Wire vs synthetic rope; hangar doors

[Let'sgoflying!]

My homemade hangar door uses four 1/4” steel wire ropes to lift it.
I have replaced some of these b/c they wear at a tight bend where they are attached to the ‘roller’.

I use a synthetic rope to winch my plane in, and it’s worked amazingly well.

I was wondering about using this UHMWPE rope on the hangar door.

Any thoughts?

 

[Dana]

Synthetic rope will stretch, and it's not very abrasion resistant.

 

[Anthem]

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[Albany Tom]

Do you mean at the attachment end, and does it have a thimble? Or at a pulley? A wire rope setup should last a really long time, like forever for a garage door. Sometimes the pulleys are too small and that causes the cable to wear prematurely. For 1/4" cable I believe you want more than 5 or 6" diameter. Also, fwiw, I don't think UHMWPE is very knot friendly, and I believe all the synthetics suffer from creep.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

FWIW department: There is a bit of a trend to replace stainless wire with UHMWPE for standing rigging on sailboats.
Of course, it's been very popular for running rigging for a while.