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Loved the first statement “I assume not, cause I’m still here” I wonder how many of us were laughing and thinking the same thing 😂 every time I sharpie a rope I wonder about it and then am like, well it’s all been good so far!

I understand it’s more difficult to do, but it would be interesting to do the break test on a rope that has been marked for a long time (a few years). Chemistry can work slowly ; maybe the ink degrades the fibers over a long period of time…

thank you for panning on the squirrel, we all needed that.

When testing ropes, cords or webbing, you should consider having "tensionless" fixtures on each end of the piece being tested. For rope testing, manufacturers use a non-rotating thick wall steel pipe that is many times the diameter of the rope. They wrap the rope at least 5 wraps, laid next to each wrap, and then anchor off the end with a knot or clamp. By doing the testing this way, the ultimate tensile strength of the rope is revealed, instead of knot strength, because the bend radius is shallow enough to distribute the load throughout the fibers, and there is enough wraps to reduce the load way down at the final knot or clamp. Thus for your "Sharpie" test, you might be able to see that the chemicals weaken the rope's ultimate tensile strength.

As a process engineer i'd like to say that this is a great idea, and also state that material compatibility testing is more comprehensive than this. It would probably involve soaking a rope in either material (sharpie ink or the rope marker material) for different timespans, say 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and testing at those time intervals. Of course, you also have to perform a measurement systems analysis beforehand and establish your confidence intervals. Based on standard deviation between samples of fresh rope (your control), you can estimate the sample size needed to establish variation in the mean break values. The stress/strain curve will have multiple outputs from tensile strength to elongation &c &c. Thanks! cool video!!!

Caving feels personally attacked by Canyoneering's sly little comments about clean and shiny gear... 😭

The dual location is an absolute positive. Gives you a break from presenting, we know you love talking though haha, but I like that you allow others to present their information themselves, and it gives the videos more variety so the backdrop isn't always the same. Seeing Brent's setup was also really cool. either way, you put out great videos. keep having fun and giving us more info than we will really ever need.

A few years ago I spoke with a Sterling Rope production manager. When I asked him about this topic his answer was, because the recipe is not the same for every batch of ink produced, meaning any two Sharpies contain different chemicals and compounds, they cannot make any blanket statement of how sharpies will affect a rope. So it could be totally safe, or it could damage your rope and the only way to find out is to test Sharpies individually.

I like the occasional guest speaker, especially those with related professional training. Also worth mentioning the guest's background in more detail or provide a link for their info.

You can mark the middle of the rope by taking apart some colorful acessory cord and sewing the threads through the mantle for few inches, Easy to spot also in the dark or when rope gets dirty by feel, and those threads never come off by themselves.

Can’t wait to see some more canyoning content. Would love to hear more about the different ropes Brent has been testing.

Another option is the Edding 3000 permanent marker which is recommended by Mammut. It's a nice and dark black color and doesn't smell bad.

german DAV and mammut recommend the edding 3000 pen, easy to find in europe

Ropes have been marked up with Sharpies for decades. People report that ropes break at a knot, a splice, a section change but we haven't heard, AFAIK, about ropes being liable to break where they have been marked. This surely would have drawn attention by now.

Chemical resistance is a combination of time/temperature so it might be interesting to do something over a period of time at temperatures that simulate a closed up car in the desert. Additionally, it is pretty common to do an accelerated chem res test under strain. The fact that the solvent is essentially gone might negate the effect but this would be more of a real world test for the sharpie. I suspect that sharpies aren't too bad considering they are alcohol-based versus something like acetone in nail polish. Some other ideas on things to test from a chem res perspective would be DEET, picaridin and water, if they haven't been covered in previous videos (there are so many it's hard to keep track)

marked all my ropes for years although i use edelrid industrial super static which is apparently resistant to chemicals etc i have been told that it is bad but i would worry about human error in the rigging before worrying about that

I'd be interested in similar for dyneema slings, some manufacturers would advise to chuck them if they have had tape on them, which seems a bit overly cautious! I'd offer to send you one but I'm in the UK so it's a bit of a trek...

In canyoning is useful to mark the end of the rope with marks signaling the length of the rope. Example 6 stripes for a 60 Mt. Rope etc. Or a personal coded mark

Wow, I didn't know this was even in question. In the 90s we were marking ropes and slings with Sharpie all the time. Never saw one break.

