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Texplorer
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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May 18, 2007 - 02:35pm PT
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Zeros are such crap. Word on the street is that some company is going to making some cams alot like aliens in the near future. If they can mimic the aliens closely enough and gurantee quality its adios aliens. Until then, the king (red alien) and queen (yellow alien) of my rack are going to stay right where they are.
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jstan
climber
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May 18, 2007 - 03:06pm PT
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Good points are being made but the discussion does not seem to be leading anywhere.
1. When you are at a bad point and you begin worrying about your equipment, you are letting your equipment become a barrier to your climbing. Better off to develop a safe form of climbing that does not use that equipment at all.
2. Be very careful about using personal safety equipment made by someone with no attachable assets. What other corners might you suppose are being cut? Such as taking contracts that cannot be met without distorting the manufacturing process.
3. The best time to test is during the product design phase. Unreliable portions of the design need to be entirely eliminated. They must be eliminated.
Forty years ago we saw all kinds of new equipment coming into use. “Friends” were the most complicated and some of us just did not use them until they had been in use for several years. For the rest we had to dream up an approach for the ex post facto testing being discussed on this thread. As many of you realize, there is no good answer. It is usually our assumptions that get us in the end, so I asked myself what I was assuming. I was assuming I knew the forces regularly developed in practice. So I set up commonly encountered lead situations and began throwing a 165# dufflebag filled with shale and tied in with a swami off an overhanging wall. To get the peak load I designed and calibrated a simple little load cell. My idea was that at some point amidst the drama of squealing ropes and ripping pins I would decide what kinds of falls there was no way I would ever expose myself. I got much more. I also learned how to drop those forces by a good factor of two. Then I took the little hydraulic rig I had built out onto the cliff and started testing both the equipment and the placements. By the time I was done I knew pretty well where I stood, without taking a whole lot on faith.
As I said, there is no good answer. I was pretty satisfied, however, with the answer I found.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 18, 2007 - 03:15pm PT
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jstan,
ever write it up? sounds like a great report and a good way forward on this important topic.
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jstan
climber
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May 18, 2007 - 03:40pm PT
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Ed:
I did write it up and circulated it at the time but I would not republish it now. I think my point is it really is the responsibility of each person to go beyond statements made by manufacturers and to go beyond common practice. We all do things differently so what is safe for one person may not be safe for another. Nothing beats going out, getting your hands dirty and actually seeing where the things you do may fail.
I never did make serious use of the movable cam nuts. Were I to consider this I would first subject them to the dufflebag test with them, among other things, pointing away from the expected force.
This is OT but yesterday's content on ST was insanely good. This crew is really getting the drill down. Monty Python - watch out.
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BoKu
Trad climber
Douglas Flat, CA
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May 18, 2007 - 04:02pm PT
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Earlier, Healyje wrote:
> The assertion that reasonable testing is going to
> weaken them is both unreasonable and weak itself
> as far as I'm concerned.
I concur. The consensus within the industry seems to be that testing to 50% of load rating is acceptably non-destructive. Commercially available carabiners are usually individually tested to 50% gate-closed rating.
My own policy is to retire every piece of gear that I test to greater than 50% rating. Usually I just pull it to bits and record the ultimate failure load and failure mode.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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May 18, 2007 - 04:13pm PT
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If only people would pay as much attention to managing the "real" hazards in climbing "fatigue and inattention" there would be far fewer injuries.
Not that this isn't important, it just that folks consistently downplay and ignore the actions that are more likely to bust you in favor of those things that they can touch and yank.
Beware of the long drive home after the epic.
Just a reminder for perspective
Peace
Karl
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BoKu
Trad climber
Douglas Flat, CA
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May 18, 2007 - 05:08pm PT
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Karl,
I absolutely agree that too much attention goes into yammering about objective hazards, and not enough on subjective hazards. I also agree that driving home after a long day climbing has increased risk due to fatigue and similar factors.
But, one of the other things I do besides climbing is to mess around with gliders. And it is also said in that sport that the most dangerous part is driving to the airport. Here's an article that suggests that that claim is too far from the truth:
http://www.dgflugzeugbau.de/safety-comes-first-e.html
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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May 18, 2007 - 05:48pm PT
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Yeah, the real danger is that rockclimbing is a "Gateway" activity. We risk getting involved in ice climbing and Himalayan mountaineering. That's where you really stick your neck out. Rockclimbing mostly "Seems" dangerous.
