Lightweight line comparison chart

Someone should add

1. Mason's line, braided
2. Cortland planar board dacron tow line (~$10 for 150 ft online); 50 ft weighs about 1.0 oz.; 200 lb strength; http://www.cortlandline.com/products/default.asp?id=153

Paul,

Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this.

Daryl

Just what I was needed.Great info. Thanks Paul!

Lightweight line comparison chart
http://photos.airpost.net/lines.htm

Updated 2012-07-27

Someone mentioned this cord in another thread:
http://www.cookecustomsewing.com/rope.htm

On the heavy side, but it's cheaper than the Dyneema/Spectra options. Some people may prefer the large diameter too.

I thought BPL was out of the gear business.

There's no way the dyneema cored zpacks 1.25, the 1mm orange from lighttrail, and the 2.3 mm glowire from lawson are all 200ish lb cords, something's got to give, and it's not going to be the glowire.

Either the glowire is a LOT more than 225 lb line, or the 1.25 and the 1mm are a lot less.

Time for some actual testing I'd say, these ratings clearly have nothing to do with reality.

I have all those and like them all, but those numbers aren't even faintly connected to reality, I'd guess just the sheath of the glowire is as strong as the 1mm orange line, for example. And the glowire has a lot more dyneema in its core. I'd say that those three cords are proportionally strong to their diameters, give or take (maybe 100-125-225 pounds respectively, making the lawson the only one that is actually reasonably accurately rated). Then there's the 80 pound polyester cords as well, super light and cheaper, what are those actually rated as in the real world? If I had to guess, I'd guess 40 or 50 pounds.

Testing this stuff is a bit of a pain though, since the testing is inherently destructive, ie, it costs money (and each test ideally should be repeated), I would do it if I had the weights and the free samples, but I have neither. Also of course testing would require figuring out the most fair way re knots etc to test the actual cord break strengths.

Also, does anyone know the actual standards used to determine weight handling of rope/cord? Ie, dead weight, how many minutes/hours supported before failure , what type of connection to supports and weights, etc?

I wonder how much the breaking strength numbers really matter. If you are using this stuff as tent/tarp guylines, I think it's likely that the stake will pull out or the pullout will rip out of the tent/tarp before any of these cords fail. I'd say knot holding capability is more important than breaking strength in most cases – followed by abrasion resistance. I've had guylines fail due to abrasion against stakes, and also abrasion against rocks used to augment or replace stakes in problematic ground.