Posted by kelphead on July 16, 2001 at 14:25:42:
so i went down to my local 'rei' shop this past saturday to look at their webbing.
they sell 2 in, 1 in, and 1/2 in flat webbing--the 2in flat webbing costs 40cents/foot.
unfortunately, they only had 2in black flat webbing in stock and not any other color.
i eyed the really nice blue colored 2in webbing which turned out to be 'tubuluar' webbing. (as i learned, flat webbing is NOT!! for climbing, but tubular webbing is b/c it's stronger.)
tubular webbing is basically '2-ply' webbing, whereas flat webbing is just '1-ply' webbing, so to speak.
according to the sales rep (and my hubby who used to climb a long time ago), tubular (2-ply) webbing is stronger and the sales rep assured me there wasn't anything funky about it (ie, it won't stretch when wet, etc, etc).
the weave of tubular webbing is much finer than that of flat webbing, and it's also MUCH!! more flexible--though i never complained about my harness ever chafing me, i know that the stiff webbing has chafed others, sooo, perhaps the flexibility of the tubular webbing can alleviate that problem.
i bought 10ft of the (really nice!!) blue tubular webbing--and the clincher is that it cost HALF of what i would've paid if an acquaintance picked up the same amount of flat webbing from a dive shop: i paid 55cents/foot at 'rei' for blue tubular webbing (instead of 1$/foot at a dive shop)--paid less and got more!
anyway, thought i would share.
kelphead.