Does webbing deteriorate?

Daniel Winder wrote: Huh? Sorry to keep giving you a hard time Caprinae, but like others have said you are giving poor advice based on nothing but your opinion. Listen to Mike's advice

Thank you! Not only is she giving poor advice but she is trying to say it with authority like she knows what she is talking about.

I really hope no one is listening to her and that she gets some proper instruction before she injures herself or a partner.

10yr rule seems like the sell by date on packaged goods at the store... More quality control and liability issues than an actual representation of the safeness of the food for consumption. And they want you to buy more stuff after ten years... Send out the worst looking piece for testing If ur scared..

Fine! You guys win.... I was only making a suggestion. You're right, in light of liability issues, I'm retracting all posts related to this matter. Please delete all quotes accordingly. Corey27, throw all your old webbing away. It's costing more in time and speculation than new webbing will cost.

BSheridan, you think there is "instruction" on webbing? I can read mfg 'recommendations' like everyone else. And it's not always the exact time. E.g. sometimes my milk expires before the due date, sometimes after the due date. Sometimes, I buy two half-gallons of milk but for some reason one goes sour before the other. How I find out my milk is sour is by smelling it.

Send 1 to a mfg for testing? How much do you think they will charge for this requested strength test? He might as well buy a whole new set of webbing. And with age and variables one is not like the other. As above, two of the "same thing" is not exactly the same. Sometimes one piece fails and not the other.

Before I kill "someone" ... well considering all my webbing was mfg'd in 2012 or 2011 it's not really my webbing problem. As above, Corey should just invest in some new slings. But he wanted to see if there were any alternatives.

I don't know why that is worse than "not thinking twice about it":

Greg D
Mar 11, 2013
Yes, all soft goods deteriorate over time. Usage and uv rays will speed up the process. But, your stuff is still fine... minimal usage, stored indoors. I wouldn't think twice about it.

Seems like most posts by caprinae are flat out wrong and dangerous. Hopefully she can learn from this and refrain from giving unsafe advice in the future. But I am guessing we will continue to be subjected to her ten paragraph replies when one would suffice....

Please see above - not advice, only a suggestion. And in light of all the remarks, I'll go ahead and jump on the "Corey should buy new slings" bandwagon, there are memorial day sales across the board anyway.

I don't see how my so called bad advice in checking the integrity of the sling in addition, is worse than speculation on its storage methods. I don't think any in-use sling should be used after 15 years, I'm just saying after the "stored properly" speculative test and the visual test maybe check it out physically too.

How is speculating that it is stored properly, PLUS a visual inspection (which would be done first), plus a body weight test (and visual inspection), worse than mere speculation? I think it just appears what I wrote comes across more as a fail safe test, which it is not, and storage guidelines is just internet speculation.

yeah sorry i am long winded.

Regardless, my new suggestion is for Corey to repurpose his slings for other things, such as tying seat cushions to chairs, and tying sleeping bags in a roll, maybe make reusable shopping bag handles.

Mike Rowley wrote:Yes. Webbing deteriorates. Several weekends ago, a friend of mine who frequents The Creek was climbing some tower in the Bridger Jacks and when her 170lb male climbing partner weighted the rope to rap down, the webbing anchor snapped. He fell about 20 ft onto a ledge. I believe that he broke several ribs, and was a bit beat up but otherwise alright. Moral of this short story is: Dont trust old webbing. Its super cheap and easy to bring a little extra with you in case you need to replace some tat.

Seems like people are talking about 2 different situations. Its well established that webbing left on anchors over a few months to a few years will deteriorate to the point of not being able to hold body weight due to UV, rodents, etc. Unless you store your gear on your front porch these situations are not relevant to assessing stored slings on cams.

"If the webbing is gonna break at 22 kN, its gonna break at 1 kN."

"Usually when there is deterioration due to UV, chemicals, bugs or decay it's not gonna hold 1 kN, not even close. If none of those are present, it's likely close to full mfg strength."

Im gonna add these to the dumbest things climbers have said thread.

If you're tires are bald but can still drive, the tires are probably brand new. Drive on.

ok I'm SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!

ps, bald tires would not pass the visual test

apparently visual test alone is better than visual + weight it a bit test... they tell you to visually check your harness, and visually check your rope & feel for odd spots... I don't see why adding something would be worse. No, it's not as good as a FF 2 or weight it till it breaks test w/ 5,000lbs but that's as good as you can do w/o a lab.

Relax Monkey im just giving you a hard time.

