Wear and Tear on Your Whoopies?

**aircoder** · 07-04-2014, 16:55

This thread has been extremely insightful thank you for posting this.

**thercman** · 07-07-2014, 12:15

To reduce the freying on whoopie slings, has anyone tried using bow string wax on them?

**ntxkayakr** · 07-07-2014, 12:43

I agree with the others assessment, this is just normal wear and tear. The reason why cord rated at 1600 pounds is used to suspend about 250 pounds and I think the whoopie splice degrades it down to 80% initially according to the manufacturer. Fraying and UV degrades it some more over time, so it is best to hang low close to ground. Take some extra cord and a simple splice tool (yarn needle), make another W.S. in the field if you need to or just take a backup W.S. Many people have posted on how easy it is to splice Amsteel, try it, buy some spare cord.
Amsteel and other hollow cord splicing is addictive see www.L-36.com

http://www.samsonrope.com/Documents/...UG2012_WEB.pdf

Edit: Personally I agree with http://www.animatedknots.com on their front page they recommend that you always assume that a hitch or knot on any cord has been degraded to 50% or less of its brand new breaking strength rating so if your Amsteel started out at 1200 or 1600 lbs don't trust it to hold more than about 600-800 lbs. especially with a MSH which may be one of the worst hitches for degrading a cord but most useful in the field. So I am highly in favor of it, just use good cord to begin with and inspect for major damage often.

**gmcttr** · 07-07-2014, 16:03

Originally Posted by thercman

To reduce the freying on whoopie slings, has anyone tried using bow string wax on them?

Putting wax on something that is expected to be held by friction sounds like a bad idea to me. There is no need. Amsteel blue has a urethane coating to help protect it and the dyneema fibers it is made of are highly abrasion resistant.

I have seen very few reports of whoopie slings fraying quickly in the 4 years I have been on HF. Generally it seems the shortest time span after which whoopie slings are reported to be retired is two years "just to be on the safe side."

I have whoopie slings that have been put up, hung on and taken down 50+ times with no visible fraying or wear other than color fading from the coating being worn off.