On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:18:12 -0700, Bill D wrote:

Martin, you must have had some really crappy rope mislabeled as Dyneema
. The 12 strand hollow braid we use has 15x the abrasion resistance of
steel.

Well, it looked and felt like Dyneema/Spectra/whatever brand you prefer,
i.e. dead slippery to handle. As I said it was naked - just a fairly
loosely woven braid with a circular cross section that was sold as 80 lb
fishing line - I've seen the same sort of line and thickness in Dacron
but then, of course, it would have been around 18-20 lb line, say
somewhere between 0.3 to 0.5mm in diameter.

Since it felt so slick I was sure it would slide round the outside of
something as relatively large and smooth as 3mm brass tube, but nooo -
the stuff had fluffed up before I even got the model out of my workshop,
so I replaced it immediately with Dacron, which worked as I'd expected
the Dyneema to do.

but The off road 4x4 guys use it on their bumper winches with it
going over sharp rocks and trees. I've never seen the problems you
describe.

But is that stuff naked or has it got a woven Dacron tube as its outer
layer? Obviously some of the stuff that was used as winch cable had such
an outer shell or the splicing method I saw described (threading one end
in and out of the casing with a big needle for 50cm or so) would never
have worked.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |