Marking Ropes

Hello,

I work with my schools Outing Club to lead rock and ice climbing trips for students. The club recently invested in 5 brand new 9.2 mammut revelation ice climbing ropes, all of which are the exact same color. In the past we have had issues with documentation and are looking for ideas. We need a way to mark each rope so it can be identified, and its use logged in a book. Tape doesn't stay on for long. Anyone have any ideas?

weave on some pattern of dental floss unique to each rope

Beal also makes a rope marker. I have used this several times on different ropes. Re-application is required after several uses. It doesn't allow you to keep track of the usage, unless you are adding marks for every ten uses or something like that. This is a highly discussed topic. So a search of the website should provide a lot more insight.

Jake Jones wrote:Mark it with thread. Using a small, blunt needle or something similar, weave the thread through a few passes of the sheath. Should last a while and it won't hurt the rope. Buff beat me to it.

I certainly like the thread idea, and will look into that. Thanks for the advice.

TomCaldwell wrote:Beal also makes a rope marker. I have used this several times on different ropes. Re-application is required after several uses. It doesn't allow you to keep track of the usage, unless you are adding marks for every ten uses or something like that. This is a highly discussed topic. So a search of the website should provide a lot more insight.

I assume your talking about this bealplanet.com/sport/anglai… It does say that it is not for use on Mammut ropes. I would image its not much of an issue, but we would need an ink in different colors. The idea is that each rope has a distinguishing mark and we can log what color is used on what day in a log book.

Well I use a sharpie to mark everything from rope to the slings on my gear.

I've never ever in 27 years had any issues other then the mark fades with time / use .

If it really worries you ,then I suggest just marking the last 1" of the rope. Sharpie makes markers in all colors . As for the ends of the rope There not used for anything except the tag anyway. Right? Might be an option for ya.

Rub-a-dub Sharpie laundry marker.

Each rope could have a different number of ticks in black. I get what you are saying though. Tape on the end of the rope works well also.

The rub-a-dub sharpie laundry marker works well . Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder, Co even sells them to mark ropes.

Max Forbes wrote: I certainly like the thread idea, and will look into that. Thanks for the advice. I assume your talking about this bealplanet.com/sport/anglai… It does say that it is not for use on Mammut ropes. I would image its not much of an issue, but we would need an ink in different colors. The idea is that each rope has a distinguishing mark and we can log what color is used on what day in a log book.

dont bother with the needle ...

just use a laundry sharpie like blue water recommends ... or use the beal rope marker

as to mammut ... if you ask them theyll "recommend" the beal rope marker privately through email ... they just wont post it on their site as they dont sell it and beal is a competing company

as to logging usage ... i recommend reading this and then deciding if its needed ...

vertikalguiden.se/concrete/…

;)

TomCaldwell wrote:Beal also makes a rope marker. I have used this several times on different ropes. Re-application is required after several uses. It doesn't allow you to keep track of the usage, unless you are adding marks for every ten uses or something like that. This is a highly discussed topic. So a search of the website should provide a lot more insight.

I've had pretty good luck with the Beal also. Although I'm intrigued by what people are saying about BW's go-ahead to use the laundry sharpie. The Beal marker isn't all that convenient to use (it's a weird roll-on thingy), and I'm sure that the sharpie is easier.

Optimistic wrote: I've had pretty good luck with the Beal also. Although I'm intrigued by what people are saying about BW's go-ahead to use the laundry sharpie. The Beal marker isn't all that convenient to use (it's a weird roll-on thingy), and I'm sure that the sharpie is easier.

I agree. Not the best applicator. It requires a lot of pressure to get the wheel to roll with solution. It also requires a long time to dry.

Max,

When I worked at a summer camp, we would typically buy rope in spools and cut off lengths for use on our climbing tower. Therefore, we also had the same issue of having half a dozen orange ropes or whatever. We dipped the end of the ropes in various colored cans of latex paint, creating a two-color marker that could be used in our rope logs (red-black, blue-yellow, etc).

Since the very end of the rope is not used to take any loads while climbing, the paint did not damage the integrity of the rope. This technique could not be used to mark the middle of a rope, however, but it served our purposes.

bearbreeder wrote: dont bother with the needle

Dental floss mid-rope mark.

I sent Edelweiss an email asking this question a while back with no response. The Blue Water website says to use fabric markers. Blue Water's opinion

I used the fabric markers and found it to be a good solution. It needs darkening every now and then. If you look around on the forum there are people who have done pull tests on ropes marked with sharpies and the sharpie appears to have no effect on the strength. That said some fabric markers are easily available and this is what Blue Water Recommends.

My club (attempts to anyways) keep(s) each rope with an associated and numbered rope bag/tarp and logs use under the bag number to keep track of rope stats as well as keep them out of the dirt. However we also recognize that they get the shit beat out of them so club ropes are TR only and used only on club exec run trips plus we inspect them thoroughly before and after every use.

I read an article awhile ago, I think I found a link to it on this website, that basically tested the whole sharpie thing. Having heard both sides of the argument for years I never sharpied my ropes, but the article was so conclusive that after reading it I immediately marked the shit out of my rope. Now I have a middle mark like all the cool guys. I love it. Haven't died yet.

No rope manufacturer has tested Sharpies on their ropes because they have no way to regulate the ink formula. However, BD conducted a test with Sharpies on climbing rope and found that in every instance the rope broke at the knot first and they couldn't even collect any data on the Sharpie marks. You can probably find the video if you search it.

So I use Sharpies to mark my ropes. No problems.

I've had great luck with colored duct tape. Stays on pretty well if using full width strips on the ends of the rope.

I've also seen people take a hot nail and bore a hole through their rope about .5' from the end and then use a key ring to identify the rope.

Marc H wrote:

Dental floss mid-rope mark.

Didn't mean to revive a dead thread, but was doing my own research on the subject and wanted to offer a word of caution for those who might come across this.

In response to what Marc H depicted. It looks like he is advocating marking the middle of the rope with floss knotted outside the rope (and therefore not woven into it) I would not advise this. That method of marking is subject to movement. Over time the knot underneath the outer wrap of floss will loosen, and could all at once then become stuck upon an obstruction (such as a taught rope going through a carabiner) and leave the middle marker somewhere, possibly, nowhere near the middle of the rope. A similar story (albeit from using tape instead of floss to mark the middle of the rope) was in (2013?) Accidents in North American Mountaineering. If I recall correctly the accident involved the death of a father, from a father son outing, after multiple repels, they trusted the middle marker, tossed the rope and rapped. Inspection after the accident found the tape to be ~15' from one end of the rope. If you have found other posts advocating dental floss, such as above, this is referring to weaving the floss into the outer sheath at the middle of the rope.

A mentor of mine, advocated a natural? or eco-friendly? sharpie, trying to find out what the name of that product is, otherwise looks like i'll be using the Rub-A-Dub. Thanks for the tip guys!

Just use a plain Sharpie. There's plenty of data out there.