UKC

Yes... This has been done to death, and yes, I will send these away for professional reslinging after the summer, but, does anyone have any thoughts on this? (See pictures).

I've pinched some 30ish-year-old cams from my Dad to compliment my own rack. I'm not at all worried about the metalwork, but the slings make me nervous. I've added a loop of dyneema webbing (cut from some slings which I've been using as alpine quickdraws for about 8 years), tied them with water knots, seated them by bouncing with my body weight, and taped the ends down.

My my reckoning, even allowing for serious wear/decay on the slings, that's about 30kN - more than a carabiner, more than my harness, much more than my spine.

I was under the impression that a waters knot is not sufficient for dyneema because it's so slippery. 

The original sling on the cam in the photo looks to be in very good condition, even ignoring it's age, so unless you know they've been stored badly then the original sling is probably ok IMO.

Your choice obviously.

Just did mine with cord.  If I recall rightly Joe Browns sells pre cut lengths intended for this.

I've heard that about dyneema too, but thought it was only true of knots that aren't under load, i.e. they may "bounce" out when you're not looking, but that under load they don't slip. That's the rationale behind the electrical tape, and anyway this isn't brand new dyneema, it's more fluffy than slippy now.

I agree the old sling is likely fine, but that doesn't stop my mind saying "what if" when I'm run out, pumped, and scared...

Knotted dyneema can easily slip, especially with a  tape knot. Loads of videos online. Personally I'd just use some 6mm cord with a double fisherman's knot. 

Plus one for what Andy Peak just said above. 6mm rope and double fisherman's.

Go look at some hownot2 videos. Knotted dyneema slips under load.

Just use 6/7mm cord knotted with double fishermans. 

6mm cord it is. Good thing about working in a climbing wall is I can sit on UKC and everything I need is just lying around!

The final touch is to get some 1" tubular tape of the right colour and thread the "sling/rope" through it to aid identification - totally non structual just an aid to usage.

http://www.kakibusok.plus.com/Equipment/ReslingCams/Resling.htm

See Figure 8. The problem is getting tape of the right colours, blue & red are easy ...

Please inspect the joint of the cable to the stainless termination at both ends of the stem. It is a well known model of failure for these cams if they have been well used and is not immediately apparent as the individual wires can shear low down in the joint where the ferrule crushes down on the cable. Most likely fine but worth checking. 

As suggested above the probable best solution is cord knotted with a double fisherman's as used for slings before stitched slings became available. Needlesports do pre - prepared lengths for precisely this function. They are of dyneema cord and do the job brilliantly. They recommend a triple fisherman's. The link below describes the longer of two options, suitable for a double length cam sling. I use the shorter version as I don't like double slings.

https://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Climbing/Rock-Trad-Climbing/Cord-Tap...

I've not seen those vids, but I like the way dyneema core sheathed with other stuff results in the sheath snapping and the core simply sliding through the knot :-/

To give people an idea of how slippery dyneema/spectra is, angling knots that are fine with 4 turns in normal nylon monofilament require 8 turns when tied with dyneema braid.  You're going to need a triple fishermans.

I'd rather use the old slings than the knotted new ones and I don't think anyone will re-sling 30yo cams in UK/Europe.

I replaced mine with 20cm  Mammut 6mm stitched dyneema slings, thin enough to poke through the old holes doubled, they can be clipped normally (clipping both loops) or extended so the sling larksfoots onto the cam's eyelet.

jk

I agree the old sling is likely fine, but that doesn't stop my mind saying "what if" when I'm run out, pumped, and scared...

i'd just buy a new one!

I did that once with some old Camalots (captive eye, not thumb-loop) but other people got really confused about what to clip to extend placements. Ended up getting them re-slung properly, as it was back when BD did it for free.

I still have a #6 friend which I re-corded with 5.5 dyneema cord on a triple FM. I find the cord really bulky but it's less noticeable when it's a massive cam; I wouldn't like it on anything below a #4 I don't think. I was holding out hope that WC would get their act together and sort out some sensible re-slinging (after all, they had a big press-release about doing exactly that) but alas, no joy there!

This company in Poland do reslinging; https://www.lhotse.pl/uslugiszwalnicze/

Haven't used them myself though.

Yeah it would be a fair old whack to post a Friend 6 though!

I bought a 30cm 8mm sling. Pushed one end through the hole and basket hitched the two ends with a Grivel Plume Captive Snapgate.

I didn't know they existed but if they had them in racking colours, I would have replaced all the krabs on my cams in an instant! 

I know, sadly they only do them in gold! 

I've been in contact with them and they only post within the EU. Happily I live in Norway and the nearest EU border isn't far away, but I expect they no longer post to the UK. They did, though, give me a big disclaimer saying they only concern themselves with slings/webbing and don't check or take responsibilty for any metalwork, so it should be fine to send them older cams, I hope.

I’ve done that and covered the doubled back sling with appropriate coloured tube tape to aid identification (well as closely coloured as possible). Also added a thin tie wrap at the end closest to clip in loop to keep the loops together and stop people only clipping one loop.

Might go back to the water/ triple fisherman knot method

I try to just sew the two loops togeather at the krab clip-in end, to stop any chance of clipping just one loop. You dont need too many stiches to make it secure.

Having climbed with a friends rack with your method of reslinging I would avoid it. The risk of clipping one loop is high and obviously the consequences are horrendous. Go for a double fisherman's. 

I've been liking the 6mm aramid-core cord recently for reslinging nuts and small hexes. Quite a bit of strength increase over a typical 6mm nylon cord and I've found it about half the price of the 5.5mm dyneema that's available.

The knots are surprisingly low-profile. Pic below shows a triples fisherman's in the aramid (black) vs a double fisherman's in 7mm (green) and 8mm (blue) nylon cords.

How does it handle v Dyneema ? Will need some 6mm to restring my Big-Bro.

Aramid stuff is normally touted as being stiffer, but I guess it depends on the rope construction to some extent.

How did you treat the ends of the aramid-core cord? It’s not very melty is it? Looks neat. 

End wise, I treated it like dyneema: pull back sheath, cut core and melt sheath over end.

Handling wise its pretty floppy, but not as much as 5.5mm dyneema. It's not rigid enough to place a nut like wire for example. If loaded it gets much stiffer (like when bouncing on them to set the fisherman's), but once unloaded and scrunched up a bit the fibres relax again.

How about 12mm elderid tech web you can use a water knot and in a loop with this its strength will exceed 15 kn. Once set I don’t find they really slip https://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Climbing/Rock-Trad-Climbing/Cord-Tap...

+1 for the tech-web.

I used it to resling some tricams and really liked it. Used a double-fishermans and it snugged down to make nice low profile knots.

Tech-web works for me. Just this time I used nylon, cheaper and still over the "required" 12-14kN with a water knot.

12-14kN is the max rating of most cams.

Following this discussion and looking to change the method of looping 10mm by 30cm slings with tube tape protection for dyneema cord. In order to match the original WC cam sling colours, I'm struggling to get dyneema cord in colours other than Beal blue (thanks Needle Sports).  What are peoples' opinion on using sailing halyard/ sheet dyneema cord as a substitute?  There's 6mm dyneema cord rated at 11kN, 12kN and 18kN if you hunt around online yacht chandlers; comes in suitable colours to match the original WC cam sling colours.

Thanks Gordon

There is more slippage in a fisherman's knot than with standard nylon cord which is the reason a triple fisherman's knot is usually recommended for joining these type of cords.

The black HMPE cord version pictured above is a lot more flexible than the edelrid aramid version which is quite stiff if you can still buy it off the reel anywhere. The technique noted above works well for sealing the ends but remember to account for a small amount of wastage as you cut the core back.

https://sterlingrope.com/ do tubular (climbing) webbing in most cam colours, the key thing for me is the tube is not loaded so it does not have to be climbing grade.

I've used sailing rope for slinging hexes, I don't think there's really any special requirements for slinging gear, whereas climbing rope has more asked of it.