Making a climbing rope for home/gym use

[Blairbob]

I've been looking into making some ropes for the gym but wasn't very fond of the price of gymnastic ropes online starting at $75 and even way more for the ropes with knots in them@$7/knot. The hardware to hang a rope costs a bit as well besides the fact I don't have access to that tall of a ladder to get up the ceiling (which I really don't want to do anyways). Mainly I just want a bunch of ropes with knots to get our weaker and little kids climbing without having them step on my wrists.

I did see Lincoln B.'s guide on the CrossFitJournal to making a cheap climbing rope in the journal but was told that poly-ropes suck for climbing. Cheap, but slippery. I'm sure if I spliced together a few manilla ropes it would be decent. 3 1/2 inch ropes mebbe.

I found some 3/4" manilla for 63cents/foot @Home Depot which is about twice what it costs online. I brought home about 12 feet and tied it to a dowel that I hang over the door to my attic and it worked ok as a rope to climb. It hurt a bit but was workable. I didn't try using my feet. Bare in mind, I have smaller hands as I'm 5'+.

I brought in the rope, made a knot with an eyehole and threaded it through by hanging it from our High Bar which is around 8 feet high. I had my boys try it and they didn't bother using their feet and it wasn't hurting their hands or being slippery. However, one of my guys has freakish pull strength compared to our other gymnasts though he is only 61lbs@11yo.

I ninja'd some of the girl's pre-teamers, a 5yo, a small 7yo, and another 8-9yo.They didn't have a problem with it either. They could all climb to the top as well. While the 5yo is strong for her age, I wouldn't really consider the 7 or 9yo very strong as I see them struggle during their pullups during conditioning.

My whole point is you could knot this stuff by tying it to your pullup bars and you'd have a serviceable climbing rope for about 7 bucks. Great for those CFKid's classes. It costs $7/knot for knots in a rope tied by most gymnastic suppliers so that generally means it would cost $120-200/rope though they do come with the mounting hardware.

I can hang these from our rings or high bar or set the parallel bars way up or probably hang them from a wall or door mounted bar. I'm imagining having about 5 or 6 with eyelets to just slip the other end through and hang for quick rope climbing for the wee or weak ones.

Honestly, if they can't climb a normal rope without knots, why would I want them to climb very high in the first place. Generally, I only ask that our beginning kids climb half the way up in the first levels to pass Level 1 anyways.

Online I found 1.5" manilla for cut sizes at $1.60/ft http://www.knotandrope.com/store/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=3 wfs. A climbing bracket sells online for 10 bucks besides the beam clamp. That's about 20 bucks for a 15' rope, slightly more. Tie your own knots and it'll cost about 25-30 bucks.

[rubadub]

I think a knot in a 1.5" rope uses up quite a bit of rope. There are clamps you can get to simulate a knot to help climbing, this could be useful when you progress and want to remove them.

I posted this picture of one of my ropes in another thread.

They are hose clamps holding the blue rope. It compresses really tight on the rope, then a few days later you can get a few more turns. I have heard them called jubilee clips (trademark name) and worm drive clips. I also put some black electrical insulation tape on my blue rope just incase the clips cut into it. I tied knots in the blue rope for 2 reasons, to stop they fraying/unravelling, and in case the blue rope did slip the knots would catch against the clip. I don't thing the manila would slip out of the clip too easily, since it compresses well, and then days later you can compress more, so the top bit is not so compressed.

The blue loop can go over a bar and then the thick rope can pass through it like a noose, like this.

You could get adjustable webbing straps like on rings and pass it through the blue loop, then it could be thrown up high over a high bar or branch etc, you could find something to anchor it on the other side. Webbing is obviously far cheaper than rope and it would be easily removable and adjustable. When finished just pull it back over tugging on the climbing rope end.

[Mark Weaver]

If you were really ambitious, you could put an eye splice on the end.

[Joshua Naterman]

That's what I would do, personally. Splice an eye and then... I forget what we called it... but it's the word for when, after you splice the eye, you take small but strong manilla or nylon line and wrap the entire length of the splice as tight as is humanly possible. That way the splice doesn't come undone. It's tedious, but it lasts as long as the rope will and you can say you did that manly piece of rope work yourself!!!

[rubadub]

. I forget what we called it..

I think the term would be "whipping", it is usually done on the end of ropes, might have a different name at the splice.

This is a good site on knots etc.

http://www.animatedknots.com/indexropecare.php

[Joshua Naterman]

YES! That's it! Whipping the rope can be a little painful if you're doing it right with bare hands!

[Guest TYG]

I made my climbing rope with rope from here

http://www.knotandrope.com/store/pc/home.asp

1 1/4" manilla rope for $1.23 a foot....had them make an looped end for about an extra $15.

When it comes to standard items like this gymnastic sites seem to be insanely overpriced...this is about the best price I've seen.