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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 4 of 9. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 80 | 81 to 100 | 101 to 120 | 121 to 140 | 141 to 160 | 161 to 173
Author
WARNING: 169 kg breaking strength lower offs.

The good Dr
3-Apr-2009
7:13:20 AM
On 2/04/2009 patto wrote:
>
>Why are we putting up fixed gear that is significantly below standard.
>
Because that is an important part of the Australian climbing 'tradition' that is held so dearly and promoted loudly by various members of the climbing community.

Also laziness.
patto
3-Apr-2009
7:42:13 AM
On 3/04/2009 The good Dr wrote:
>On 2/04/2009 patto wrote:
>>
>>Why are we putting up fixed gear that is significantly below standard.
>>
>Because that is an important part of the Australian climbing 'tradition'
>that is held so dearly and promoted loudly by various members of the climbing
>community.
>
>Also laziness.

I've never bolted anything so I am not trying to cast stones here.
widewetandslippery
3-Apr-2009
9:11:43 AM
On 2/04/2009 patto wrote:

>
>Why are we putting up fixed gear that is significantly below standard.
>
I don't think many people have intentionally put in crap gear. Bad gear comes from ignorance and incompetance and laziness. Not everyone is engineer minded and new routing is a creative pastime. Not everyone is on internet forums getting some of the incredibly good info the likes of Hawkshaw and Mikl et al have provided. I believe a lot of new routers have developed there original methods in isolation. Peoples first efforts in there own minds may be fine and therefore they see no need to go back and rectify problems. Bolting is bloody hard work and time consuming. Puting something in and having the presence of mind while you are eating and breathing rock dust and moss to decide maybe it could be better as you lose feeling in your legs and your waist belt is making your love handles bleed takes a lot of gumption.

tnd
3-Apr-2009
10:03:00 AM
I'd prefer not to see these used at all. What does it save? People having to rethread? Big deal. It's better to have fully closed anchors - U, ring, twist shackle, whatever - which obviates any problems with unclipping or open gate strength.

nmonteith
3-Apr-2009
10:16:14 AM
I disagree Niall. These have a three-fold advantage. a) you don't need to untie - you just clip and lower-off, so you totally eliminate the whole untieing and retieing aspect which can introduce problems. You stay tied in, never having to be directly clip in via quickdraws. Better for bumblies as well. b) It saves time! On shorter routes especially. I'd love to see these installed on anythign at Nowra for example. c) Lastly, they can be removed and replaced - much like a mallion - when they begin to wear through.

The only reason we don't see more of them is that they are expensive (compared to two ringbolts)

Many overseas crags (Kalymonos especially!) have these on every single route. It's a bit of a shock going somewhere afterwards where you have to rethread and retie.
adrian
3-Apr-2009
10:34:33 AM
By all means we should be installing anchors with components that can be replaced when they wear. However, installing sub-standard components like this simply because it saves time or people re-tying doesn't seem acceptable to me. How long does it take to clip in hard, thread the rope and re-tie?

Surely as a climbing community we can support a stance where if these quick-clips are going to be used then they should be appropriate rated hardware, or else the traditional mallions or twisted shackles are used to remove the potential for failure?

nmonteith
3-Apr-2009
11:10:59 AM
Hate to burst your bubble - but most of the chains, shackles and mallions used on anchors are unrated and come from hardware stores (or the tow bar of 4WD's in darkened carparks). I have no issue with using these sort of items, but there always needs to be redundancy in the system. Relying on one of these clip and go biners is the problem.

tnd
3-Apr-2009
11:14:29 AM
On 3/04/2009 nmonteith wrote:
>I disagree Niall. These have a three-fold advantage. a) you don't need
>to untie - you just clip and lower-off, so you totally eliminate the whole
>untieing and retieing aspect which can introduce problems. You stay tied
>in, never having to be directly clip in via quickdraws. Better for bumblies
>as well. b) It saves time! On shorter routes especially. I'd love to see
>these installed on anythign at Nowra for example. c) Lastly, they can be
>removed and replaced - much like a mallion - when they begin to wear through.

Definitely agree about having a replaceable wear point, but I don't find time to be of the essence. Although some people are excruciatingly slow to rethread an anchor...

I guess I don't like these things because I've learned over the years to thread an anchor and retie quickly, but I suppose any system that keeps the leader tied in at all times is better. Unfortunately it introduces other potential problems into the equation, as we've seen.

devlin66
3-Apr-2009
12:25:31 PM
I tend to think that each climb should be taken on it's merits as for anchor equipment. I can see for instance that clip and go's are great for places like KP, Nowra and predominately shorter sport crags. Longer climbs, maybe, and multipitches, definitely, can be better with rethread anchors with replaceable wear points.

For soemwhere like KP I would like to see all of the top anchors fixed with double clip and go's. This is a personal desire as when I go to climb there I am 9 times out of 10 on a time limit. Wasteing time rethreading after only 15m of climbing gives me the irrates. Though I do save time as there usually is only two bolts per climb. Hehe.

