When is a rope to old?

[Extremeophile]

The moment you question the age or integrity of your rope, it is too old. In your heart, you know it's spent.

This sounds like a faith based approach to rope management. I'd prefer to use science.

[wyandottecaver]

If your life is hanging on it you better have faith in it

[NZcaver]

a friend with access to testing facilities is working on coming up with 'realistic' parameters for testing caving ropes (i.e. not slow-pull). He may appreciate receiving more samples to test, particularly if they have documented history of use.

Why is slow pull not realistic? I'm assuming you mean a test to failure. It seems like the only standard tests out there for rope are pull tests and drop tests. A pull test will give you a quantitative measure of the tensile strength of the rope, which seems to be the most useful for calculating safety factors for uses such as SRT or rescue hauling. I'm not sure exactly how to use drop test results for static rope. It seems that FF1 is typically used, but I wouldn't ever want to be subjected to a FF1 impact on a static rope. It also sounds like knot tightening and body squishing (I think that's the technical term) significantly reduce these FF loads. So if a rope survives 4 FF1 drop tests is that good? I really don't know how it helps me decide whether to retire a rope or not.

All I meant was slow pull is not a realistic mode of failure for a caving rope in the real world. However I agree it is the most common standard metric that we all use, and it will be interesting to see what alternatives or combinations of tests he comes up with to improve on this.

The moment you question the age or integrity of your rope, it is too old. In your heart, you know it's spent.

This sounds like a faith based approach to rope management. I'd prefer to use science.

Agreed.

[Wormster]

Old ropes become digging haul ropes on this side of the pond!

[Cody JW]

A few years ago someone gave me 400 feet of 11 mil black Bluewater static rope. It was still on a bluewater spool and had a manufactured date on the edge of the spool 1998. All I have done is removed it from the spool and stored it in a canvass type military bag. If you are used to PMI this stuff feels very supple. I was hesitant to use it because I know most mfgr's. say 10 years for static rope. I also took into consideration that mfgr's have to draw the line somewhere to satisfy the lawyer types.

[tncaver]

A few years ago someone gave me 400 feet of 11 mil black Bluewater static rope. It was still on a bluewater spool and had a manufactured date on the edge of the spool 1998. All I have done is removed it from the spool and stored it in a canvass type military bag. If you are used to PMI this stuff feels very supple. I was hesitant to use it because I know most mfgr's. say 10 years for static rope. I also took into consideration that mfgr's have to draw the line somewhere to satisfy the lawyer types.

I have a similar Bluewater rope that a dying caver friend gave me. I haven't used it yet. It is band new but over a decade old. I hope to use
it when I find something deep enough to need it. It's a 180 footer. If I ever find one deep enough to use it I will name the find for my friend. God bless him.