Trace Evidence 2009 : Manufacturing Materials : Richards

>> Susan: Our next speaker is Dave Richards.
He's the full time technical director
of the Cordage Institute.
He has 39 years experience in the manufacturing, testing,
and fabrication of rope assemblies,
with another 13 years of using and handling ropes.
He's the author of the Splice book.
And, Dave is going to talk to us about fiber rope today
and how the Cordage Institute can help.
[ silence ]
>> Dave: OK.
Thank you, Susan.
And, I would like to extend my congratulations
to the organization that set this up.
This is probably the nicest conference I've ever attended,
and it's really great.
I appreciate the opportunity.
This is where we are now.
Oops, let me see if I can figure out how to,
how do I get it to change?
[ silence ]
A slight malfunction.
[ silence]
>> Need some help?
>> Susan: Yeah.
[ laughter ]
This isn't working.
>> This is your presentation right here.
Someone triggered this.
>>Dave: Somebody turned all that on.
>> [inaudible].
>> [inaudible].
[ inaudible]
>> Susan: Thank you.
>> There you go.
Sure.
>> Dave: OK.
OK. That's corrected.
OK, this is where we are and this is where I'm from.
[ laughter ]
The Cordage Institute is a non-profit organization
and it's an organization of rope manufacturers,
fiber manufacturers, engineers, consultants,
equipment manufacturers that make the equipment
to make the rope and as well as government representatives.
And, our, we have two committees.
The executive committee, which is a Board of Directors,
Presidents of the various rope manufacturers
and representatives from the fiber suppliers.
And, a technical committee and that's
where all the work gets done.
We have, the technical director, which is myself,
and I'm the only paid employee, so everything falls down on,
goes down hill, I'm at the bottom.
We have the technical committee chair person,
is elected for a two year term.
A lot of sub-committees, workgroups,
but the main thing is we're an all volunteer consensus
organization, which means it takes a long time
to get anything done.
[ laughter ]
Technical committee meets three times a year.
Our purpose is to promote quality products,
generate standards for the industry use,
generate guidelines, and test methods.
And, we're also available for questions
and our meetings are open to anybody.
It doesn't cost anything to attend.
We meet two times a year in Philadelphia.
And, then the annual meeting is in different locations.
Last year, this past May it was in Savannah.
The next one, I think, is going to be in Arizona.
Right now we have about 29 standards approved
and there are a few new one in work, in process,
guidelines, publications.
And, everything has a five year review,
which means every five years we can go back over it, chew it up,
and see if there's anything different and taste.
And, then right now we're in the process
of revising the technical information
and application manual.
It's only about 17 chapters.
And, that kind of falls on my shoulders,
and I've got other things kind of ahead of it,
so we're a little slow on that one.
If you're interested we have a website,
www.ropecord.com We have a quarterly newsletter that's
available, free of charge if you get it in a PDF format.
And, if you have any questions, or comments,
or anything you can contact me.
I live in Sugar Land, Texas.
It's the sweetest place in the land.
[ laughter ]
You can email me, or you can telephone the number that's
up there.
That's my cell phone, and I have a day job,
because they won't pay me enough to do it full time.
I manage a testing facility.
We break rope.
We test rope for cyclic fatigue, chain cable, and anything
that I can break that's under 800,000 lbs we'll do it.
And, so if I answer the phone and cut you off abruptly it's
because we're in the middle of a break or something.
[ laughter ]
Now, the Institute was founded in 1920.
And, the reason I'm giving you all this background is
because we want to be available as a source for you,
if you have questions.
And, as we get further into this you'll see the complexity
of ropes and what we're facing,
and we kind of need your guidance in helping us to focus
and get the information out that would be of assistance to you.
I have a son that's in the police department.
He's got about 27 years at the Houston Police Department.
And, I've been involved in several cases, even testified
in a murder case awhile back.
But, this is a, it's not a work of, it's not hard work,
it's a labor of love to be able to work with you people
and help you, because the more we can get this information
together I think it will benefit you.
In 1920 we started out,
the Cordage Institute, I wasn't here then.
[ laughter ]
But, they my grandchildren think I was,
[ laughter ]
They originally started the institute to control the import
of manila fiber coming in from the Philippines,
and control the pricing.
If we did what we were founded to do we'd all be put
in jail now, so we changed.
[ laughter ]
In the 1970's from, oh, I guess it was in the late '30s,
early '40s until 1970 it was more of a lobbying group
to help Congress understand the plight of the rope industry
and how we needed help and protection.
