Slings & runners from spliced dyneema rope? (12-strand Amsteel-ish)

Another material option is Vectran, similar to SK-78 in strength, but is heat resistant like aramids, without the self abrading.

Ryan Lynch wrote:

OK, let's get serious -- no more throwing poop.

• I believe that you must be good at your job, and you would never allow your flying performers to get injured. You ensure that no performer ever experiences enough force to give them whiplash injuries, or break their bones as they impact their own harness straps.
• Severe climbing falls can cause severe injuries or death from the whiplash and harness impact, alone. High-factor falls, or falls into static gear, are a mechanism of HORRENDOUS damage to the human body.

Climbing gear is supposed to be rated well beyond the point where the human body breaks. Runners, carabiners, and harnesses need >20kN as recreational PPE, which is beyond even most lethal car accidents!

Your pelvis shatters ~10kN... 20kN rips your limbs off, pops your hollow organs, and detaches the rest... The fluid that surrounds your brain and fills your spine will be dripping out of your ears.

If your professional flying rigs aren't even dislocating an occasional elbow, then we know that the forces involved must be pretty small -- way smaller than a bad lead fall.

So what does your work experience really prove? I'd probably trust your splices with body-weight, or even top-rope or rappelling forces. But until you appreciate the need for a more rigorous testing methodology, we don't really have any idea whether your splices are strong enough or reliable enough for lead climbing.

You're out of your element Ryan and assuming so much about things you don't have the knowledge in.
Your understanding of forces that are dealt with by aerialists is nill and to claim see less impact than that of a falling climber on dynamic things just shows your ignorance. The answer around forces it depends. Depends on the act, the materials in play, performer weight, the list goes on and those forces can absolutely be higher than a lead fall... but don't take my word for it...actually you wont anyway, so no worries there.

I do know my splices are fine for climbing applications(doesn't make them practical) wether you believe that is a personal problem and I couldn't care less. It's obvious you want to be right here and not actually attempt to open yourself up to learning in an area you don't have a great depth of knowledge in.
But as they say, ignorance is bliss, enjoy it.

Brocky wrote:

Another material option is Vectran, similar to SK-78 in strength, but is heat resistant like aramids, without the self abrading.

I think Vectran is also more vulnerable to UV exposure than Dyneema or Nylon -- it'll break down and weaken faster, if it's not wrapped in a chafe cover, or something.

Although the better heat resistance would also means Vectran doesn't lose as much strength in knots? IDK, have to look into that.

Mr Rogers wrote:

I do know my splices are fine for climbing applications(doesn't make them practical) wether you believe that is a personal problem and I couldn't care less. It's obvious you want to be right here and not actually attempt to open yourself up to learning in an area you don't have a great depth of knowledge in.
But as they say, ignorance is bliss, enjoy it.

If you make DIY climbing gear, you need to pull-test and drop-test your creations under conditions that accurately recreate actual lead climbing falls.

The more assumptions you allow, the more opportunities you create for incorrect conclusions.

Your splices "might* be fine -- but until they're properly tested, you're relying on some assumptions, and you might be wrong. I don't think that's good enough for something that is supposed to protect human life.

Lets all take a minute to appreciate Ryan's comment and complaint that coldfinger would derail the thread... when all along Ryan would be damn sure he would be the one to do so.

Whew... ok.

Spliced dyneema in the climbing industry is rare because:
* Bar tack sewing machines are stupid fast... like probably 2-3 seconds to finish the sewing plus lets say 5 seconds of set up time to make sure its sewn in the right spot.
* Splicing must be done by hand (so far as I know, if BD has an automated process, I'd love to see it). For BD, I imagine they have got the time per splice way down as their particular splice is pretty quick and they still have an automated sewing operation afterwards to lock the splice in place. I imagine they do the splice, pin it in place, milk or pre-tension it a bit, then do the stitching operation. I'm going to guess like 20 seconds per sling.
* To a lesser extent... hollow braid dyneema rope wants to catch on things more than densely woven dyneema tubular or flat webbing. Like one of the 6, 8, or 12 bundles of fibers gets snagged on something and then the finger trap action of the rope doesn't want to allow it to equalize out easily, so the rope is a little weaker than before... repeat as many time as you feel like doing so.
* Webbing sews better than hollow braid rope. So while hollow braid rope has been available, instead of use that, they get webbing custom made instead.

