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The ropes were developed in West Virginia by a hardware store owner after being asked to provide ropes he was using in his shop to underground coal mines. The SMM range of ropes is used throughout longwall mines in the US.
The most commonly used rope is the SMM 7/8" continuous miner rope, used to pull cable behind a continuous miner during a power move.
The ropes are made from non-conductive 100% polypropylene rope (the orange stripe is SMM’s ID) and do not absorb water, making them easy to clean.
“The working load of our SMM Miner Ropes is 2,200 pounds and the tensile strength is 11,000 pounds,” the company said.
