Is there a way to find out the age of climbing ropes?
I have two half ropes from Camp that are basically unused, but are slowly getting old, and I would like to know their age. Is there a way to do that?
I know the name of the model: Camp Plekton 8.2mm. And I also know the batch number.
Edit: These are my own ropes, so I do know how they were used, this is not the problem. The problem is that I am not 100% sure when I bought them. Could be 6 years ago, could be 8 years ago. Still within 10 years limit, but a big difference on how long they still could be fine to use. I also don't know how long they could have been stored in the shop.
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In the end I have contacted the manufacturer, and received a detailed answer surprisingly quickly.
So turns out, that the last 2 digits of the batch number are the year of manufacture. E.g. ABCD987612 --> Year of manufacture is 2012.
Additional useful information from the e-mail:
The potential lifetime of this product in use is 10 years.
Attention: This is only a potential lifetime, a rope could be destroyed during its first use. It is the inspections which determine if the product must be scrapped more quickly. Proper storage between uses is essential. The lifetime of the rope in use must never exceed 10 years. The total maximum lifetime (storage before use + lifetime in use) is thus limited to 12 years.
What I did not know is that I did not have to worry about the storage time in the shop. The two years are not included in the max 10 years of use.
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The only way I know of would to be to cut a small section off of one of the ends and then dissect it.
Inside of the sheath next to the core strands should be a tracer thread and identification tape,
During the braiding process, an identification tape and tracer thread indicating the year of manufacture are woven into the rope core.
The year of manufacture tracer thread is made from polyamide, and is in a particular colour. Its colour shows the year the rope was manufactured, although the same set of colours is repeated every ten years. The year of manufacture tracer thread means that this information is permanently marked for the lifespan of the rope.
The identification tape is a thin strip of polypropylene. In accordance with the EN 1891 standard for static ropes, it has to display the following information: name of manufacturer, standard and rope type, year of manufacture and the type of material the static rope is made from.
The identification tape should say the year right on it, and I have seen this before when I was decoring retired climbing rope to make rope bracelets out of it.
You would have to contact the manufacturer in order to find out what year that color of tracer thread was used.
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