Amsteel and knots, what's the deal?

[egroeg555]

Use amsteel for situations where premade splices make sense or where you'll make knots but know in advance that the loads won't be too high

Ah okay. So, a decent plan would be to use amsteel for premade rigging, but use polyester line if I wanted to bring a few coils for general camp use?

Many knots will start to distort and creep at as little as 10% of amsteel's rated strength, per the best known rigger in the US, Brion Toss.

Yes I know who Brion Toss is and I agree with the statement, but I don't plan to use "many knots". I would use knots that do not distort and creep. From what I can tell, the knots that don't work well with amsteel aren't the best option for regular line anyway.


I agree that splicing is easy and doesn't take too much time, but knots are even easier and faster. I think it's great to setup rigging ahead of time with splices, but personally I wouldn't want to bother with it on the trail.



******edit****** (I digress here a bit, feel free to skip)
Here's what I'm picturing: Say we are on a trip. When we get to camp we need to setup a clothes line. (say we were canoeing or it rained or something) So you pull out your spare amsteel and make an eye splice and loop the rope around the tree and through the eye and head toward the second tree, only to find that your length isn't long enough to reach the tree. So you pull out your fid and make and end to end splice to another spare piece you have, wrap it around the tree and tie a knot. (approximately 10 min?) (perhaps you make a woopie and attach to the tree with tree straps? I'm not actually sure what you guys would use for this.) ... Meanwhile I grabbed my spare line, tied a double dragon knot loop, wrapped the line around the tree, and through the loop. Upon finding that my line didn't reach I tied an double harness bend to a new piece, then tied an adjustable grip hitch around the second tree, and tensioned the line. (approximately 2 min?)


I'm not saying it's a race, but when I get into camp I'm usually pretty tired. I don't think I'd want to bother with splicing.
Another thing is that I don't think you would make and unmake splices to reuse the rope for different tasks as you would with knots.

[Tendertoe]

For extra camp chores like you mention, you could carry less weight by using dynaglide, accessory cordage, mason line, etc. See attachment for weights.

If you do still decide on Amsteel, as long as you aren't hanging from it, knot away. I agree that I wouldn't wanna fiddle around (no pun intended ) with fidding when you can easily and quickly knot.