10:08 I'm not a climber, but as a fisherman, if you use one end of a rope/cable, mow the the other, the used side will stretch, causing the centre to be off set, always swap ends between uses if possible

I have always used water-based latex or acrylic paints. Needs to be redone after a while, but no solvents that might weaken the rope.

I’m starting to think, and this is purely my suspicion, we don’t really care what format you do. Just make interesting videos! On the upside, you can have unrestrained creative freedom! The downside is, you have very little direction from us since we will always just think it was a good video.

I liked this! Any format with your channel seems to work

Best jump cut today and TOTALLY appropriate.

In the AMGA SPI book they mention this issue and say that the only situation rope manufacturers found was if the the marked section is layed on a sharp rope edge and then it will break at significantly lower strains.

The beal stuff is actually rebranded Tiflex inkpad ink. If you go to pro office shop in europe you can find it for about half the price. It's exactly the same with the roller and all.

I have always wondered how to find out the effects of suncream on ropes and harnesses. Are you able to please show us that?

Hey the video format was amazing. Really cool information. I work as a climbing arborist and am curious about the fact that my ropes get full of mix gas and bar oil from the Saws and pine pitch lots of pine pitch any chance you could do some testing around this?

Sharpie actually makes TEC markers (Trace Element Controled) which are safe for marking ropes. (source on this is PMI Dynamics). About 10$ a POP...

If you would like your rope ends to be even brighter, put on a base coat of white and then just before it loses all of it’s tackiness, apply your color choice. Full disclosure…..I’ve done this to several items but never rope. See if you can find fluorescent orange (yellow, whatever contrasts the rope color) and apply a thin coat so the white can glow through. I was amazed at how much brighter the white base makes the top coat. Might take some experimentation on rope. EDIT: I’m back with a highly visible bizarre idea. LED lighted nocks for hunting arrows super glued inside the end of the rope. The power switch is at the bottom of the string notch so still accessible. Yeah, twisted mind here, but it would be BRIGHT. 👊😎

13:15 I use to use white out on black ropes, but this is wicked for coloured ropez

13:40 "uh oh Holly, you're gonna get a mustache!" :D these dudes were fun to learn from.

If you could get bite sized bits and get them shared around the Facebook climbing pages around the word I am sure that will help your sub count. Love your stuff. Keep killing it.

Seeing the creep in the end of that rope makes me wonder why folks have gotten away from whipping the ends like used to be done. You can even use hi-vis thread to make a very easily seen end. While I can't say that whipping would stop the rope creep, I think it would certainly help. Relying on the "butane backsplice" or super glue is great, but even a common whipping would add yet another layer of insurance and is easy to do. Also, painting the ends is great, but if you want a real bright finish, paint the rope with white paint first. When you go over that white with the prettier red or orange, you'll see a huge difference in how bright the topcoat is. Old trick used to paint rifle and bow sights.

Now I'm not a climber, but the subject of climbing interests me. So I think out the box per say. Can you use fabric dye? Since your taking the time to locate the center of the rope, it shouldn't take too much longer to use a sacrificial container, and dip the center of the rope in fabric dye. This way not just the outer sheath would dye, but all the way through, as a more complete marking.

I want to see more of Brent's cat...

Maybe you should wait more time, so the sharpie´s ink would act and could compromise the rope strength.

Box stores tend to have only one viscosity of superglue. I wonder if you’d find it any easier to soak the ends with a thinner glue. I’ve found that hobby shops tend to have cyanoacrylates by Bob Smith Industries. Woodworking shops tend to have products by FastCap. Both have at least four viscosities. Both also sell accelerators that nearly instantly set the glue, with the supposed detriment of a marginally reduced strength. They sell conventionally sized bottles and significantly larger bottles, which could be a benefit if you’re doing large batches. If not, it’s kind of a liability because the bottle can get pretty crusty, despite the higher quality glue being more stable over time. Cheers.

You'd really need to leave the sharpie rope to sit for a month before testing. If it has an effect it will take some time.

Regarding finding the middle: surely just flake both halves at once if its critical

Good to see me and Ryan have the same attention span. Notices squirrel instantly starts following it lol

I've heard somewhere that the best way to test the strength of a rope without any additional factors like knots is to wrap it several times around a round cylinder - like on a winch reel. That might be a better way to verify if the sharpie is truly unsafe, and after having let it sit for a period (few months?) like some people have suggested. For for thought …….

This is a test I've wanted to see for a while. Shame you didn't test an old rope that had had sharpie on it for an extended period of time. IMO that would be a much more important test as it's had time to degrade (if it does) and the effect (if there is one) of it being less flexible to effect the way it breaks (if it does).

