When I first got into hammocking it became clear rather quickly that the ubiquitous Zing-it is the default go-to for most hangers when it comes to tarp and guy line cordage.
Although I've been hanging for only a year or so, I am not new to outdoor stuff and am a relentless tinker-tester when it comes to perfecting and simplifying my backpacking kit, so I've experimented with a lot of Zing-it for various tarp setups and other applications. I am also a knot aficionado and will always choose knots instead of a bits of hardware when appropriate. At first, I saw a lot of people using various ingenious bits of bling, and my first impression was that these handy little jewels were essential.
And after using Zing-it for a while, I was also starting to understand the need for bling; Zing-it just wouldn't work with some of my favorite knots, particularly the friction knots such as Midshipman's hitch, Prusik, Blake's etc. I tried to make it work by using Atwood Micro cord to make Prusik loops, and while it held much better than Zing-it-on-Zing-it, it still slipped over time after numerous slack-tension cycles from gusts of wind.
Recently I decided to buy some Lawson Glowire and give it a try. I was doing a quick overnighter into the woods yesterday, mainly to see the fall colors at Harriman State Park and to tweak my HG standard Hex tarp with doors. I had set up this tarp somewhat tentatively last winter with Zing-it RL and guy lines just to make it thru the season, and there were some improvements needed to make it more easily deployable. But the main objective was to swap out the Zing-it for Lawson Glowire.
And now that I've done it, I could kick myself for waiting so long! For the tarp RL, I made some 2-wrap Prusik loops for the RL D-rings. The Prusik loop ends were left open so that the loop could be tied directly through the D-ring, thereby avoiding any hardware. For attaching RL to trees, I used a bowline-type knot for the fixed head end, and a Midshipman's hitch (slight variation on Tautline) on the adjustable foot end for tensioning the RL. All these knots held all night long with not a micron of slippage. There was a lot of rain but thankfully it wasn't windy at all.
Bottom line: If you're a die-hard all-knots-all-the-time kind of person, I highly recommend using this cord.
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