I'm passing along tips from another competitive hobby of mine (racing
catamarans):
sealing the ends of rope:
a) if the rope will melt under heat:
-- wrap the place where the cut will be made in masking tape
-- cut with a sharp knife in the middle of the tape
-- apply flame (any source) to both ends to melt all fibers together.
-- remove tape if you are fussy.
b) if rope will not melt under heat, whip end of rope with waxed thread.
Use sail needles, whipping thread, and a sailmakers palm. These are
available at any marine store, or from websites (e.g., www.layline.com). If
people need instructions for whipping line, I'll send them in a separate
message.
A separate note on the reflector made some glancing reference to
hip-pocket engineering using rope in replacement of guy wire. On
Olympic-class catamarans (Tornados), we have recently started replacing
stainless steel standing rigging ('guy wires' for the mast) and trapeze
lines with aramid fiber rope. This is extremely strong for a given
diameter... very, very light... and does not stretch any more than steel
under load.
Saving a few kilos of weight aloft can be important at this level of
racing. The technical specs are available on the web. However, aramid
fiber is also very, very expensive compared to steel or other
currently-accepted alternatives for guying towers.
-- Eric K3NA
scace@uu.net
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