I agree that a biner specifically designed for this purpose would be better that what is being used. We, as a community, are starting to realise that making do with what we can find is not the way forward. Maybe an approach to one of the gear manufacturers to produce what we are after is something that can be looked into.
adrian
3-Apr-2009
12:33:32 PM
On 3/04/2009 nmonteith wrote:
>Hate to burst your bubble - but most of the chains, shackles and mallions
>used on anchors are unrated and come from hardware stores (or the tow bar
>of 4WD's in darkened carparks). I have no issue with using these sort of
>items, but there always needs to be redundancy in the system. Relying on
>one of these clip and go biners is the problem.

Okay, so I should have worded that more carefully - by traditional shackles/mallions I mean rated items. Rated chain, mallions, shackles, captive biners etc are all available, so we should be using them. If cost is an issue, wouldn't it be better for people to put up fewer routes that are properly equipped, than more routes that have crap hardware?
Olbert
3-Apr-2009
1:04:24 PM
On 3/04/2009 adrian wrote:
>If cost is an issue, wouldn't
>it be better for people to put up fewer routes that are properly equipped,
>than more routes that have crap hardware?

So in other words, pretty much everything that is remotely sport in the blueys (asides from the newer sport crags) pretty much any fixed protection at any trad crag anywhere shouldnt be there?

I believe people should make there own decisions when it comes to these things, if somebody is happy putting up bits of hardware from the local store or off a 4wd in a dark carpark then I think that is fine. If you dont wanna climb on that then dont, or find a way to protect it better, or replace it yourself.

I believe that obviously dodgy/cracked anchors should be replaced but not reasonalbe ones just cos they came from the hardware store.
dave
3-Apr-2009
10:10:58 PM
On 3/04/2009 Olbert wrote:
>I believe that obviously dodgy/cracked anchors should be replaced but
>not reasonalbe ones just cos they came from the hardware store.

Yeah not all gear from the hardware store is dodgy as mikl showed in his load test of a standard shackle in a previous post. I'm sure most hardware shackles and chains are fine, but i guess its other less commonly used gear that could be dodgy. Have there been any cases of this style of lower-off failing?
mikl law
4-Apr-2009
7:51:04 AM
The problem with the cast biners is they are inherently variable, A bad one could be only 20% of the average strength. The standard bent wire or forged units are reliable in that, at whatever their strength level is, the weakest might be 75% of the average.

So how strong should a lower off be? I guess the max force would be 200 kg. Using a safety factor (or ignorance factor) of 3 pushes this up to 600kg. If we use a single point anchor I'd double that (1200kg), though reliablity is more important than strength.

If the chains aren't very long, it's hard to make an anchor system that puts half the load on each. If you have 2 chains and the links at the end aren't touching, I think the load is 140% of the total on each.

Thus I'd want 2 biners taking 300*1.4= 420 kg each.

Without testing I can't say, but I think the bent wire stainless biners will take that easily, even though the gate isn't supporting anything. I'll break some when I come back from 9 weeks falling of things in the US.

Cranky
5-Apr-2009
6:59:58 PM
On 4/04/2009 mikl law wrote:

>I'll break some when I come back from 9 weeks falling of things in the
>US.

Looking forward to the trip report Mikl
mikl law
6-Apr-2009
8:36:33 AM
Didn't have any hardware with me on Sunday, but I see that atop Rubber Lover at Wave Wall is a combo of 1 cast and 1 bentwire. I must remember to take at least a spanner (or visegrips) and shackle or replacement biner in future

pickles
22-Apr-2009
11:04:19 AM
There are two of these on the anchors of the French 20 (Je Baise Ma Fraigne) on the pocketed wall at Thompsons Point, Nowra. Not surprisingly, I didn't have a spanner in my bag.

Will be back down there over the next few weeks so will remove if someone doesn't beat me to it.

nmonteith
23-Apr-2009
3:45:51 PM
RED ROCKS - GRAMPIANS

I've just been told that the clip and go anchors on at least two of my routes at Red Rocks (Victoria Ranges) have the bad style of clip-and-go anchors. VARIANCE and ONE RING TO BIND THEM are both equipped with SINGLE point clips and go anchors which should be treated with extreme caution. Someone local will need a hacksaw to remove these as they are connected directly into the single large u-bolt when they were installed. You should be able to thread directly through the u-bolt without using the clip and go anchor.

rodw
23-Apr-2009
7:22:53 PM
Why not just put in a second U bolt, easier and just as safe as hacking of current clip and go and relying on just one u bolt to lower off on????

nmonteith
23-Apr-2009
7:37:27 PM
Good point Rod. If anyone has the time and technology - please add a new bolt to these setups ASAP!

muki
23-Apr-2009
8:05:15 PM
I've got some U's coming from Wendy, so next time I'm up that way I'll have a look.

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There are 173 messages in this topic.

 

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