Message from Johan Domeij: I'm an expedition sailor from Sweden, with a love of ropework. A while ago I found a cool way to integrate a soft shackle into the end of a line, on the youtube channel "@PremiumRopes". A few days later, by the grace of the algorithm gods, I found another, different way to accomplish the same thing, on the channel "@TheRigLoftMatthewOtto4775". And I'm intensely curious to see how they compare! If either proves strong, it seems like an excellent way to terminate a halyard for example. Both methods use a short piece of extra line which is spliced (for type 1) or knotted (for type 2) into the longer line to make the shackle. They look similar but are however spliced completely differently, although it might be hard to see: On the viewing example, I made the shorter piece from a different color to highlight this, but for the samples I wanted everything to be from the same spool to eliminate variables. Type 1 will only load one strand of the knot, and that strand is the part that splices into the rope. Type 2 will load both strands of the knot, but instead, all the load comes on a brummel splice. Minutia: * All samples are identical on both ends. * Above the special brummels etc. that make up the soft shackles, all samples have exactly the same splice: a locking brummel, a 50x diameter bury, plus a 15x diameter taper. There is about 25 cm of unspliced rope before the taper of the other splice starts. There is no locking-stitch or -whipping, which I would strongly recommend for real world use, but which might affect consistency in testing. * The button knots are tied as hard as I can with fids and pliers, but not set beyond that. The ends of the knots are buried ~5x diameters, and cut diagonally. * The rope used is "4mm D-pro" from Liros, which is a heat treated and impregnated SK78 Dyneema, in a 12 braid. All from the same spool. It has a listed breaking strength of 1300 daN (dekaNewtons, which means 13 kiloNewtons or 1326 kilograms-force or 2923 pounds-force). Line from this spool seems to measure more like 3.5mm to me. * Both original videos use a traditional diamond knot for the soft shackle, but I have opted for a button knot instead. Ryan has thoroughly convinced me that they are both stronger and (importantly for testing as well as safety) more repeatable. * For anyone attempting type 1, be extra careful to tighten the knot really hard before use. For anyone attempting type 2, consider making an extra brummel lock below where the button knot sits. I have not done this for the samples, but have instead been very careful to keep things consistent and comparable. * The more basic way to achieve the same thing as these integrated soft shackles, would be to splice a normal eye, and then use a normal soft shackle in the eye, perhaps tied or seized in place with some other string. This is very functional, though less elegant. I thought of including samples for this as well, but we already know that both spliced eyes and soft shackles are stronger than the rope, so it wouldn't be very interesting to test.

If anyone wants to discuss these splices, ropework in general, or expedition sailing, you can reach me at johan.domeij@gmail.com. I also run a small-time rope workshop from time to time, when I'm on land. Type 1 From YouTube channel "@PremiumRopes": "8.3 Splice a soft shackle on a rope" or, alternate video of the same splice from the same channel: "Splice an integrated soft shackle on a rope". Note that they use a double-braided rope in these videos. The outer braid is a sheath of polyester which makes the Dyneema core easier to tie knots in and use in friction devices, but adds nothing to the strength of the rope. Type 2 From YouTube channel "@TheRigLoftMatthewOtto4775": "Making my version of a integrated soft shackles" A simplified version of this can also be made by tying the button knot directly at the ends of the splice where the eye normally goes, and then close it by pushing the knot through the extra-brummeled-eye that is used for the separate line in this method. This is simpler, but the downside is that you have to thread the head of the knot through whatever you are attaching to which is less convenient. Our Results MBS is 13kN - we got slightly higher in 1 but the rest were lower. Dyneema breaks all over the place, even pulling it apples to apples. Freedom Units Units everyone else uses They broke in the brummeled sections What's Next See what different qualities do!

