Hi All,
Just received a report from New England Ropes, re testing on the improved soft shackle. I will need to go over things in detail, but the design got significantly higher break strengths that the conventional one -- about 200% of rope strength, at least in the smaller sizes, and up to 280% when cycled a few times prior to the break. This compares with around 120% for the conventional design, in previous tests.
When I get things sorted out and averaged I'll be providing more details. Meanwhile I'll mention that these numbers, at least for the non-cycled samples, are lower than the results carried out by the estimable Evans Starzinger on a few preliminary samples. but then he also got higher results for the conventional design. It seems likely that there is a protocol difference that will account for the discrepancy, but in any event both sets of tests show a major increase in strength, and I have a couple of ideas for improving things further.
Many thanks to Stuart MacNeil and all the gang at New England Ropes for breaking these things! Do let them know how wonderful they are:
Stuart.MacNeil@teufelberger.com.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss