How Strong is a Biodegradable Rappel Anchor? #climbinggear #breaktest

[martinhafner]

They soak manila with some nasty oil during production to improve weather (moisture) resistance. It should be thick with that smell all the time. That's low grade dried out old h/w store rope, so you only smell it during a cut or when you tear it open. Manila has to be maintained, much like wooden tool handles. On the old wooden ships, they would soak their 'modern' manila rope in some brew of turpentine, linseed oil and pine tar to make it ready for ship duty. Hemp was the traditional standard and required extra attention to avoid rot, such as extra pine tar and being wrapped in tar soaked cloth and small cord.

[lambdalandis]

My big problem with this anchor is that while it won’t kill someone in 5 years or leave trash behind, it’ll instead kill someone in a month (assuming you survive) when it starts to degrade.

[CDNR]

Manila rope is used to make rope bridges regularly in remote areas of the world. We even made a 350m suspension traverse for a mountain course.

[harlanstockman]

OK, let's be positive. In dry areas-- even some of our western forests -- biodegradation is tough unless the stuff is in intimate contact with the soil or wet areas. A lot of biodegradation happens when critters (including microarthropods) eat it. But it has to be fairly free of biocides. As a "natural" example, when desert bushes die, they stop producing biocidal sap, and termites or ants quickly eat through the stem about one inch into the ground, where the humidity is effectively 100%. But arthropods eat stuff only if they can stay moist and protected; a piece of wood left on a rock may stay for 100 years. EDIT: the wood may be punk, but it will still be there.

[gwynjames]

Back in the 60's we took that stuff out to climb on !

[markkNL]

This stuff probably isn't tested rigorously, so it will not be consistent.

[jaba]

If that was good for the staplejack Fred Dinbah, its good for me. I think you should try more of these hardware ropes and proper manilla rope.

[pavletabagari]

Please Test safety balt of the car like anchor for rappelling .

[martinhafner]

3/4 inch manila rope of good quality (hard to find) has abreaking strength of a little over 4000 pounds. Hardware store junk is probably half strength. That looked like half inch, so maybe 1000 pounds. It's doubled in a sling, but that short sling angle was 90 to 60 degrees, so that's a lot of strength lost. So 1200 pounds is about right. I've done some bridge work with boy scouts and had to deal with a mix of natural and synthetic ropes of varying quality. Good manila has about 1/3 the strength of medium quality synthetic rope. You would need about 3 turns of a better quality manila to make that anchor work.

[ClimbingADK]

I wouldn’t make a habit of it but honestly yeah, its fine.

[pavlodeshko]

the thing must have some markings saying it's not save for the next team, otherwise it's the dumbest idea

[geoninja]

5kN.... gee, you wouldn't want to shock load it with static rapelling gear... that piece tested might be unusually strong too....

[skoronesa]

Probably smells like turpentine, a naturally occurring substance, that is used in paint thinners.

[BurchellAtTheWharf]

Well if we cut right to the grease of it all,
All things are natural, as they come from our beloved planet Earth

[jacobkeary]

Thats like 1100 pounds, for one use or whatever you'd never break that

[albertorojas]

Tu huella de carbono amigo. Un gran karma

[KarlLew]

I once rappelled of a woman's belay loop (she was biodegradable), but I would not recommend it since halfway down she started yelling in pain....🤔