In 1970s we changed from a lobbying group
to a more technical oriented, and this was due to the efforts
of our predecessor, Gail Foster,
who retired about five years ago at 87, I think.
That's when I took over.
And, after that we kind of went more into the technical side
because that's my background.
And, if I'm going to be driving I'm going
to go where I want to go.
But, we're now recognized
as an international standards organization.
Eurocord has, is similar to us in Europe, except they can talk
about pricing, we can't.
And, years ago, I say years ago,
it wasn't too long ago all the countries had their own
standards organization.
There was a German standards,
British standards, a Japanese standards.
And, now all of that is coming under the ISO,
which is the International Standards Organization.
We don't. The Cordage Institute is, I'm a member of the ISO,
I'm the US representative to the, on the fiber rope side,
but I don't agree with a lot of the things that they're doing
and their methods of testing and their methods
of determining breaking strength and etc. So,
we're gradually changing their minds to kind of get more
in harmony with us, and that's not an easy task either.
Now, what is rope?
It's a product that's formed by twisting
or braiding yarns together
to an essentially circular cross section,
which is capable of sustaining a load.
When I give these talks the first thing that comes
out of most people's mouth is how strong is that rope?
Well, that's part of, well, there's a lot of other factors.
The traditional, and by some US government regulations,
anything under two thirty-seconds of an inch,
that's a sixteenth of an inch
for you Aggies.
[ laughter ]
Is considered twine.
Two thirty-seconds of an inch to three-sixteenths
of an inch is called cordage, and anything above that is rope.
Alright? Now, we're manufacturing fiber ropes up to
about eight inches in diameter, which is twenty-four inches
in circumference and with breaking strengths up to
about six million pounds.
There has been a lot of changes
in the raw materials made available to manufacture ropes
and we'll get into that in a little bit,
but when was rope invented?
Anybody know?
Who has the patent on rope?
Rope was invented when somebody needed it.
[ laughter ]
Right? You have to remember that when cave men wanted to get
from one point to another, or if they wanted to restrain those
that were there they had to have rope.
Well, they made their rope.
They made it out of anything that they had.
And, so they were actually the first rope manufacturers.
And, originally a person made the rope that he needed.
Later on it got to a point where this guy was better
at making rope than he was a swing an axe,
so they let him make the rope
and the other guy to swing the axe.
So, he became the rope manufacturer.
The oldest pictures of rope that I have are pictures
of the oldest rope that I have, was discovered in 2005
in a cave, oh, off the Red Sea, I believe.
And, these coils that was in this handmade cave,
closed up for a while, were wrapped in coils
and they were all about the same length
and in different sizes breaking strengths of the rope.
And, the researchers today are still puzzling over the material
that these ancient Egyptians used to make rope.
These are pictures.
The larger one on the left is a three strand and it looks
like it's made out of papyrus reeds, or Nile reeds,
or whatever you want to call them.
That was made in rope up to about two and a quarter inches
in diameter, seven inches in circumference.
The next two to the right of that are the, again,
three strand, then the one in the middle is a single strand,
but with several rope yarns twisted together.
And, then the others are two strand ropes.
But, what amazed me in looking at these pictures and realizing
that the Egyptians had sailing vessels,
and to sail a vessel you have to control the sails.
And, to do that ropes have to run through pulleys.
And, for a rope to run through the pulleys it's got
to be uniform in size, and the pulleys are not made for just
that rope, pulleys are made so and installed,
and therefore the ropes have to be sized so that they will run
through the pulleys as they are needed.
And, in my own mind, my theory is
that someday we will find evidence
that the Egyptians had mechanical rope making equipment
because from the caveman times
up until the 1700s rope was made by hand.
In early 1700s a fellow by the name
of Whodart [assumed spelling] in England invented equipment
to manufacture rope mechanically and that was the first rope
that was made by equipment.
And, then as we get closer
to home the Native Americans have always possessed a vast
knowledge of Cordage.
And, in New England in the 1600s the Europeans that came over,
the English that came over and saw the nets
and the fishing lines, and the harpoon lines, and et cetera,
that was being used by the American Indians,
by their own admission were stronger, more uniform
and a better product than they were bringing over from Europe.
There's a website if you're interested in going to that.
There's two things that we discuss at home,
rope and children, and it's hard to say which one is the most.
[ laughter ]
So, anything about rope I'd like to dig into it and find out.
