[Plattsy]

Roca 50metre - 10.5mm dynamic rope. Purchased as my first rope. Marked the middle using a regular marker only to find out that wasn't a good idea (total newb mistake). Retired straight away - not climbed with at all. About 4 years old. Only used twice to hoist/lower parts of a divan bed from a bedroom window. I'm aware second hand ropes are not very desirable but if anyone wants to take a look and thinks they can make use of it please let me know. Otherwise suggestions for recycling etc would be good or it's just going to get chucked. Located in Sheffield.

[Drew]

?

[Plattsy]

It's good but it's not right.

[psychomansam]

Sounds to me like you've got two perfectly good 25m ropes, ideal for most peak crags. Actually i'm tempted since your rope is A. newer, B. of more trustworthy history than my current 2nd hand rope! Wanna get rid? I'm in shef

[Plattsy]

psychomansam you have a PM. I'll be at the works tonight from about 6:30pm onwards.

[dave]

Sounds to me like you've got two perfectly good 25m ropes

Sounds to me like he's got one perfectly good 50m rope!

[Paul B]

is it a risk you'd take? I did the same with mine (with something more destructive: Fluoro orange spray paint  ). I wouldn't risk it.

[Plattsy]

I didn't want to risk it myself. Turning it into two 25 metre ropes is a good option I think. Speaking of which. Psychomansam do you still want the rope?

[Sloper]

Load of bollocks.

I found a rope on the cromlech in about 1988 or maybe 89 and climbed on it until about 2004 taking loads of fairly decent falls, some times only on the 1/2 rope.

I chopped it up when the pisstaking got really bad and people were refusing to climb with me (maybe the rope just gave them the excuse  ) and although there was the odd flat spot and stuff the core was in pretty good nick.

[dave]

is it a risk you'd take?

I seem to remember marking the middle of my first rope with a marker pen. I'm still using it to this day on sport routes. I have not died yet. The sheath is there to protect the core is it not? The pen is only going to be on the outermost fibres of the outer weave of the sheath - you probably do more damage to your rope every time you get it out in the sun or breathe on it.

Have there ever been any cases documented of a rope failing at exactly the middle point does to someone marking it with a pen? As far as I'm away instances of ropes failing at all are very rare and generally down to cutting over an edge. I probably take a greater risk every time I touch a shop doorhandle that has not been disinfected first.

[Andy B]

You breathe on your rope!?

[stevej]

Were some UIAA tests on ink, they soaked a length in everything they could find and tensile tested the lengths. Biggest thing that changed was that the rope lost some elasticity and some strength which over a two-inch wide marker-pen strip in the centre of your rope makes utterly no difference, even if you had it sat in a vat of typewriter ink all night.

From here: http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en-us/journal/climb/qclab/qc-lab-can-i-use-a-sharpie-to-mark-the-middle-of-my-rope

At Black Diamond, we don’t make ropes, and though we do have a drop tower, we don’t have the ability to perform official UIAA drop tests. However, I’m a curious guy, so I had my crack crew of engineers grab a few cords, mark them up with a Sharpie, and pull them in the tensile tester. As expected, the ropes always broke at the knot—the Sharpie’s middle mark seemingly having no effect on the strength of the cord during this test.

[Johnny Brown]

I can't really be arsed to wade into this, but for a supposed Engineer that's a ludicrous statement. All he proved was that the ink did not weaken the rope as much as the knot. To suggest that it had 'no effect on the strength' is a huge extrapolation not evidenced by his test.

Tests done by the UIAA Safety Commission and some rope manufacturers have shown that marking ropes with liquids such as those provided by felt-tipped pens can damage them; even with those markers, sold specifically for marking ropes. The test results have shown a decrease of up to 50% of the rope strength, more correctly: of the energy absorption capacity of the rope (expressed by the number of falls in the standard test method in accordance with the UIAA Standard101).

Therefore the UIAA Safety Commission warns against marking a rope with any substance that has not been specifically approved by the rope manufacturer of that rope.