Spliced dyneema products in the industrial or offroad context:
* Use very large diameter to account for abuse -- there is no core, its all sheath and its all structural
* Are slow to make and expensive, but worth the weight savings, less backlash danger, low stretch, and sometimes adjustability: whoopie slings, etc for arborists

Some example products not in climbing:
* Paraglider, kiteboarder, etc lines
* Hammock whoopie slings, etc
* Sailing products from manufacturers: soft shackles, continuous loops, etc...
... all markets where the price increase necessary to justify splicing is acceptable due to the weight savings, or the customers having deep pockets.

As previously mentioned, there are some professionally spliced products in the recreational climbing world. If the benefits of splicing can justify the increase of price needed and still satisfy the volume required, it will be seriously considered.

Its difficult to justify the price increase when you need to pump out bazillions of 60cm loop slings. There are so many manufacturers. Can you really price your hand spliced product at a price that will make it competitive with the other slings out there? Can you pump out a volume that will compete? Or does your more expensive sling that is pumped out at a much slower rate still bring in similar revenue?

Its easier to justify it when you only need to pump out a much lower number of rabbit runner or otherwise anchor slings that just a few weirdo gear nerds like us would be interested in.

Its easy for us to justify the time and materials needed to splice things ourselves, when its entertaining for us and we are just gear nerds.

Ryan Lynch wrote:

If you make DIY climbing gear, you need to pull-test and drop-test your creations under conditions that accurately recreate actual lead climbing falls.

The more assumptions you allow, the more opportunities you create for incorrect conclusions.

Your splices "might* be fine -- but until they're properly tested, you're relying on some assumptions, and you might be wrong. I don't think that's good enough for something that is supposed to protect human life.

Sir, this is a Wendy's....

coldfinger wrote:

I should add for those of you enjoying a rainy Sunday on MP that dyneema is famously slippery with knots, hence you almost never see it knotted.  It is almost always sewn.

So splicing it caught my eye as an interesting idea, but sounds a bit tricky with that material over say regular rope.

Yes dyneema  is notoriously slippery but actually I’m the splicing setting it makes sense. The way many splices work is by the load strand  effectively shrinking like a finger-trap on the bury, so as load increases they become stronger in a weird way. Dyneema is the standard in sailing even with all the UV, it just works. Haha 

Desert Rock Sports wrote:

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This is the reply we needed, but not the reply we deserved... Thank you for answering my original question so well.

Ryan Lynch wrote:

I sympathize for the deaths of your friends. There's so much that can go wrong in these pursuits, and we've lost too many people to preventable mistakes.

I too sympathise with those who have lost friends. As a sailor, skier, and (sometimes) climber, I'm like one degree removed from so many preventable fatal accidents. I can see how innovation improves safety, and also how doing the innovating can be risky.

• IMHO, splicing skills are more complex than tying knots, but simpler than placing protection and building anchors. But objectively, it's not rocket science. Plenty of sailors and arborists learn to splice -- and some of those guys are fucking morons. There's no reason why climbers can't also learn to competently apply splices to climbing gear -- other than the fact that we're a bunch of prideful, grunting savages, bumbling in the intellectual darkness of tradition, mostly incapable of embracing rationality.

I actually love this morons quote, thanks Ryan.

A couple of anecdotes: as I tied in to go ~60 feet up the mast of a moving sailboat in 2010, somebody experienced said to me "make sure you tie a bowline" (instead of using the halyard clip). When I went to do a belay test at a climbing gym in 2014, I said to the tester "so figure eight, not bowline right?" and she looked at me like I had three heads for even knowing that a bowline is a thing you can do.

Also, I found this thread as we are currently redoing the lifelines for our sailboat, doing our own dyneema splices. Some of the rigging choices by the former owner of our boat (a climber) were for sure not up to code. ;)

David Griffin wrote:

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I actually love this morons quote, thanks Ryan.

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Also, I found this thread as we are currently redoing the lifelines for our sailboat, doing our own dyneema splices. Some of the rigging choices by the former owner of our boat (a climber) were for sure not up to code. ;)

In fairness, I should probably have said "some of them are ALSO morons, like the rest of us."