UKH

Dear UKC hive mind, perhaps you can help with a perplexing issue that happened to an essentially new rope...

The facts:

- Near new Tendon Ambition 9.8 40m rope manufactured in 2022.

- Brand new indoor climbing wall. 

- Petzl djinn steel axess permadraws.

Today my partner and I were climbing on a new wall with his essentially rope. After the 6th route and a few falls I noticed some unusual sheath wear about 1.5m along the rope from where we had been tying in.

It hasn't seemed to have ocurred anywhere else along the rope.

It's subtle fraying but with a very hard texture as if the sheath has melted and appears glassy.

Perplexed, we swapped the ends and continued climbing. On the last climb and after a few falls the exact same happened to the other end. Subtle fraying with a stiff texture and the appearance of being melted.

On the last fall there was a noticeable juddering as the rope ran through the quickdraw. At both ends the wear is over about 30cm and specific to the area about 1.5m away from where our knots were.

Can anyone explain this? I'm totally perplexed, as I have never seen such wear before and certainly not after a couple of indoor sessions.

My only theory is the fibres in the sheath melting and breaking under load at the quickdraw which would indicate an issue with the rope. I dont think it's wear from friction on the wall or holds as we climbed mostly overhanging routes.

The picture doesn't show much but all of the subtly frayed ends are hard as if they have melted.

We informed the wall staff but they were as confused as we were.

In reply to GarethSL: Certainly the melting part seems to make sense.. I guess the broken strands are the fluffy bit. Back to the shop , see what they say.

Is the rop exceptionally soft handling?

In reply to GarethSL:

best not use this at the latest episode of the icemen. Although j 'the teath' will use anything I suspect

M

In reply to GarethSL:

l have heard of this happening with a new rope at a climbing wall before, but am none the wiser as to why.

In reply to GarethSL:

Looks like a friction burn to the rope caused by the last clip in the falls. I've had this with a cheap untreated Beal rope before, outside. 

In reply to wbo2:

Yes, in hindsight I should have had a part of the undamaged rope in the picture for comparison. 

It's not stiff by any means but nor is it a soft, supple rope. And definitely untreated. Just a budged go-to wall rope.

In reply to Mr Messy:

You know, I was talking with The Teeth about bringing sports ropes for Pont Rouge... 😉

In reply to GarethSL:

The rope won't be melted.  Search for previous threads discussing that.

The wear is caused by dogging - after the tie in (say 1m) it's the distance to the clip. That section gets ground hard when you're hanging , udging up, etc. It's particularly bad if the rope presses against a hold or onto the friction-painted panel (which will be especially rough in a new wall)

There's nothing wrong with your rope's manufacture.

In reply to GarethSL:

Doesn't look melted, looks like an old rope, which indicates friction on a rough surface. I know you say it's overhanging but did the rope get dragged over a volume edge or rough panel somehow when you fell. It just looks exactly like friction on a very rough surface not QD damage

(I think MOACS is going in the right direction).

In reply to GarethSL:  New wall at Sluppen?

In reply to GarethSL:

I've seen similar indoors and outdoors and had in both situations wondered if it might be something to do with a hard catch (god, I hate the word 'catch!) in combination with running over a tight radius or rough surface. It was the same (rubbish) belayer on both occasions.

In reply to GarethSL:

It's a very "usual" damage pattern for RPing / working routes but maybe created unusually quickly.  When I did a lot of projecting on sport climbs, it was a once / twice a year ritual to chop off the end 2 metres off my rope because of the really soft, lumpy and furry portion around 1-1.5 metres from the end that would be created by lots of short falls onto the top draw (I now have a store of ropes that were once 60-80m but are now around 40-50m long, having got there in increments). 

Managing that in a couple of sessions, without the rope being defective, seems unusual but not inconceivable.  E.g as a birthday day present to myself years ago, I bought a fancy dry treated, Teflon coated Mammut rope - took my pride and joy to Malham to work Raindogs, and had to chop it that weekend - never bought a Mammut rope since! I also had a 10.5mm that had taken years of no-fall trad with no sign of wear, but needed chopping after its first month of exposure to RPing.

In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:

Thanks everyone for the replies. I guess we were just very surprised that this kind of wear could happened so quickly and be isolated to such a specific part of the rope.

None of our sport or trad singles have ever worn in this this way, even our old (and new) dogging ropes haven't displayed this kind of wear before. Guess we just weren't trying hard enough

In reply to GarethSL:

I have had ropes ‘glaze’ like this before, i can’t remember exactly how i did it! but it was caused by friction melting the surface of the sheath, different from the usual furring up of the ends from red pointing.

once the rope is glazed it’s like belaying with a scotchbrite - disgusting!!

weird to get that at an indoor wall though….

In reply to Rob Gibson:

https://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2976&Ty...
 

the answer is probably in here somewhere