rock climbing webbing

[TiredFeet]

Thanks guys! I've looked at the polyester and seatbelt style webbing at strapworks. Will either of these be lighter than my current nylon tublar? And which is better for hammocks, seat belt or polyester and which of these two would be lighter? Thanks so much. After some hanging I do see the stretch now. Plus my nylon seems to absorb a ton of water when it rains.

The lightest polyester webbing we have found is the Harbor Freight yellow lashing straps webbing, 1" x 12'. Cut off the hooks on one end, and you have 2 12' webbing or 4 6', or ...

if you have a Harbor Freight near you, this webbing is the least expensive you can get also. Probably the least expensive even if you have to get on-line.

If you don't mind the yellow color, it works very well.

Anything from Strapworks is good quality, but is going to be much heavier, but with a higher rated strength also. We have found the rating of the Harbor Freight straps at 1200 lbs to be adequate.

[Carolinahammockhanger]

thanks tired feet. You know what, I got two hammocks so I'm gonna get both kinds (harbor freight and strapworks) to see which I prefer. Man this hammock stuff is addictive! Hey any excuse for new gear right?

[Hooch]

.......Hey any excuse for new gear right?

Right!

[plowhorse]

hey carolinahammockhanger I just ordered the seatbelt straps from strapworks. these are very nice. I bought (1) 30 ft simple sling with 1/2 in sewn loops. with shipping cost was 16 bucks, and arrived in 4 days. I just used them to hang in my backyard and they worked great. you can go to harbor freight and get cheap ratchet straps, but then you have the ratchet mechanism still laying around. I would recommend just buying from strapworks.JMO

[Mule]

I used to use the tubing stuff from my mountaineering store near here. I still have one set that I use made of it. I use it in the garage and have for a year or so. I never had any trouble with it stretching. Made two other sets for friends and they are still using them. Mule

[adkpiper]

Tubular webbing that's designed for climbing applications is almost always made of nylon, and is designed to stretch under load--this acts as a dynamic peak-force limiter for high factor falls. You probably don't care all that much about that stuff. (We'll ignore Dyneema/Spectra webbing for the moment, since it's rarely sold as roll goods.)

Different climbing ropes come with different ratings re: static and dynamic elongation percentages. I've never seen figures like that posted for climbing webbing, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they exist.

Nylon webbing has a rated strength of at least 22 kN, which translates to about 4800 lbs. Even with a taut setup and a heavy hammocker, you won't see a huge amount of stretch due solely to load.

The place that nylon webbing loses its points is when it rains. Nylon stretches like mad when it's wet, and tubular webbing is no exception.

You probably won't see Dyneema webbing available as roll goods rather than pre-sewn slings because the fiber is so slippery most knots won't hold.

[Mustardman]

I recall seeing elongation numbers posted for nylon webbing many years ago, but don't remember the exact numbers. I do remember that they are WAY lower than rope elongation numbers, by at least an order of magnitude.


To a climber, nylon is essentially static. It has a tiny bit of stretch, which might make the difference between breaking your back and not, but no climber in his right mind wants to take a fall directly onto tubular nylon webbing. It hurts. A lot. We always try to keep the rope involved in the system if we think there's any chance we'll take a fall on it.

[warbonnetguy]

I recall seeing elongation numbers posted for nylon webbing many years ago, but don't remember the exact numbers. I do remember that they are WAY lower than rope elongation numbers, by at least an order of magnitude.


To a climber, nylon is essentially static. It has a tiny bit of stretch, which might make the difference between breaking your back and not, but no climber in his right mind wants to take a fall directly onto tubular nylon webbing. It hurts. A lot. We always try to keep the rope involved in the system if we think there's any chance we'll take a fall on it.

exactly, a climber uses short pieces of it, so the amount of stretch in 2' of webbing is a tiny amount, so the nylon runners aren't giving much shock absorbtion, that's why they probably didn't think twice about switching to dyneema. all the shock absorption comes from the rope and belay device.

using short pieces of nylon climbing webbing (like to attach smc rings or whatever) it's such a short piece you'll notice no stretch from it. use a longer piece (say a 15' piece for your suspension line) and you might, it is alot stronger though so it would certainly stretch alot less than say 1500# nylon would. it's way overkill on strength and thus alot heavier.

the 1" camo polyester from www.owfinc.com is pretty light and stretches very little. it's lighter than the stuff from strapworks, but probably not quite as light as the harbor freight 1200# poly. (but it's not yellow either)

[Carolinahammockhanger]

thanks! sounds like webbing shopping is on my things to do list. man my stuff does stretch when wet.