Toss me a rope!

Welcome back to another installment of FSG Blog! Hope all is well with you. Today we will go over the basics of cordage, rope, line, etc. Cordage can help in many ways, From Lifting objects, securing them, fishing, and more. Let's break down cordage into different types and uses.

General rope info: So I just wanted to provide a quick picture and info for those who may not be familiar with rope. From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Parts_of_the_knot

Many times Carabiners,anchors,stakes and other general equipment is needed to achieve your rope goal, I will provide general links to these at the bottom.

Life Safety line/Repelling/Climbing- This line is used for the safety of peopling and other living beings. This rope has a standard set in manufacturing. To meet the requirements, the rope must have things like multiple synthetic strands, Inner strands, and the outer jacket must meet weight requirements, etc. This is high-quality stuff as it is used to ensure the safety of living beings. You'll often find this rope used in situations such as Emergency rescue uses, Professional climbing and or repelling, water rescue, Fire fighting, and more.

General use ropes- You will find hundreds of different types if you just search "rope" online. Most companies offer many different types, lengths, sizes, and strengths of general use rope.

The most common are: Bank line, Synthetic line, braided line, Twine and such. These ropes are used for generally securing medium to smaller objects(weight wise), lashing and attaching, immobilizing and other general uses. Different ropes for different uses, Depending on what you specify doing would dictate what rope you would pick. I wouldn't use a fishing line to secure your lean-to together, Just as I wouldn't fish with bank line.

Buyer beware!!!! There are always knock-offs, look alike, etc. If you are looking for something that needs to hold weight, Please do your due diligence and make sure the product you are buying is rated for what you are planning to use it for.

Paracord- From the above picture provided from Paracordplanet.com, you can see there are a few different types of Para. Generally speaking most outdoors people are dealing with 550. While 550 is great for a lot of things such as lashing, securing and crafting, I would suggest that if for some reason you wanted to use it to lift a heavy object or support a person I would use either 1250(para max) or life safety rope rated for that. There are also other specialty paras made, ones with tinder in them(Fire cord), ones with fishing line, tinder, thread, wire (survival cord). I'll go over those next as they are a special subject.

Specialty Para cord- Here is a special category of paracord. There are a few specialty products made by several companies in the 550 cord category. One such product that is commonly found is Fire cord, or Tinder cord. Here is a picture of the tinder from UST.

This is 550 cord with an added 8th internal strand of a tinder strand for fire starting.

"survival" cord is a generic name given to multiple 550 cords, but here we are specially talking about 550 with added strands that contain things like, copper wire, fishing line, tinder cord, and thread. As you can see from the picture below, There are multiple uses for these extra strands in the cord. Thus why it is called "survival cord" IF you are going to carry general use 550 cord I would HIGHLY recommend it be something of this sort. This is the type I carry.

Links:

Storesum locking carabiners- https://amzn.to/33joUl2

Nite Ize cam jam rope lock and tightener- https://amzn.to/3m8DN1Y

Satinior guy line tightener- https://amzn.to/33ntnDe

OmniProGear OPG ATAR rope- https://amzn.to/3k8VwVi

Tarred bank line- https://amzn.to/3hkGQkd

Paracord Planet 100ft orange 550- https://amzn.to/32ndlKh

PARACORD PLANET 1/4 Inch para-Max Paracord- https://amzn.to/3hlC5GP

UST para tinder 550 cord - https://amzn.to/33kDGb7

PSKOOK 550 survival cord- https://amzn.to/2Rh1ebl