go heaviest tip to make you feel good. 2Use TIP redundancy!!!! and 3climb more like a stealth lynx and less like a bouncing weight to take the bounce magnitude and cycles out of the equation.

Tip redundancy doesn't mean multiple lines. It means if the branch (union) you're on fails, that rope will be caught by another tip nearby with minimal fall distance for you. Related/similar to the whorl idea. Opposite of a properly isolated DRT line. Un-isolated DRT line or snaked through SRT line.

In doubt, keep a spar lanyard going all the time.

my 2cents
 
My idea of testing the TIP with my Ddrt climbing rig (post #30) works like I thought it would. I tried it on one of my skinny yard trees that's got a solid TIP 80 feet up. On a calm day I can see the entire top of the tree swaying as I climb, but that doesn't bother me. It's good to see the TIP is as solid as I thought it was. I was also glad to see the knots I use in setting up could be untied easily after doing the test.

Since I've got a pulley just below the TIP, I can usually get the anchor rope to include a lower limb as a backup. Dropping to a backup TIP is probably gonna hurt, but not nearly as much as falling to the ground.
 
Dropping to a lower tip I've found to a complete non issue. I dropped once, broke a tiny stub TIP that I couldn't avoid, my hands bonked my forehead, I landed with my weight on the Haas and Pantin, bounced a couple times on the rope elasticity and 30 seconds later I resumed rope walking.

It's like helicopter auto rotation. Works if you've achieved enough altitude. If your possible drop is 3 feet or 5 feet etc, for that first distance of climb you'd contact the ground before the rope would catch you. Above that, soft catch all is good.

Don't over-enthuse your TIP overload test force. You might initiate a tear or crack in an otherwise good tip. I'd choose redundancy over overload testing any day of the week. If you keep the load around x2 I'd think you'd stay away from damage levels unless you're really pushing boundaries of using small tips. Yes there will come a time when you want to get waaay out in the canopy. Usually it's just a redirect at that point, but they can break just the same.

I dunno. Maybe I'm rambling.
 
I finally got around to testing the shaky TIP on the left in post #22. It passed fine, and I just got down from a nice climb to install one of my friction savers on the crotch. Now I've got a 70'+ clear climb in a yard tree where I don't have to keep pushing myself away from the tree or work my way around limbs.

There was enough breeze today to move both the tree and me around (sometimes in sync, sometimes out of sync), and I really enjoyed that.

Thanks to Tom, I'll always be looking out for the foliage snake.
 
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