Peace
karl
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 18, 2007 - 08:28pm PT
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Too much contemplation of the infinite while in India, Baba. All is an illusion until it seems to bite you on the ass but good!
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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May 18, 2007 - 09:40pm PT
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An earlier post said something about what a bad idea it is to treat trad gear like bolts, as if a bolt is guaranteed to hold. I will always trust a piece of gear I just put in more than something I just came across. I have never really made the leap to sport climbing and one of the reasons has always been trusting my life to a questionable bolt placement. In my local area a lot of the sport climbing takes place on welded volcanic tuff. The surface of it can be very hard with the underlying material being of very low density and much softer, my point being that in such rock a bolt will always be questionable. Even if were the most bomber granite, you dont know who placed it, or if they were any good at placing bolts. As most who have placed a bolt know it requires a certain amount of skill, and I think it behooves you to consider that when your clipping them. Trusting your life to one of anything is not the best idea, I bet the dude that splattered onto Eagle Ledge will agree. Just my opinion. Nick
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Topic Author's Reply - May 18, 2007 - 10:49pm PT
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Earlier in the thread someone asked about testing some 6mm: 6mm is rated to around 1600lbs single strand. Loop strength is almost double this save for thin edges and bad knots. EDIT: after looking around a bit, I'm not too sure on that 1600lbs number provided by car-jack-guy. Fish TechWeenie says 2530lbs (what are they on???), PMI says 1523, Blue Water says 1800, Mammut says 1792, unknown says 2265 and Alex over at Cascade Climbers says 1000. Fishermans knots will yield about 60% to 70% of the loop strength.... hmmm.... look into it if you care.
Overhand knot pre-test in 6mm perlon. I thought that this should start rolling the knot at about 1000lbs.... it did.... it was pulled between two biners and finally pulled through at 1900.lbs.
A double fisherman knot on one side and a single fisherman knot on the other side. Pulled between two biners.
The single fisherman side pulled through and stripped the core out of the cord at 3000lbs.
This is the Alien Simulator. Sure it ain't exactly the same as an Alien, but it will do. Cable is 5/32" and tubing is some fairly bogus poly stuff. The Alien stuff is much tougher.
Pre-test set up. Other end of the perlon is put through a Mussy Hook to give it a larger diameter surface to test against.
After the test. Perlon broke at the tubing/cable. It failed at 2000lbs.
The cable had some deformation and the tubing was cut through. Do I think it weakened the cable? Perhaps yes... but probably very minimal. No cable strands were visibly damaged and the kink was not that severe. Jerking wireds out is probably harder on cable than this test.
Thoughts:
So... the guy doing the homebrew test with the carjack and 6mm probably pulled them there Aliens to somewhere upwards of 2000-2500lbs. His pics showed that the plastic dealeo over the cable was not worn through.... this is a good thing because when nylon meets raw cable, it cuts real quick. This is a bad thing cause them Aliens really got the shiit pulled out of them.... maybe even higher than my numbers. But, this is a good thing because now he knows the heads did not pop off... but this is a bad thing because now they have possibly be compromised by the giant load.... oh what to do???????? I'd use them.... not sure how attached you guys are to this world, so YMMV.
Third times a charm edit:
Someone looked it up and provided this chart on rc.com:
These are the tensile strengths of some popular manufacturers, the first set of numbers being for 6mm and the second being 7mm.
Sterling = 6mm 2630lbs (11.7kn) - 7mm 3210lbs (14.2kn)
Blue Water = 6mm 1700lbs (7.72kn) ń 7mm 2600lbs (11kn)
Mammut = 6mm 1800lbs (8kn) ń 7mm 2430lbs (10.8kn)
PMI = 6mm 1550lbs (6.8kn) - 7mm 2,100lbs (9.3kn)
And then Clyde Soles, former gear guru at Rock and Ice called bullshiit on the Sterling claimed breaking strength.
Thread here:
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=587884;search_string=6mm%20strength;#587884
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rockgeir
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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May 18, 2007 - 11:38pm PT
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Here's our original post a link to our initial results:
A friend and I just finished some impromptu testing of CCH Aliens in actual rock placements. The cams ranged in size and age (both pre and post recall). We yanked on them using a car - and while we don't have a dynamometer (yet) I can tell you that the force was much greater than what you'd get in a typical climbing fall: the car was often yanked backward, the knots in the climbing rope were completely impossible to untie, and the 31-kN carabiner we were using was deformed.
