Securing items in the back of your pickup truck can take many forms. I have used twine, chains, straps, and of course rope. This post is about having the best overall rope available for securing loads so your stuff shows up with you instead of finding a new home out on the road somewhere. Personally, I keep multiple ropes and straps on board to cover just about any situation called for.
Don’t Just Get a Cheap Rope
Yeah you can save a few bucks and get by with something, it may even last for a long time – but why suffer with a sub-par, marginal rope for any length of time when you don’t have to. The biggest gripe I have with cheap ropes is that they twist up like a ball of snakes before you know it. That makes them hard to roll up and stow away.
Braided Rope Vs Twisted Rope
Braided Rope by design, is always stronger than Twisted Rope. AND it’s easier to work with, in that it’s an easier rope to coil up or stow away (it does not turn into a ball of snakes like the twisted rope can). Carrying the right amount of rope on board is really a question of having a place to put it. My experience is that a 50’ rope is plenty long enough for most any situation and takes virtually no space to stow. If one 50’ isn’t enough, carry 2. I have never encountered a situation where two 50’ lengths of rope was not enough to tie everything down in the back of my truck and still have some left over. With one 50’ length you get about 5 passes back & forth over the bed of a full size truck for tying stuff down. That includes going up & over the load and in some cases looping it around part of the load to secure it tightly.
1/4” Is The Perfect Size Rope
This size is ideal for securing most any load you’ll come across. The nylon 1/4” braided size is small enough to get around most common anchors more than once with a half hitch and yet big enough to grasp tightly and cinch down the load properly. Too much smaller, it won’t be as strong and will be harder to grasp – much bigger and it’s just too bulky. This rope comes in either white (as shown) black, red, royal blue or orange. I don’t really have a preference myself and don’t really think it matters, other than if you aesthetically preferred one color over the other – cost will vary depending on color too.
Seasoning Your Rope For Better Grip
This is an optional step to ready your rope for optimal performance. It does not have to be seasoned and in fact will season on it’s own over time anyway. So why does it need to be seasoned? Glad you asked. It’s almost too slippery in brand new condition. It needs to have a certain bite in order to grip onto itself and the anchor, to keep from slipping or coming undone too easily. Too much slip and the knot won’t stay put entirely – too much bite and you never get the knot out of it. The beauty of the nylon material this rope is made with, is that nylon has slippery characteristics to begin with, plus with it’s flexibility it seats well when pushed up against itself & the anchor to form a solid knot AND you can still undo the knot “in this lifetime.”
How Do You Season It?
It’s not an exact science and I actually had to figure this out on my own. If the rope is used enough it incrementally gathers micro dust particles that work there way into the fibers making the rope grippy. Another way to speed up this process is to fill a bucket with water and throw your rope into it. Let it sit for a couple days. Then set it out in the sun and let it dry thoroughly. Probably the longer it sits the water the more it will season. But a couple days in the water seems to give it a decent start to being an ideal performer. One warning though: This Nylon Rope can handle almost anything and be just fine including moisture, oil, gasoline, and virtually all other chemical abrasives BUT DO NOT USE BLEACH ON IT, ROPE STRENGTH WILL DECREASE BY ABOUT 10%.
Rope Strength
Speaking of rope strength, the safe working load for this type & size is about 270 lbs (tensile strength is 1790 lbs) – which is plenty for most applications. I’ve never had my rope break for anything it’s been used on and i’ve had it for many, many years – in fact when you buy this type of rope, you can probably say your buying one for a lifetime, as long as it’s taken care of.
Where Can You Get One?
Just click on over to SGTknots to get the exact rope I talk about here. They have a great selection of other ropes as well. They’re veteran owned, ship quickly, have very good customer service and I feel good about supporting them (by using the above link to purchase products from SGT Does Not cost you any extra). If you do decide to purchase some of this very useful rope, lemme know what your experience is; good, bad or ugly, I’d like to hear back from you.
I want that super cool rope!