What rope to chose to hold my body weight from a monkey fist knot
I am trying to make my own wrecking ball since buying one is expensive and making one is also more fun.
My idea was to use 2 cricket balls that I have and tie monkey fist knots around them and finish the knot with a hook.
I just wanted a recommendation for the better choice of rope type with a gauge of around 8-10mm. I weigh about 80kg at the moment.
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As Ben Crowell already noted you are not going to be taxing a rope very much in this application, and unless you are planning acrobatic moves off of these holds (which you very well may be) there is little danger even if the rope (or cord) fails.
Unless you happen to get a very good deal even 6mm accessory cord, the real UIAA certified stuff, is quite expensive, especially when viewed from the perspective of price per mass or volume.
Using a thinner cord will result in you using more feet of it to form your monkey's fist than would using a thicker cord. You may actually end up paying more to use accessory cord!
For these reasons I do not agree with the recommendation to use accessory cord. Quoting your comment for reference:
... it is indeed a lot cheaper and nicely sold by the metre. I found a Mammut one for £1 a m.
A price of £1/meter for accessory cord is really quite high as rope goes, especially if it is 6mm. I regularly find factory-short lead ropes for that linear price and it would take a much shorter length of 9mm-11mm rope to complete your wrap than it would of accessory cord. (On the other hand the last time I bought 6mm Accessory Cord I got it for less than 20¢/foot which would make it more practical.)
Why even bother with climb-certified rope or cordage for such a project? Any braided nylon rope or cord should handle well while making your wraps, and people seem to make these just fine out of three-strand rope so even that is probably overkill.
Consider also how the size and type of cord will affect the "grippiness" of the holds. You might actually prefer the friction of natural fiber rope or the slickness of polypropylene for example.
As a point of reference there is currently an eBay sale ("Buy it now") for 620 feet of 3/8" polyester double braid at under 21¢/foot, assuming local pick-up.
You probably want to size the rope or cord to the size of the object being wrapped. Too thing a cord will result in a lot of wraps and a lot of work, while too thick a rope and you won't be able to complete the knot very well.
If I had the right lengths of used rope or cord on hand I would just use that.
In fact this is probably a great answer to the old question of what to do with retired climbing rope:
a DIY monkey's fist Cannon Bomb.
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Any 8-10 mm nylon rope will hold many, many times more than your body weight. Climbing ropes are designed to hold dynamic falls, not just static body weight.
You could easily get away with 6 mm accessory cord, which is a lot cheaper than a climbing rope. It holds about 700 kg.
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