That's the right answer - probably its usable, but do you want to take the chance? There's a very good chance that your rope does not offer the performance that it should as a result of the ink. Whether that drop in performance would be dangerous is another question. This is highly unlikely to be noticeable in use, at least until it kills you.

I'd chop it in half, or at the very least avoid leading pitches longer than 25m (lowering off doesn't require much performance from a rope). There have been some very nasty accidents in rope access due to chemicals.

[grimer]

I once spotted a rope in dave Thomsas' bin across the strreet, had it, and used it for about a year and a half. I'm still alive. Does this count as experimental proof?

[dave]

The UIAA also did test and said the chances of a rope failing due to a middle mark was "almost zero".

[Johnny Brown]

Folk's attitude to ropes always amuses me. Its the one item of climbing kit where the actual performance can't really be gauged by the end user to any extent. So you just get the cheapest, or you ignore damage. I've no doubt it doesn't really matter when working Chimes, but get on something a lot bigger and a lot scarier and you really don't need these things weighing on your mind.

[dave]

Now you come to mention it I'd totally forgotten about that chapter in Deep Play entitled "shit i think my rope has suffered a slight loss of elasticity".

[Sloper]

How many people take big falls anyway, virtually no one.

[Johnny Brown]

I take it none of you have ever had to jug up a single rope twenty pitches off the deck then? Or done any actual performance testing on ropes? No. Whereas I've done a fair bit of both. I'm not a timid climber, but I don't take chances on knackered ropes or harnesses. The odds may be small, but you won't get another chance unfortunately.

[nik at work]

Isn't it the case that big falls aren't the problem, isn't it short falls (i.e. least amount of rope out to absorb the shock load of the fall) coupled with high fall factor. In which case a middle mark of a rope would be irrelevant as it would be the dead side of the belay device unless the rope was stupidly short?
This may be a point of pedantry, but as we're discussing theoretical monkey farts I thought I'd just throw it into the mix.

I'm thinking that the use of a solvent pen will in all likelihood weaken the rope, as will exposing it to sunlight and countless other things which happen to ropes every day. Will it weaken it enough to make it a snap risk? For my money probably not, but then I'm not tying on to the rope in question.

A JB no I haven't done performance testing, but even if I had I wouldn't be able to assess the quality of a rope I have in my hand, unless I test it to destruction. There could be a manufacturing fault, it could have been damaged in transit, it might have been made on Friday afternoon. I can only know the general performance of that model of rope, not the exact performance of that rope. The odds may be small etc etc...

[Johnny Brown]

My point was more that having a fair amount of testing experience I actually having some basis for my opinion, rather than 'just using ropes and them not snapping'. There is a lot more to rope performance than 'it didn't snap'. You guys feel free to continue ignoring that.

For the record, there would be no need to test the rope to destruction, a single standard drop test would be fine, after which you could continue using it. And the manufacturing controls on Class 3 PPE eliminate faults. There are two big things which weaken ropes dramatically - wear, which is obvious, and chemicals, which may not be.

[Houdini]

How many people take big falls anyway, virtually no one.

It's falling on short lengths one should be more concerned for.

[robertostallioni]

It's falling on short lengths one should be more concerned for.

It certainly got Fraudini in trouble....

[Jim]

 

[nik at work]

JB I'm not ignoring your opinion. You obviously know a lot about ropes/testing/all sorts of other stuff but:

And the manufacturing controls on Class 3 PPE eliminate faults.

Whilst they may reduce (dramatically) the incidence of manufacturing (and even transit?) faults no controls can never completely eliminate the chance of a fault despite what the rope testing handbook may claim.

For the record, there would be no need to test the rope to destruction, a single standard drop test would be fine, after which you could continue using it.

And again not true. You could do the test and then continue to use the rope and it would in all likelihood be fine. However it is possible, albeit extremely unlikely, that the test damages the rope to such an extent that it will fail on the next fall. And the only way to check would be to test it, which my damage it to an extent that it will fail on the next fall. Repeat until rope breaks.....
We are talking about tiny tiny odds, but it is still a risk. As you say...

There is a lot more to rope performance than 'it didn't snap'.

Anyway this is all a bit silly and as I haven't got anything to give away right now I'll go.