Now terminology, and this is getting into the point
where if you get a cord that comes in
and you start dissecting it and looking at it and you're looking
for a manufacturer or you want to talk to a manufacturer,
if you can speak in his language it makes it easier
to communicate.
So, in the Cordage Institute has a terminology
for fiber rope.
It's our Cordage Institute CI1202
and it was updated in February of '03.
Terminology and definitions are important
to assure clear communication and understanding.
And, if you're asking a manufacturer, you're trying
to describe to him what you see to see if he makes that type
of product or if he might have an idea where it comes from,
if you can speak his language he can understand.
So, these are available.
You can go to our website and,
or call The Cordage Institute phone number in Philadelphia
and tell them that I said that you could have it.
[ laughter ]
We don't charge you for them.
We want you to have these
so that it makes communication easier.
And, this is just kind of breaking, how we list it
and that sort of thing.
Now the fibers that are used in rope construction,
it started out materials of convenience.
Sometimes it was beans out of plants; grass; hair from horses,
or animals, or whatever; leather cut in real thin strips
and then braided or twisted together.
And, gradually at the latter part
of World War II the first man-made fiber rope was
manufactured in this country, and this was
at the request of an Army cornel.
They were getting ready for their assault
on some cliffs over in Europe.
And, the weight of the rope that the Army rangers would have
to carry was beyond, I mean they could carry it up there
but they'd have to leave things like guns,
and ammunition, and stuff behind.
So, but this cornel had remembered,
and they had used a nylon for parachutes, they used it
for camouflage nets and so he contacted a company called New
Bedford [assumed spelling] Ropes in Massachusetts
and they made the very first man-made fiber rope.
It was a three strand nylon.
Nylon is actually a Dupont trade name.
Polyamide is the generic name.
Dupont failed in their marketing to trademark that name
so everybody used it, except in Europe.
They still use polyamide.
And, then, that was actually developed in 1939 and later
on in 1939 polyester became,
which looks like nylon, feels like nylon.
It has less stretch and does not absorb water into it.
And, so those were the two first man-made fibers
in synthetic rope.
In 1959, I think it was '59, '56,
somewhere in that area Professor Natal [assumed spelling]
in Italy developed a product known as,
what we call polypropylene fiber.
And, polypropylene at that time was actually something
that they were discarding in the refineries.
And, he took the, what was going to be discarded
and determined a way of making pellets out of it,
melting the pellets and extruding them
through a dye underwater and he came
up with the filaments on it.
And, you have the monofilament,
which looks like real small fishing line; and multifilament
which looks like a nylon fiber, soft and many little,
looks like spider webs; and then slit film, which is extruded
out in a flat film and then they cut it
and then they twist the paper,
or the film into yarns, rope yarns.
And, that rolled along for a while and then later
on they decided if they use something with the melt,
in the blend, then they come out with a higher strength,
which is the bi-component polyolefin and that is used in,
well there's carat [assumed spelling] rope
that came from Norway.
There's Danline that comes from Korea.
I forget all the brand names, but anyway,
that's a higher strength polypropylene rope.
Then, these are a little out of order,
we jump down to the aramids
and para-aramids Dupont developed the
aramids in the '70s and when I first got involved in it,
it was known as Fiber B, but they changed it.
They trademarked it Kevlar.
And, then to get around their patent,
Tagen [assumed spelling] a company in Japan came
up with Torran [assumed spelling] and Technora
which is a para-aramid, but it gets around the Dupont patent.
Basically, it's the same type of fiber, very low stretch,
high strength, but it has certain restrictions.
Rope is not one of its favor occupations.
Then the one after that came about in the '80s I guess,
or the early '90s was the ultra high molecular
weight polyethylene.
We kind of abbreviated it down, HMPE,
which is high modulus polyethylene.
And we have two manufacturers,
one in Holland by the name of DSM.
They make Dyneema they also have a
manufacturer facility here in North Carolina.
And, then Spectra, which was developed by Allied Fibers,
and then Allied sold to Honeywell.
And, now Honeywell owns the Spectra line.
This is probably has done more
to revolutionize the rope industry then anything else,
this particular fiber because it has, it's lightweight.
It's a strong as wire rope size for size, and it floats.
And, these are the ones that they're making six,
eight million pound breaking strength ropes out of now.
And, then the last one is LCP, or liquid crystal polyester.
Was originally developed
by Hiers [assumed spelling] Sellaniz [assumed spelling]
who is now owned by Kurarae [assumed spelling]
which is a Japanese fiber manufacturer.