Bottom line: the cams were bomber. There were no cable or brazing failures. In all cases where we pulled to failure, the ROCK failed before the cams did. (These were solid placements in good quality granite.) The cables were all twisted up, the lobes badly deformed (and inverted as the rock blew apart), and the loops pulled into wild shapes - but NO brazing failures, NO cable failure. Just lots of rock dust.
*You can look at some of the initial results with photos and videos at http://www.geir.com/aliens.html *
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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May 19, 2007 - 03:13am PT
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rockgeir,
As was said the last time you posted your 'results' - they are exactly what one would expect - that's because the problem isn't with the 999 out of a 1000 that are bomb; it's with the 1 out of a 1000 that is shite that keeps making it out the door. Exactly which part of that don't you understand?
-
Hell, Russ, I have a set of HB Alloy nuts that have been used for aid for awhile that look worse than that and I'm not retiring them any time soon. One of the bummers in all this was several of us tried to get REI and another big box retailer to destructively test a statistically significant quantity of all the Aliens that were returned in the recall - unbelieveably, both showed zero interest in pursuing any such effort. In fact, Aliens reappeared on many of their shelves not long afterwards. All in all it was a pathetic display of the decline of two organizations that at one point actually could have been accused of giving a damn.
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AbeFrohman
Trad climber
new york, NY
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May 19, 2007 - 10:11am PT
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What do we know about BD or metolious or Wild Country's QC standards? Do they pass ISO 9000 or Six Sigma?
wait, nevermind.
BD and WC both proudly state being iso 9001 and 3 sigma certified.
metolious makes no mention of an QC.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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May 19, 2007 - 10:31am PT
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I used to live in a place that started having a pretty bad crime problem. So I got a concealed carry permit and started carrying a gun everyday. The crime got worse and I started practicing drawing and shooting quickly.
Then one day I had a moment of clarity and I said to myself "Why the f*#k am I living here?" And so I moved to where I don't need to carry a gun.
The same sort of moment of clarity occured to me in my front yard with a hi-lift jack rigged up with heavy chain around various trees and boulders with an Alien suspended in the middle of my pull test rig under 1000 pounds of force...
"WTF am I doing this for?!"
And so I bought C3's.....
-Fear
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Andrew
Trad climber
Marin
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May 19, 2007 - 12:04pm PT
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I guess you can add me to the list of people who use to love his aliens. I just returned all the 2004+ Aliens, even out of the recall range, to REI. I got the C3's instead. I'm keeping my old ones. You'll have to yank them out of my cold lifeless hands because I'm not given them up.
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rockgeir
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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May 19, 2007 - 12:07pm PT
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healyje,
the page that the link takes you to mentions specifically that the results are not conclusive for all aliens. for that, we'd need a huge representative sample, measured, repeatable testing, statistical analysis, etc.
as i clearly stated on this page, our goal was to post some positive stuff for a change. the fact that we got to pull test some cams in actual placements was a neat plus.
if you want to do something helpful, it would be great if you visit CCH, take 100,000 randomly-selected units from their current production, pull test them all with a quality dynamometer, calculate a mean failure strength/standard deviation for each size, and publish your results.
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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May 19, 2007 - 12:20pm PT
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For those who think a bit of gear they just placed is better than a bolt, I hope those same people check that piece after every fall, cause I have seen pieces fail after holding three falls. Of course the leader didn't check le gear after his falls.
Actually I've seen two pieces fail consecutively twice, so that two pieces between you and the ground is not such a good rule of thumb.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 19, 2007 - 12:31pm PT
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I haven't digested all of this thread as it is a big one. The crux of CCH's production soldering problems seem to be a lack of a visually inspectable solder outlet hole to verify that solder flow and penetration are comprehensive. Is this the case? I don't see a solder mark on the units that I own. The soldered connection on older tech Friends, for instance, clearly shows a solid filled transverse outlet hole as evidence of a complete and thorough solder job. Without an outlet/ vent hole, the solder relies on flux to flow and can be thwarted by premature cooling or air pockets. This would certainly explain the incomplete soldering on the failed units. What is the manufacturer's take on this aspect of production?
This issue may have already been raised but is worth some discussion.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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May 19, 2007 - 01:49pm PT
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The manufacturer's head is planted firmly in the sand. That's their take on it.
Reason enough not to use their stuff....
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