The friction ring is increasingly used on sailboats to replace pulleys. It has developed a lot with Dyneema ropes, a material that has a good sliding coefficient, especially on aluminium. This is why ring manufacturers (and there are many of them) make them in aluminium, on which they apply surface treatments to improve sliding. To obtain quality rings, production is expensive. Hence the sometimes surprising price for these simple pieces of metal.
Nodus Factory, which develops textile hardware systems, uses friction rings in its assemblies. For the 2020 season, he decided to make his own models. But as usual, the design office has redesigned the entire product.
Resin rings
Rather than leaving on metal, Nodus Factory friction rings are made of plastic. This very hard material (it is used to manufacture gears at Boeing!) is a self-lubricating technical plastic resin. It is a fatty polyamide. So if the Dyneema slides well on the ring, all other ropes can be used with these rings.
The construction is carried out by plastic injection, a process that is easy to industrialize and limits costs. The shape and in particular the bending radii of the ring are also optimized for ropes.
A price divided by 2!
In addition to the price being much lower than metal rings (the price is not yet fixed definitively, but it should be half the price of a quality metal ring...), the Nodus Factory ring is also much lighter than its metal counterpart. By way of comparison, a Wichard model 20 weighs 28 g while the same size at Nodus Factory weighs only 16 g!
In addition, this plastic material offers high impact resistance, but will have less impact on the deck of a boat (or even on the forehead of a crew member...). And for strength, there is no question of playing: like all its products, Nodus Factory validates them with a Veritas certification. This material has high mechanical strength and good rigidity.
And also recyclable...
These injected resin friction rings seem to have only advantages: cheaper, lighter, with better sliding and the possibility of recycling them according to standard recovery techniques.
Available in 3 sizes
Fr 10
- Outer diameter of the ring: 24 mm
- Operating load: 700 kg
- Weight: 2 gr
- Recommended rope diameter: 4 to 6 mm
Fr 14
- Outer diameter of the ring: 34 mm
- Operating load: 1000 kg
- Weight: 4 gr
- Recommended rope diameter: 6 to 10 mm
Fr 20
- Outer diameter of the ring: 49 mm
- Operating load: 1500 kg
- Weight: 16 gr
- Recommended rope diameter: 10 to 16 mm