They have a manufacturing facility
in North Carolina, also.
And, then their main plant is in Japan.
These are the fibers that the majority
of the ropes are made today.
These are available in Cordage Institute CI2003, 2003,
was updated in November of 2004.
And, it gives a comparative reference.
It gives the melting points,
resistance to ultraviolet degradation, et cetera.
But, again, this one you can get it from The Cordage Institute.
Just tell Pete to send it to you.
He'll send it in PDF, but tell him it didn't cost anything.
Then you take all these fibers, then the next job is
to put it into a construction.
In order for cordage to be used effectively it must be made
with closely packed fiber structure will retain dimensions
and form over reasonable service life.
Compactness is attained by successive twisting operations.
You looked at those old, ancient ropes,
and there's another one I saw it was about,
not quite as old as that.
It was only about, a little over 2,000 years old.
But, I saw a short section of it and it was made
out of papyrus reeds, but if you look at the end you can see
where the inner yarns, or rope yarns, or stands are twisted
to the left and then the outer ones are twisted to the right
and the rope is twisted to the right.
That means you can have a three strand rope
and if you have a weight on it, it doesn't rotate.
It doesn't start unlaying.
And, they were doing that three, four thousand years ago.
So, we're not so smart.
[ laughter ]
Now, when you get these strands you can put them together
in various configurations, what most people think of rope
as a three strand, just a spiral twisted laid rope.
But, there's an eight strand rope that is four pairs,
four of them are twisted to the left,
and four of them are twisted to the right,
and then they're plated together,
which means there isn't a hollow center.
Or, you can take them and braid them together in eight, sixteen,
twenty-four, thirty-two, forty-eight strands.
And, but, when you do that,
when you braid a rope you have a, center is hollow.
So, you have to fill it up with something.
We can get more into that construction later on,
but the single braids, and double braids, solid braids,
sash cords, I don't know if,
some of you might remember the old double hung sash windows,
that when you raise it up it stopped wherever you let it go.
That's because there was a counter weight hanging
on a rope inside the window frame,
and those were sash cords.
And, that weight, most, in those days they made it out of cotton,
and cotton would last a while and they would rot
and you'd hear that weight go clunk.
And, you had pick the window apart and put a new weight.
Now with polyester it will last forever,
but they don't use them anymore, so,
They have better ways of doing things.
So, basic rope constructions,
this is to kind of give you an idea.
There's numerous ways you can put rope fibers together
to make a rope.
These are more of the conventional three strand,
eight strand, and double braid.
If any of you are sailors, spent a lot of time on a sailboat,
you know, real sailors rope is your engine.
That's what controls your sails.
That's what makes the boat go.
The sails just catch the wind,
but the rope is what, is your engine.
And, most of them have gone out to,
if you're just a Sunday sailor you're using a polyester.
And, if you're into racing
where weight is a factor then you use these high weight,
high-strength, low-weight ropes, and you get another ounce
or two of weight removed.
Even on the standing rigging now they're using this fiber called
PBO, and I can't pronounce all the letters on that, but anyway.
They, you can't tie this, and you can't braid it,
but they run the fibers parallel, extrude a jacket
over it and then socket a fitting on each end,
like you would wire rope, and that holds the mast in place.
But, it weighs about one fifth
of what the stainless steel rods,
and stainless steel wire used to weigh.
So, that's one of the areas where it's going.
These are a little busy, but the three
and four strand ropes size ranges that you may, probably,
or probably would encounter is anything from three sixteenths
to three quarter inch diameter.
And, these things are readily available
in Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe's.
They're a general rope used in a lot of industries,
but they're on a shelf in Wal-Mart.
And, those are what I call generic or commodity ropes.
Just buy them, use them, wear them out, replace them.
But, life and limb usually isn't at risk.
You don't use this for mountain climbing,
and lifting heavy weights, or anything of that nature.
Probably the majority of the ropes
that you will encounter will be these
and then the diamond braid, and solid braids.
And, what we're finding is that in this day and time so much
of the commodity ropes are being imported.
They're coming from China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Pakistan,
Central and South America.
And, they're coming in to this country
and they're packaged very nicely, and they look good,
but they're not, in some cases, they are not the quality
that you would expect if you are looking for a rope
that you're going to use in an area and want
to keep it for a while.
One of the things when you do your analysis of a fiber rope,
you can't just pick one strand and identify the fibers
in that strand, or rope yarn, and assume that the rest
of them are going to be the same.
