Technora Cord

Looking for any information and or opinions on the various <6mm technora cords on the market. I've played around with shorter lengths to resling gear but am thinking of buying longer lengths for highline anchors. Seems like the main options are the Maxim tech cord and Sterling power cord, with Bluewater's titan cord getting an honorable mention.

Maxim's cord is 5mm, ~21kn, 23.4g/m, and ~6$/m

Sterling's cord is 5.9mm, ~20kn, ??g/m, and 7.8$/m

Prices vary of course but that's what I can get them for here in Canada. Is Sterling more conservative with their specs, or is Maxim's cord a better option?

I'm particularly interested in **data** about flex fatigue in aramid cords as that seems pertinent to my use case.

TIA

The braided core of Sterling’s Powercord, on the left, makes it weaker than the straight core strands of the Tech cord next to it.  The middle cord is Sterling’s  XTEC, 21kN, next is a technora cover and nylon core TRC, 15kN.  And a single braid technora from Rescue Technologies, Probe, 10.7kN.

Sterling Titan cord has a dyneema core, there are similar cords that have a technora polyester combo cover instead.  There are also some Kevlar core cords available.

edit: Maxim also makes the 6mm Oceans Vectran, still have the heat resistance of an Aramid, but not the self abrading, it wears more like dyneema.

Why not use tech-12 or amsteel (12 braid as well) and splice the ends?
4mm is around 19kn and 5 is 24kn, and thats spliced strength. All that cordage you mentioned of will loose a lot of strength unless you splice it as well for terminations.
A Brummel Lock is easy enough to learn.

Agree with Mr Rogers. Spliced loop, then maybe Dyneema whoopie sling backups for each bolt.
https://www.slacklifebc.com/product/whoopie-sling-backup-kit/

Mr Rogers wrote:

Why not use tech-12 or amsteel (12 braid as well) and splice the ends?
4mm is around 19kn and 5 is 24kn, and thats spliced strength. All that cordage you mentioned of will loose a lot of strength unless you splice it as well for terminations.
A Brummel Lock is easy enough to learn.

I want a cord I can use to tie a classic bfk style anchor, preferably with open tails. Hollow braid dyneema isn't the best for this as obviously it doesn't perform well when knotted. The idea of a spliced loop sliding X style, backed up by whoopee slings is considered not worth the effort and faff unless weight is an absolute priority. A spliced loop is not adjustable or versatile enough for the variations in highline anchors.

The best dyneema solution I know of is this monstrosity. Each leg is a whoopee and each leg can support the masterpoint individually. Cool, I had a blast splicing it up and it does have its uses, but honestly I would just prefer a length of rope with more traditional characteristics. It's just too specialized. 

Desert Rock Sports wrote:

Agree with Mr Rogers. Spliced loop, then maybe Dyneema whoopie sling backups for each bolt.
https://www.slacklifebc.com/product/whoopie-sling-backup-kit/

See my other comment. A spliced loop is nowhere near adjustable enough. Adding whoopees overcomplicates things. It's a known solution to the lightweight highline anchor setup, but has more or less been abandoned outside of alpine rigs. 

Erik J wrote:

Interested in splicing techniques for double braid aramid core ropes. Classic hollow braid techniques obviously won't work with the options I listed above. The maxim cord's core isn't even braided. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Thesplicerack/
good place to ask about your splicing the cordage you speak of.

Splicing would just be like the 12 strand hollow braid, except it’s in a cover. There isn’t much difference in the slipperiness of Technora and dyneema as far as knot holding, or lengths of bury required.  The strongest splice would be the Tuck-Bury, and it only requires 32 diameters of bury.

Brocky wrote:

Splicing would just be like the 12 strand hollow braid, except it’s in a cover. There isn’t much difference in the slipperiness of Technora and dyneema as far as knot holding, or lengths of bury required.  The strongest splice would be the Tuck-Bury, and it only requires 32 diameters of bury.

The maxim cord doesn't have a braided core. And doing a proper splice with the cover is very much different than just a single braid splice. 