@HowNOT2 pro tip, you don’t need to wait for the super glue to dry. If you sprinkle just a very small amount of baking soda on the super glue infused rope (or any super glue joint) it will instantly harden due to a chemical reaction between the two components.

I never put ink on my rope. I've used a sail maker needle to add a colored nylon cord for various purposes. Such as warning me the slack end is 25 and 10 feet away. As in caves one can't always see where rope protection ends. .

It would be nice to see the results from sharpy applied say a couple of months or longer ago...

Atwood ropes out Ohio! Great company and family to another big KZfaqr Roman Atwood! Time to take Roman climbing!

The best way of finishing a cut Kermantle rope end, is to use a bunsen burner and a glass test tube.

I shrink tube the ends and put the inspection dates under it, and use a rope marker for any other marking.

The transition to the lab got me😂

It looks like the sharpie marked rope left some "necking" after the break test. Was it more than the Beal marker? Could be an indication of the fibers losing some of their ability to recover after loading. Might be interesting to see this replicated on the drop tower!

The duel locations was 👍🏾🤟🏻

One think more. Lets assume that knot you use have strength of 80%, so if for example sharpie reduce strength to 90% you can not discover it. I think it is time to find a way to fix a rope without knots. Something like capstan maybe?

I liked how you did the magic trick with the sharpie teleportation back to your lab. Haha. I did like the dual location video.

Let’s do all kinds of solvents. See what we can spill on a rope without damaging it. Everything from river water to lacquer thinner.

Excellent video! I can't even complain about the length b/c of ALL the great content. Love the magic teleporting Sharpie! And excellent comments as well. Wow, a lot of really great suggestions! Hope you can pursue them. Correct me (silently, gently, kindly?) if I misunderstand, but just because the knot broke doesn't mean there was NO decrease in strength due to either rope marker, it just means the knot was weaker than the marked and unmarked, unknotted sections of the rope, correct? But the good news is that any decrease in strength (based on this very limited sample size of two, as you wisely point out, thank you!) was not less than the weakness presented by the knot (ROM 50%-ish). As for nail polish or anything that stiffens the end of a rope, possibly not a good idea for ice climbers who may thread their ropes through an A- or V-thread and need the ends to be flexible. Again, thanks to you AND to commenters who "learnt" me a thing or two! (Hmmm.... chemical reactions over time AND temp, good to know!)

Worth doing the sharpie again except leave it for a few days, give it time to work whatever potential damage it may do to the rope. I don't know if immediately testing it is the best shout. Much like erosion of non-stainless steel vs stainless steel, you couldnt just rub saltwater on a brand new steel carabiner then test its strength, you'd need to weather it. My two cents xx

The multiple locations was cool, and nice touch with the scene transition. I agree with Vivian, it'd be cool to see the long term ink marked rope break test, but difficult to do now unless someone can donate an old marked rope.

I bought a black diamond rope marker and it almost seemed like a sharpie but didn't have a strong smell like a Sharpie does...I have used a Sharpie on some things and sometimes it does slightly eat away at some adhesives, so I'm guessing it's slightly acidic, but not enough to damage modern ropes

I appreciate the squirell cam xD

As someone who has been using Sharpies on all sorts of materials for a great many years, I wouldn't expect them to damage anything non-porous...it's all surface marking, and doesn't change the underlying material. That's why it comes off some materials very easily. I have used markers that are genuinely permanent...as a kid, I marked some toys with such a marker, and have regretted it ever since...but Sharpies don't do that.

Fun fact, nail polish also is a quick and dirty substitute for whipping the ends of your ropes.

I actually used the beal marker but i found that the rope got stiffed. The carabiner trick is great. Thank you

The issue isn't really whether a Sharpie deteriorates the rope or not. The issue is more about altering the rope. Each manufacturer of ropes has extensively tested their product under a variety of conditions. At least I hope they have. The product will then be certified and guaranteed for those conditions. If the rope is altered in any way, then the manufacturer cannot guarantee their product because they don't know if it has deteriorated or not. As far as Sharpies are concerned there are hundreds of different types of permanent markers and since the manufacturer cannot test them all, they won't certify any. So what they can do is certify something specifically designed and sold as a rope marker, even though it might be exactly the same ink as a sharpie. Now that all said, it is wise to actually check with the manufacturer to see what they say as far as marking ropes, rather than assume one rule applies to all. Some might actually have approved sharpies for use while some might say the opposite.