6mm vs 7mm Accessory Cord jumps in strength a huge amount compared to other diameters. If you are using tiny rope for anchors or rigging, you really need to know you can rely on the strength ratings. We broke 5mm, 6mm, 7mm and 8mm to see how much each jumped in strength. Thank you Alpine Savvy for helping us with this episode! 6mm vs 7mm is rate at a 73% jump in strength??? We did see a bigger jump between 6mm and 7mm but it was 55% not 73%. We only did 3 samples of each but it verifies something we don't know is at play here to get a bigger strength difference between those diameters than the other ones. Please don't use accessory cords for rappelling or other activities that single-rated ropes are intended for. These are great for anchor building and miscellaneous use even if they do hold 2,000lbf in a lab setting! What's Next? See when anchors fail and when they don't

I tested over 27 girth hitches in 5 different configurations with John Godino from Alpine Savvy https://www.instagram.com/alpinesavvy/. This topic is one of the most engaging on his page so we thought we would explore it with both nylon and dyneema. I was shocked that the dyneema did better than the nylon in a few of the cases. "But what about shock loading it???" We did that too. 2 Types of slings tested in this video CYPHER DYNEEMA https://extremegear.org/products/8mm-dyneema-slings-cypher BLACK DIAMOND NYLON https://extremegear.org/products/18mm-nylon-runner-black-diamond Test Configurations Girth hitching directly to a hanger Girth hitch something more round like a rappel ring or a carabiner Girth hitching 2 slings together Girth hitch master points I can't believe how low the nylon sling was on a hanger, I thought the dyneema was going to be weaker. The low sling to sling nylon result at 11.44kn was because it was already compromised, but that is awesome to see the limits of a sling that is halfway cut through. The nylon drop tests did NOT break or slip at 14kn, that's just the highest result we got. What's Next? Listen to an hour long podcast with John Godino

Sometimes you swing bags while big walling. Sometimes you drop them as rope swing dummys. When and how do they break? The straps were stronger than I thought and the bottom blew out after 4 attempts of shockloading it at forces that would wreck you. Our Results: All drops were 1.5-1.8 fall factors 1st drop - 120lbs/54kg at 11.80kN 2nd drop - 175lbs/80kg at 15.76kN 3rd drop - 275lbs/125kg broke cross loaded carabiner at 9.9kN 4th drop - 275lbs / 125kg blew out bottom at 12.94 Slow Pulls We slow pulled what we could apart. We got 1-5 kN but if you daisy the short handles, do it around the main straps since we got those to fail at 2.38kN and a tiny shockload in the right situation could bust those. Try not to drop all your gear on other people! No No No Yes it is stronger than I thought, but it's not an anchor extender. Don't trust your life to haul bag straps like this post found on instagram. This might be over the top ridiculous but if you are in your portaledge, below your haul bag, you might be tempted to clip to the bag with your personal anchor. Only do this if you are directly tied in with the rope! Bags are not life supporting. Read more about big walls in in the Big Wall Bible What's Next? See our deep dive into G7's portaledge

Soft shackles work so well, many people are worried the noose will slip off the head, since that is the only thing keeping it in place. A standard button knot soft shackle has the legs completely separated until the noose but John Tucker wanted to try to test brummel splicing them together which, in theory, will keep it snug up around the knot. The Specs He used Samson SK75 7/64 (2.5mm) 8 braid Dyneema. I pulled with the knot in different positions to see if we got the same results regardless. I pulled it with a hydraulic without any pretension until ultimate failure. Does Bury Length Matter A general rule is that you need 72x the diameter of dyneema spliced into itself to be full strength. Does this apply to soft shackles? John did a proper bury length of 8" with the last 1" tapered and then did some short burys and then on 1 set, he completely cut off the tails and it has 0 bury. Does Knot Size Matter The button knot is a bigger knot than the diamond knot and it also allows the tails to come back down so you can make the diameter below the knot larger for the noose to have a better bend radius, therefore getting consistently higher results than a diamond knot. Since John is worried about the noose slipping off, he experimented with putting an extra pass in the 3rd stage of tying the button knot so it would be bigger. Our Results The knot didn't seem to have a difference, except it just makes it harder to tighten up which is an important part of making these. A longer bury has not proven to be important in my experience of using soft shackles (aggressively) for many years. A short bury is super good enough but as you can see with the heads getting decapitated, that you don't want to just cut the tails off. I've pulled on soft shackles with tails that were not buried in the past and it collapses the knot. The brummel splice technique for John's soft shackles did not seem to have any negative affect on the strength. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Extreme Gear sells 3 different types of Dyneema: Sk75, SK78, SK99 max This is John Tucker's video on how he made the soft shackles you see in our episode. What's Next? We tested tapers to see how much they matter. If you don't taper you get a drastic change in diameter which in theory reduces the strength, but we actually found out something even more interesting trying to discover that.