A lot of the imported ropes are mixing polyester with nylon.
Polyester is a little cheaper, a little heavier.
It gives them the weight, because rope is bought and sold
by the foot, but its price is calculated on pounds.
And, so you just have to kind of double check and make sure
that if there's a variety of fibers
in there you can rest assured 99 percent of the time it's going
to be an imported rope.
[ silence ]
And, a solid braid is another cord that is used a lot.
Some of it's imported but there are some of them in the US
that are taking these solid braids
and putting these high strength fibers in the core,
in the middle of it, to give it a higher strength, for a variety
of reasons, a lot less stretch.
And, if you come across something
of that nature you can probably pretty much be assured
that it's being made by one
of three companies in the United States.
And, probably it's being made for specific applications.
These pool covers, I don't know if you, swimming pool covers.
That they have a mechanical device
to take the cover off of it.
It has to pull back evenly
and so therefore stretch is a big factor.
And, they use a lot of these with a real low stretch cord,
LCP or Aramaic core in them.
Kernmantel rope is a very
specific rope.
Kernmantel is, actually it's two words kern meaning core,
and mantel meaning jacket.
It was used, developed in Europe,
used in mountain climbing.
We use it a lot in life rescue rope, rope access,
work when they swing people on ropes and put them under areas
that you can't get to otherwise.
Most of the have bright colors, a variety of colors,
it might be three or four colors in a jacket,
except if they are used by the, either the SWAT teams
or the Army, or military then they're either tan, or black,
or sand color, or olive drab.
There are three types; static, dynamic, and accessory cords.
Static is what, is a life rescue, or rescue type ropes;
low stretch and made out of polyester.
Dynamic is made out of nylon so that if you fall
and the rope is holding you've got a little bit of stretch
and shock absorbing capability.
But, all these things are available.
We have, CI1801, 1803, 2005, which list the constructions
and the testing procedures and everything else.
But, beware because a lot of them these ropes that you'll see
in Wal-Mart, or Lowe's, or Home Depot have that same kind
of jacket; bright colors, multiple colors.
But, the problem is the inside of that,
the core is just usually paper, or non-woven, or anything thing
that will fill up that void.
It doesn't contribute anything to the strength.
So, they're good to use for what they're designed for,
but the trouble is, my argument is they look too much
like a product that is used
for a much more specific application.
And, there's several US manufactures
that make the Kernmantel here,
and as well as Canada, and Europe.
The funny thing about, not the funny thing,
but these ropes are all used with knots.
There's not any splicing.
To splice a rope you take the rope and bend it back
over itself and then unweave it
and weave it back in; it simplifies it.
But, these ropes are not splicable
so everything is a knot.
And, I did a, it's an ongoing process,
but I have been studying knot breaking strength
versus rope breaking strength
and that's a whole other subject, and we won't get into,
but it's very interesting.
Single braid or hollow braid, again, polyolefin,
some of it's polyethylene,
some of it's polypropylene, some of it's a blend.
And, most of these are imports now coming in from overseas.
And, one thing you'll know is almost all
of them are significantly undersized.
If they say it's a half inch rope it might measure
seven sixteenths.
If they say it's a three eights, it's a lot smaller.
And, this is a combo ropes where they take the polyester
and polypropylene and blend it together
and make a rope out of it.
The polyester protects it from UV degradation,
and gives it better abrasion and wear
than the polypropylene that's in the core.
It gives it a little lighter weight.
And, then we have the HMTE.
And, these ropes are very,
usually they are very expensive compared to the other products.
Majority of them are made in the United States.
We have New England Ropes in Massachusetts,
Yale Rope in Maine, Puget Sound Rope,
and Samson Rope are both in Washington state.
And these are the really top-quality,
very application-oriented type products.
They're made for specific purposes.
The chances of you coming across something
like that are pretty small even though they make it
in small diameter, but I found out that most of the stuff
that I've have looked at, these guys don't spend much money
for the rope they use.
So, they buy the cheapest,
or what they can get their hands on.
One situation, there was a dog leash that was used
to tie a weight around a body and drop it in the reservoir,
and the knot that was used in that, and we'll get
into the knots a little bit later, it was very unusually.
And, I studied it, and studied it
for awhile, just pictures of it.
And, then I found it and it was what they call a harness knot
and it's one of the unique knots that you can either tie
with a flat web, or leather strap,
or round cord and it holds well.
And, so whoever did that knot knew what they were doing
and knew how to use it.
