Knots

[Steve Davy]

Kitestringers,

Take a look at the method Wills Wing recommends for attaching the VG pulley to the cross spars:

http://willswing.com/wp-content/uploads/tech_bulletins/TB20050620A.pdf

Now have a look at this method for creating a soft shackle:

http://l-36.com/soft_shackle_howto.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8QJEdYqe_E


Is there a good reason for not just installing a soft shackle made long enough such that it would take the place of that double looped, single fisherman's knot arrangement?

[Tad Eareckson]

Notice the way Wills Wing happily installs totally moronic heavy, draggy, expensive, extremely dangerous suspension backup webbing loops to cater to the totally moronic paranoias of its totally moronic paranoid delusional customer base but won't install a dragless, weightless, harmless cord backup loop costing a few pennies in an application in which it would actually do a little good every once in a while.

[Steve Davy]

Samson rope shows an average strength of 2,500 lbs for their 1/8 inch AS-78* and 1,100 lbs for 3mm. The 3mm stuff is 94.5 percent of the diameter of the 1/8 yet less than half the strength!

Anybody got an idea why the 1/8th line is listed as that much stronger than 3mm?

*http://www.samsonrope.com/Pages/Product.aspx?ProductID=814

[Tad Eareckson]

It's the same stuff across that line - just English and metric units. 1100 kilograms.

[Steve Davy]

Thank you.

I've been looking at that goddamn chart for three days and could not see that! It's been driving me nuts.

[Tad Eareckson]

Yeah, once you get locked into an ASSUMPTION...
- Of course I'm hooked in. I never get into my harness unless it's connected to my glider.
- It's imperative that I stop this thing on my feet.
- These people surely must know what they're doing 'cause they've all been doing it that way for twenty years.
- The airflow is still from the northwest like it's been all day. I just watched three gliders go off no problem.

[Steve Davy]

Fun video on forming a diamond knot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj5S42cXCXw


Note that it starts out as a simple Carrick bend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrick_bend

[Steve Davy]

I've posted these previously but in an effort to consolidate things...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv8Kqz5lZSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKdfXCI9rEo

[Steve Davy]

http://www.kitestrings.org/post985.html#p985

Tad,

Why did you not use locking Brummel splices when making your bridles?

[Tad Eareckson]

The goal is uniformity.

03-1304
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2938/13700558193_0e0946218e_o.png


Any increase in stiffness, thickness, roughness, weight at/near an end is real bad news. (The thimble at the bottom end is a necessary evil - but, barring a fuckup, that end will never have to feed through anyway. I don't use backup releases in my system.)

That splicing technique is an elegant way to lock things but it's gonna be zero percent more effective than the way I'm doing it and WILL increase the probability of a wrap.

(A few more on this one and all of our topics will be in triple digit hit range. (66 as of this post time.))