Suspension wear and tear signs?

[Wandering_loaner]

Hey everyone,

I have a question regarding suspension straps. I’m still fairly new to hammocking, and am on still on my first set of polyester straps. I was wondering what level of “wear and tear” is considered ok before it’s time to replace a set. Are there specific signs to watch out for (aside from obvious rips)? Ultimately I think I may end up ordering a back up set to have on hand just in case, but I’d still like to know the thoughts of those much more experienced than myself.

thanks in advance!

[cmoulder]

General fraying is the most obvious sign, although sometimes these straps can get quite fuzzy looking and still retain a lot of strength.

One thing is for sure, if you see horizontal threads missing it is probably time to retire a strap. Something that has serious fading caused by UV rays from the sun has also lost a lot of strength.

Sometimes UHMWPE cord has a glazed, melted appearance where it has suffered friction burns, which can seriously compromise strength.

[nanok]

also to note: straps used for hammocking are unfortunately not standardized, not even in terms of strength. this means you must know the strength of the strap as expected when new, in the configuration you are using, and factor that into your assesment of "might be time to retire": when you start with a safety factor of 3:1 or so (i hope that doesn't happen commonly), then you will retire straps when it even seems like there might be a shadow of a chance that there might be fraying. when you start with a 10:1 or more, it''s a different story. this is why i prefer climbing rated straps: they are strong enough that, by the time they loose enough strength through wear and tear to be :questionable", you would have already retired them, cause they would not even look like straps by the time they get there.

[Tpatter]

I recently had one of my favorite straps snap on me. Looking back on it, I thought that something about the strap didn’t look quite right. It wasn’t that old, my only explanation is that pine pitch weakened it. Some trees in the area also have sharp bark but I saw no signs of damage.

Anyhow, my wife wanted to sit beside me in the hammock, so I welcomed her to sit and kaboom! Granted, this was probably 350 ppunds all in, and a perfect hang. Far below the strap rating, but there you go. I had been more concerned about the hammock, not the strap.

I think I’m done trying to save much weight on my straps. Too important to safety. I’m probably going back to a full on poly.

[nanok]

exactly. this is also one of the more important reasons why i think the tree straps and the suspension itself should be separate components: when you want to, at the same time, have large surface to distribute the force, low stretch, and light weight and broad range of length available, is when the trouble starts (too many requirements, hence a very "narrow" compromise). if you separate them, you can easily have very solid, very light long and easy to use ucr's made of 3mm dyneema for instance, and bulletproof treestraps made of webbing which might be heavy, but it doesn't need to be 10m long, so it doesn't matter that much that it weighs a bit more per meter.