How far can you go to evolve and adapt something as old and as simple as boot laces? They have the job of simply holding your boots on your feet. Well two Wildland firefighters, Adam and Justin, found a way. I have the pleasure of working with Wildland firefighters on an almost daily basis, I’ve seen the work they put in and the toll they put gear through. This may come as a surprise, but wildfires are hell. Adam and Justin decided they were tired of their laces burning up and created the Rhino Laces.
What are Rhino Laces?
Rhino Laces take a strong inner core and wrap it in a blended sheathing, and then capped with metal lace tips. Rhino Laces makes the claim that their laces cannot be burned, chopped, cut, sawed, or broken. If laces break from any of the reasons above Rhino will replace them.
They have a lot of pride in their boot laces, but will these bad boys actually deliver on these promises? Well I guess it’s time to find out. Let’s try and break ‘em.
Burning ‘em
They held up under the flame of a basic lighter for as long as my finger could stand it. The fire seemed to activate an internal compound. This compound became semi-liquid. Once the flame was pulled away it dried and the lace was fine.
Sawing them
Using the serrated edge of my standard Kershaw Link I dug into them over and over. They frayed slightly after a few attempts. If I really wanted to go at them with a knife I feel I could, and eventually would break them. It would require some work though.
Cutting them
Using the same knife I tried to apply the standard straight blade to cut them. They weren’t cutting. We tried different locations and different angles and I couldn’t get through them. I finally whipped out the good ole trauma shears and with a little effort got through them. I probably wouldn’t recommend them if the trauma shears didn’t work. There are certainly emergency situations where laces needed to be cut off to safely remove a boot.
The warranty
I should mention my testing is a bit unfair since these boot laces will never realistically go against a knife without the user wanting them to be cut? It was unrealistic but did prove these are tough laces. I was tossing the ingenuity of the human mind and using human tools and barely got through them. A day on the job site, or in the woods, or fighting a wildfire doesn’t stand a chance. Check out Rhino Laces here.
This article is courtesy of Travis Pike from The Loadout Room.
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