Nobody really minds if you don't know something on a thread and ask. You'll get a few guys who'll poke fun but thats normal even in a crowded room. It isnt until you get on stage and tell people a "fact" that is actually dangerous nonsense that people tend to get a little pissed off.

Again, to finish off the thread:

The majority of climbers will tell you:
Slings are cheap, hospital bills arent.

saw your edit monkey:

The thing is a body weight test tells you nothing. The force from a fall is far greater. You know that. Knowing that, why would you spray the above quotes to someone asking for honest advice and pass it off to a community of climbers (many of which have an amazing wealth of knowledge) and act like its fact?

Buy new slings, take care of them. Any sign of wear or if it has passed shelf life, toss them. A garage gets dusty, warm, damp, filled with fumes from cars, spray cans, cleaners, etc. And over a long period of time who knows what else.

Replace questionable slings.
Simple.

Chase:

You are being too black and white about it.

Body weight certainly does tell you something: it tells you it can hold body weight! Body weight plus a bounce is pretty close to what a ratty sling will experience when you rap off of it. So a body weight test is damn useful there. Alas, sadly, it's often quite hard to safely conduct a bodyweight bounce test of rap slings.

And the simple fact of the matter is that slings are way stronger than we give them credit for. Even ratty tat that has been in the sun for months often holds falls (again, see the BD guy who did pull tests on old stuff).

It's just that there is no way to know for certain, so we replace old stuff.

What I'm more interested in is old slings that have been well cared for. I recently threw out a bunch of old slings that were 15 years old, but very lightly used and stored well. My hunch is that they were more than fine for lead climbing use, and this is where I would really like to see more hard data.

There is no incentive to do testing on 10 year slings. It's cheaper to buy new slings than conduct testing on decade old slings. Personally, even if someone's well cared for decade old slings do pass the test, I would still replace mine after three to five years.

"When there is doubt, there is no doubt."

PS: Spank the monkey!

@Timothy
I agree with you. Weighting it and bouncing around will prove you can rap from it. And if i were ever to descend from a route in an emergency i would probably have to trust some ratty old slings.
However, i might also add, while everything you said is true, if i owned a pair of slings (and not stumbled upon them) that matched the OP's description I would discard them. As you did yourself.

PS: Spank the monkey!

:(

Caprinae monkey wrote:PS: Spank the monkey! :(

Don't be sad, I understood what you were trying to say.

Ah, thanks Tim :)

Guy H. wrote: supertopo.com/climbers-foru…

Hi Guy.   This is a good story, however it’s talking about UV exposed webbing and weathered.  Not longtime storage damage to rope and webbing that I think the OP suggested.  I might be wrong.
now let’s look at this guy. He made 2 mistakes and he is damn lucky he is still alive. And it’s not because he just backed up the main anchor. He made a HUGE mistake in not equalizing his backup anchor. He stated that the knotted rope looked questionable and the rock flaky. Yet he decided to use a loose backup, knowing full well that if the main anchor broke he would put a huge dynamic load on that questionable anchor.
NOONE who responded to that thread presented the idea that he was an idiot for setting his marginal backup for a dynamic failure.  He said he fell a good 6 feet.  What a foolish mistake.   He should have equalized it.  With that lack of awareness I wonder if he was in the right frame of mind to rappell.  I wonder if he missed the UV and weather damage inside the weave.   

I dunno about nylon.  

But I think this thread is old enough to warrant replacement.

If you are questioning it then replace it.  Why add to the stress of climbing.  Climbing gear is cheap compared to medical bills or a funeral.  

Michael George 1 wrote:

Hi Guy.   This is a good story, however it’s talking about UV exposed webbing and weathered.  Not longtime storage damage to rope and webbing that I think the OP suggested.  I might be wrong.
now let’s look at this guy. He made 2 mistakes and he is damn lucky he is still alive. And it’s not because he just backed up the main anchor. He made a HUGE mistake in not equalizing his backup anchor. He stated that the knotted rope looked questionable and the rock flaky. Yet he decided to use a loose backup, knowing full well that if the main anchor broke he would put a huge dynamic load on that questionable anchor.
NOONE who responded to that thread presented the idea that he was an idiot for setting his marginal backup for a dynamic failure.  He said he fell a good 6 feet.  What a foolish mistake.   He should have equalized it.  With that lack of awareness I wonder if he was in the right frame of mind to rappell.  I wonder if he missed the UV and weather damage inside the weave.   

What amount would be a "huge dynamic load" in this situation? A single strand of super tape with a knot as a nut in questionable rock held this "huge dynamic load".

I’ve seen testing on other forums that dyneema degrades over time regardless of use. If they are dyneema slings replace them for sure