And, double braid, double braid polyester.
These slides will be available on the website I believe, after,
when this is finally public.
There's sometimes constructions
and products are very limited applications
and you might encounter some of this and, if it was something
that was convenient for them to pick up.
For instance oakum was used for years,
which is a real soft rope, and they used it to pack
around plumbing fittings before they poured the lead in there,
or, put it in the openings in a wooden hull vessel
so that it wouldn't swell up, and keep the water out.
And, that no longer exists.
It, had some problems with it.
And, I don't even know if it's, it's not made at all now.
But, the last, we had a fellow come
to The Cordage Institute looking for information.
He said there are 25,000 lawsuits
against anybody they can locate, that was involved in this,
these are health issues.
And, like I said, most of,
if it was rope it was usually inexpensive rope.
From the time rope began the only way a rope is of any use is
if it is attached to something.
You're either going to lift it, pull it, or tie it down,
or something, but you've got to attach the rope to it.
So, when rope was conceived then man must have had to figure
out how am I going to make this work?
So, he had to come up with a knot
to hold this thing together.
And, knots are very interesting.
You can tell how bored of life I have when I say,
[ laughter ]
But, if you're looking for a source to try
to help you identify a specific knot the Encyclopedia of Knots,
and Fancy Rope Work, by Raoul Graumont
and John Hensel are very good.
Another source is Ashley's Book of Knots.
He has a lot in there, but his graphics in how to tie a knot,
I don't think is good as the Encyclopedia.
There's The Ultimate Encyclopedia
of Knots and Rope Work.
And, that's fairly new, that is real good because it's
in different colors and they have different color strands,
and different color ropes
and showing how they interact in the knots.
If you really want to have fun,
[ laughter ]
There's a website called www.animatedknots.com And,
it's an animated knots by Grog, and this is unique
in that it will show the picture of the knot and then,
or a picture of the cord laying out
and then it will start tying the knot right there before your
eyes and you can stop it.
You can go step by step, by step.
But, he has these knots divided into categories.
He has sailor's knots, he has climbing knots,
he has arborist's knots.
He has different knots in different categories, so,
and very often a person will tie a knot that they're used to.
And, some people, they do these things quickly, or whatever,
but they will go back to what they know.
And, sometimes a knot will kind of narrow
down the feel you're looking for, or at least get it
in the right direction.
I had one situation that I was involved
in where the knots were just a conglomeration of half-hitches
and overhand knots, and it was just a mess.
However, there was two cases.
One they knew he was the guilty one
because he was identified by the two children.
The other one the child died and he wasn't,
there wasn't any positive identification.
But, we found out that the knots
in both cases were tied identical.
That along with the fact that he was,
he worked in pesticide company and these ropes were impregnated
with the chemical, and it was the same chemical
on both sets of knots.
But, it was very obvious, to me, and as I pointed out to them,
that these were tied by the same person
because it was the same series of just non-descript hitches
and overhand knots, and et cetera.
So, knots can be a help.
And, I want to, again, put this up there.
If you have any questions, if you want any information,
if you have pictures you want another set of eyes to look at,
feel free to contact me, or email me.
It's something that I do out of the love for what I do,
not because I get paid for it, but because I enjoy doing it,
and I enjoy helping you people who keep us safe on the streets.
Thank you very much.
[ clapping ]
>> Susan: Is there any questions for Dave?
[ silence ]
Nope, I think there's one.
Sorry.
[ laughs ]
>> Scott: Scott Stefler [assumed spelling],
Macron [assumed spelling] Associates.
You mentioned a few specific possibilities in your talk,
but in general if we can provide a fairly specific
characterization of a rope, the strands, the construction,
the type of fibers used, the size,
does The Cordage Institute have information
that would let us trace a manufacturer generally?
>> Dave: If it was a US manufacturer we can do
that pretty well.
But, unfortunately so much of are the imports now
and we have no control, and, they're not very quick
to bring us, give us information.
So, what we're trying to do is build some kind of,
what I'm trying to do is build some kind of database,
but I need help as to what we're looking for,
because I can get ropes
from various manufacturers overseas and,
but I would need help in having somebody break them down and,
so we can identify it with that particular type,
I can tell you what size and I can tell you what kind of fiber,
and twist level, but that's about as far as I can go.
To answer your question, no, there isn't any one source,
but we'd like to build one.
>> Scott: OK.
Thanks.
[silence ]
>> Susan: Any others?
OK. Thank you.