New rope

Kernmantle rope can be spliced from what I understand. Nick will expand on the subject I'm sure. From what I understand the splice isn't really workable like we consider other eye splices.

KMIII is wonderful rope. That is what I've used for years as access line. When I climb/work on SRT KMIII is my rope of choice. Right now I'm working on finding a hitch that will slide and release like we expcect when climbing DdRT.

Tom

I love the stuff. Works well with ascenders, and descenders. Is a perfect rope for SRT. DRT prolly not such a good idea. I've been known to use a 30' lenght for a double ended rig, to use when "ladder climbing". Falling on static line would not be pretty, but I think (and you guys correct me if I'm wrong) that if it was set up as a DEDA rig the fall lenght would be limited, and you might be ok.

Maybe keep the rope. I keep a lenght of static line to use for traverses too.

Climb Safe!
Icabod

iI've been using static line for lanyards for a long time. There is so little line in the system that any fall onto a lanyard would hardly generate enough force to factor in line stretch.

If you understand how stretch is calculated you'll see that most arbo ropes are pretty close to being static lines. The stats are close.

That stat is based on the amount of stretch at a percentage of the breaking strength. That catch is that there is no standard way to measure this number. When I first started to learn about rope construction I had the opportunity to spend close to an hour talking with Dick Hildebrand about the stretch measurement.

If you took a brand new rope off the weaving machine you would find that the rope has lots of stretch. After climbing on the rope the fibers would be pulled into linear alignment. Instead of being coiled so to speak, they'd be pulled out. The used rope would stretch "less". What Dick told me they did was to take a rope, put a load on it and hold for a length of time. Then the load would be removed and the rope would recover. This would be repeated, bringing the load up over seveal cycles. When they go to the load they wanted, they measured the amount of stretch.

Stretch is based on a percentage of rope. So, if there were 100' of rope and there was a load of X on it, the rope might stretch three feet. That would give a 3% stretch at that load. Now, take the same rope and make a lanyard. The lanyard is 15' long. Apply the same load and how much would the rope stretch? about 5.4" But...how could a climber fall far enough to even generate a large load if they're using a lanyard?

On my rec saddles I use a 3/8" static line.

Tom

Thanks to all the members that replied, Dan, treetramp, Tom, Icabob your replies gave me confort to use the rope for SRT and I think that It will work nice. I just need to make sure that I am confortable securing it to the tree base or similar TIP.
I am going camping this weekend so I will not be climbing, but will try it out sometime next week on the trees in front of the house. That is the advantage of having fairly good trees in front of the house even though I am ready to move to something new that I have not tried yet and higher trees. Looking forward to the 2005 Rendezvous!