Note for the future people who watch this. If you take something into a body of water, wash it thoroughly before taking it into another. Not all lakes and rivers have the same ecosystem, and taking microbes and algae from one to another can seriously damage things and cause a lot of trouble.

“Please don’t die and blame me.” You heard it here first. Ghosts exist!

Good stuff in this one. Yeah the two seperate locations were nicely done.Thanks for learning :)

Can you do sharpie on a belay loop, please? A friend wrote her name on the inside of the belay loop of her climbing harness 🤦‍♂️

You should mark whole long sections with sharpie and tie the knots there, and compare that to unmarked knots! As of now you're marking the strongest sections, which would require quite large amounts of strength reductions to show up in the tests.

I have used both sharpies and other available markers, and official products for rope marking. All of them wear off pretty easily and also fade with time, I have found.

After the stretch test it looks like the spots with the ink are thinner than the rest of the sheath. Is that real or just an optical illusion? 21:38

Over about 1 year and lots of usage my sheet on my beal joker creeped more than 1 meter!

"Don't die and then blame me" lol

Can you let one of the sharpie marks sit for some time as my concern with sharpie was degradation an chemical weakening of the sheath/core. Love the info and data you provide, its my jam. Knowledge and understanding dispels fear!

18:30 Savage!!! Great transition BTW

You should try applying the superglue then right away apply baking soda to chemically harden the glue.

Hi Brent! Nice to see you again.

Hi @HowNOT2, I think edelrid did a lot of research, the DAV(German Alpine) club and the Berg&steigen too. They found out that the abrasion resistance is lower after marking the Rope, about 50% is lost of your MB-Strength. So in the case of lowering f.E. a higher load (like 2People in an emergency) over an edge, it could potentially fail at the marking! Maybe you could verify this somehow, cheers!

Conclusion: A knot reduces the strength of the rope more than a sharpie. We already know a knot reduces rope strength by 25-50% or more. No way shapie ink will.

While watching the part when he had the ink out I went to scratch my nose then I stopped to check to see if I had any ink on my hands. Hahahaha

Your Videos! are @mazing! Thanks for the fun and educational videos. You have a Demolition Ranch vibe recently!

In future rope break videos you could try holding the ends with a prusik so the knot isn’t what breaks. Not sure if a prusik can be stronger than the rope.

Seems like the best test would have been to sharpie the whole rope, not just a small section. That would have the best chance of showing a strength reduction.

guests in the video made this an interesting video. thanks.

Just marked a rope yesterday, they make a really fat chisel point Sharpie now that makes it super easy !

I'm here for the cat

It would be interesting to see what the fibers look like under microscope to see what if any impact the ink has. As well, soaking in various solutions like cat pee, gasoline, oil, puddle water…etc then see how the strength of the rope is or isn’t effected. Just to demonstrate a video on carelessness of rope and the effects.

I just run fluro floss through the loops of the mantle in a spiral. Visible enough, and kind classy.

How long did you wait between saturating the rope and testing it? Also, I liked the dual-location format.

I just simply use some thread to mark the middle. Wrap it around and it holds pretty well. It has to be redone every year or so, also sometimes it can catch on stuff if you do it incorrectly. Otherwise I find it very astetic

Be nice to test it after the ink has been on for a few weeks to see if it degrades the fibre over time.

Awesome video as always. Just wondering why you didn't use a friction knot? It wouldn't compromise the rope at the knot then. Is supposed to take it alot closer to it's real breaking strength. Also I like the multi location of this..... You need to up your gear wall 😉

Haha exactly! I’ve marked my ropes for years. But it’s cool to know the science

Side note I just noticed the plaque on the top right of the gear wall. I've got essentially the same one. Looks like someone's been the Philippines, at least that's where I got mine...

I suppose the break test would have more validity if you let it sit for a few weeks/months after appying the ink. And also if you performed a test applying force specifically on that spot.

That's an awesome idea about using electrical tape and using super glue. I was always pulling my hair out because I couldn't melt the ends of my ropes together neatly.

Dang, that marker is cool. Beal should've sponsored y'all, because now I want to pick one up.

I was told that sharpies cause the rope to degrade faster, so perhaps the issues would be a few years down the line. Not sure if there's any truth in that, though.

are wet ropes weaker? I feel like it cant be the case, otherwise rain=death... thus, unless there's a chemical reaction between the plastic of the rope and the ink, there shouldn't be a noticeable change in strength, that's my guess