There are instructions for double braid splices you could try on the 5.9mm as that core is definitely sliceable, however the sheath on these climbing and rigging focused high tenacity cords is a much tighter weave than on double braid ropes in the sailing market which are made with double braid splicing techniques in mind. It would probably be an exercise in frustration. The sheath of these small cords doesn't likely contribute that much to the strength, so you could ignore that for eye splices at least. The core of 5.9mm is not coated with anything waxy like in normal Dyneema sailing lines. I'd highly recommend trying to coat your finished splice in whip end dip or something else to make it less likely that you catch a strand of it on a crystal or something, pull it out, and mess up the balance the splice.

The core of 5.9mm power cord, which looks much more bloated when out of its sheath. Like looks 7-8mm. Very soft, supple, no waxy coating, easy for it to catch on anything abrasive and pull out buried strands as has happened here. I was attempting to make the equivalent of an eye to eye hollowblock but for thinner ropes.

The maxim cord you would have to have someone sew if you wanted to avoid the strength loss of knots, or do something that may be impractical like a tensionless hitch or some other method to try to avoid the loss in strength from a knot. Your BHK has larger bend radiuses so hopefully less loss of strength than a small knot. I don't know about the other cords. If in doubt, sewing would work on all of them.

If you ordered directly from the supplier, maybe they could sew in eyes or sew it in a loop at the factory for you. That's the best case. Keeps the sheath, no headaches with splicing.

Desert Rock Sports wrote:

There are instructions for double braid splices you could try on the 5.9mm as that core is definitely sliceable, however the sheath on these climbing and rigging focused high tenacity cords is a much tighter weave than on double braid ropes in the sailing market which are made with double braid splicing techniques in mind. It would probably be an exercise in frustration. The sheath of these small cords doesn't likely contribute that much to the strength, so you could ignore that for eye splices at least. The core of 5.9mm is not coated with anything waxy like in normal Dyneema sailing lines. I'd highly recommend trying to coat your finished splice in whip end dip or something else to make it less likely that you catch a strand of it on a crystal or something, pull it out, and mess up the balance the splice.

The core of 5.9mm power cord, which looks much more bloated when out of its sheath. Like looks 7-8mm. Very soft, supple, no waxy coating, easy for it to catch on anything abrasive and pull out buried strands as has happened here. I was attempting to make the equivalent of an eye to eye hollowblock but for thinner ropes.

The maxim cord you would have to have someone sew if you wanted to avoid the strength loss of knots, or do something that may be impractical like a tensionless hitch or some other method to try to avoid the loss in strength from a knot. Your BHK has larger bend radiuses so hopefully less loss of strength than a small knot. I don't know about the other cords. If in doubt, sewing would work on all of them.

If you ordered directly from the supplier, maybe they could sew in eyes or sew it in a loop at the factory for you. That's the best case. Keeps the sheath, no headaches with splicing.

Thanks, this is good info! As much as I like playing with splicing though I think the original intention of the thread is getting lost. In my application I don't need or want to splice this cord. I'm not concerned about the strength losses in knots as even with the losses it would be strong enough. To me, flex fatigue over the lifetime of the cord is an unknown that I'd like to know more about, especially with the high frequency/cycles of loading/deloading a highline anchor would be subject to.

I'll probably just be getting some dyneema core canyoning rope to use   

In the end from a numbers stand point  the cordage you want to use is okay... There is no good answer to load cycles with this type of cord for your intended purpose. In general technora isnt that bad with cycle fatigue but also not the best. Bend radius is important.

Final thought, just make a bunch of different size stingers (eye 2 eyes) our of regular tech 12 for various anchors, and then just keep a small kit of burly cord to attach to it to equalize and make your Master.
YGD

Oplux and RescTech are two 8mm dyneema/spectra cored ropes with Technora and polyester covers, both have braided cores.

Erik J wrote:

The maxim cord doesn't have a braided core. And doing a proper splice with the cover is very much different than just a single braid splice. 

The Tech cord has 12 strands, 8 more would squeeze in for the bury. Ended up burying four fid lengths.

The blue cord is Camp’s 5.5mm Kevlar cordino, it has a 12 strand hollow braid core.

Search technora sail rigging on eBay