Termination Plates Tested

Knots reduce the strength of a rope by up to 50%. They say termination plates retain more strength out of your rope. "How much?" you ask. Well, we couldn't find that anywhere so we tested it. What We Tested These plates are designed for big, chunky ropes: 11mm to 19mm, so we tested 12mm. My buddy uses them out of spec with 9mm, so we did that, and since this is HowNOT2, we thought we’d really push it and test it with 6mm. Our Results Termination plates did save up to 80% instead of 60ish% of the ropes “full strength”. If you need a rope to hold a few more kN, maybe just buy a bigger rope? YOU are more likely to break before a knot would. What is a Termination Plate used for? Some people think some people are dumb, and a termination plate is supposedly easier to teach quickly to someone unfamiliar with ropes. You just thread the rope through the holes to match the diagram and clip it to the anchor. Who knew a figure 8 was so hard? The industrial world has some high standards and if a rope barely meets the minimum strength requirements, using a termination plate may help meet their minimums since it does technically can retain 80% instead of 66% of the strength of a rope. Where this does shine is that it's VERY easy to untie after being pulled to high loads. That’s why my buddy at ROPE SWING MOAB uses them. Makes derig a breeze. Bowlines are easy to untie too and they are free! Here is the Skinny on Termination Plates Please don't use a skinny rope diameter out of spec and die because it slipped. We like to push the limits of gear so you know how it works (and doesn't) better. Knots are super good enough unless you have a niche reason to spend $50 to do something that would otherwise be free. What's Next I haven't seen much on these knots, so we made this video