When to retire fly rope??

[Randy]

My boss's chainsaw got cought on his fly rope as he was decending. It shreded the one side for about 6 feet.I looked at it and the core is not exsposed but the rope is now ferrier than my cat! I told him I would retire it but he's still on it. Am I gonna have to throw an air mattres under the tree he goes up or what!!!!!

 

[Colin]

When I got my first Fly rope last Dec, I was concerned about the same thing. I nicked it when it was about a month old. I will retire a standard 16 strand arbo rope if one strand gets cut.

But after reading the splicing instructions and then eye splicing my Fly rope, I was not as bothered by a slight nick in the outer cover of the rope. It appears that the majority of the strength is in the inner strands. The eye splice only splices the core strands and simply whips the cover down, so the cover is not holding much of the weight.

IMHO, I would feel comfortable on my Fly rope as long as the inner core strands were not exposed and the cover was still intact (Before you guys go on a rant, I'm not addressing load stresses. Only outer cover damage).

 

[NickfromWI]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
"... The eye splice only splices the core strands and simply whips the cover down, so the cover is not holding much of the weight.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. The core strands come out of the cover, go through the other side, then back through the tail again. It sort of locks the cover and core together. The core strands are holding most of the weight in this rope, but the cover is there for more than just core protection.

From the sounds of it, I'd still climb on the rope, too.

love
nick

 

[Oxman]

Can Fly core be replaced with a cable for use as a flipline?

 

[NickfromWI]

Ox- Why would you do that? Just to have the smaller diameter?

love
nick

ps- how's that whipping holding up? has it worn out yet?