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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Lots of specialized tools definitely helps to get the pieces out. I put up some sport routes ground up in the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and learned the hard way about how much fun bolt removal can be. I was placing big 1/2" X 6 3/4" rawl 5 piece mild steel bolts and they were inexplicably spinning when I would tighten them down. Well, the little plastic end cap on bolts this long wouldn't withstand the hammering during placement, became dislodged and the threads on the cone end filled up with sand and soon became fouled! About five or six spinners and I wasn't having a good time anymore. I had to continue climbing (at 5.11d!) above the mostly unreliable bolts until I finally arrived at an established belay stance! Not your typical sport route FA!
Sandstone is fortunately soft enough that outward pressure and wiggling was sufficient to extract the hateful little beggars while on rappel! The answer turned out to be a tiny spit ball of toilet paper jammed into the cone end underneath the cap that would keep the grit out.
Removing Powers (Rawl)5 piece and other mechanical expansion bolts in harder rock can be really tough with respect to removing the cone. My bolt puller should make expansion bolts much easier to deal with once they are loosened up.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 25, 2007 - 08:52pm PT
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Well metal heads, here are the goods. First, the bolt puller for up to 3/8".
Then there's the piton extractor.
And lastly, a vision of the future. Allow me to introduce the Space Station. This is an all stainless steel system designed for remote, high use belay/rappel anchors. Note the half link welded in as a wear bar to yield a 3/4" wear section. This should be good for 100+ years if used respectfully (no lowering under load). The hangers are an adaptation of an old Dolt design shown earlier on this thread.
Questions anyone?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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I hope there is more interest in these gizmos once folks ckeck them out. The fork puller should be discontinued period IMO.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2007 - 01:23pm PT
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The problem I can see with the bolt puller is the torque you put on the bolt head as you tighten the screws. The puller pulls through the hanger. The nice thing about the fork is that you can work it around adjusting the amount of force you are applying to the head, varying the angle, etc.
My concern may only be theoretical, of course, I haven't pulled that many bolts.
What would be best is if the extraction force could be as axial (with respect to the bolt and hole) as possible. I have thought of ways to do this, I'm guessing that there may actually be extraction tools out there that do it. But maybe not...
Great idea though, when do we get to see a trip report of the thing in action?!
Also, would you post the "drawings" of the thing, or write a description of how it's fabricated? Or would you like to sell them?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Steve,
How does your bolt puller stay upright? Do the 2 bolts really screw into those nuts on the base plate? If so, they would seem to have very limited vertical travel
Usually these plate type bolt/gear pullers have 4 bolts (one on each corner).
The tuning fork has the nice advantage that it's quite light (relative to the bolt kit), so it can be brought on long routes. For example, I used mine to replace a notorious belay bolt at the end of p7 on Liberty Crack a few years ago.
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Hummerchine
Trad climber
East Wenatchee, WA
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Just an obvious plea for everyone to support ASCA. It is so impressive that this organization even exists! I've been sending them donations every year, upped the ante and became a corporate sponsor this year. Their work will save lives. AND make life better and more fun for all climbers. Oh, and Grossman, wicked cool bolt puller design!
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john hansen
climber
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Hey Ed ,, what if you had some sort of four pronged tong thing that would grab the bolt head ,and then as you tightend the bolts down a small section of pipe would force the chisel shaped tongs to grip tighter.
Think of a 'compass' ,like you draw a circle with, being forced into a pipe. It makes it close up. That way you could center the pull directly up from the bolt instead of the hanger. Would have to be some pretty good steel.
What you think..?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Clint- the drive bolts are tapered to a cone profile which fits inside undersized machine nuts (guide nuts) on the base plate. The drive bolts do not engage any threads on the base plate guide nuts which act as two swiveling points of contact at a fixed separation distance. The drive bolts don't directly contact or mark the stone while tightening.
Ed-The whole assembly can be tipped so as to crank the offset bolt hanger eye into line with the perpendicular axis of extraction with hopefully only one or two base repositionings. To extract buttonheads efficiently, tweaking the hanger seems unavoidable and the necessary prybars need to be available to extract the stud or fragment left behind if the stud and hanger separate. The advantage of this design is the steady pull applied.
I haven't had a chance to pluck anything yet to check out performance. I also need to knock out a run to see how much time each one takes. The design is entirely process driven and entirely between my ears. More details as soon as I can test the rascals.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Steve,
If you only have 2 points of contact against the rock (via the undersized nuts), that's not stable. It would probably be fine for the case where you thread the central nut onto a threaded bolt. But not when you go into the hanger with the U-bolt, because in that case the eye of the hanger is offset from the bolt and you will need to dedicate more than one arm to keep the puller upright (actually at some semi-neutral angle) once the two drive bolts get fairly tight.
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Watusi
Social climber
Joshua Tree, CA
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That is really badass and impressive to be sure!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Just makes you want to yank some steel eh watusi?
Clint- testing will tell the tale. The two point swivel design is intentional and should be stable under tension. The base plate is crucial to the design at this stage. A sunny day at Index is all that I need. Reversing the driving force used to place button heads should be fairly straightforward. I have a giant puller in the works for the really stubborn bolt types that will remove anything! More soon.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Steve said, "A sunny day at Index is all I need."
You've been here for quite awhile now Steve, but sometimes I can still hear the Arizona in you. The rule in Washington is that if you wait for it to be sunny, sometimes you'll never get anything done!
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Shack
Big Wall climber
Reno NV
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Hey Ed,
Bearing Splitter
I've always thought that a bearing splitter/puller would be a good
start to a new bolt puller design that would allow an axial pull.
I wonder if a slide hammer attatched to this might work?
Or maybe just use the standar screw type puller setup?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2007 - 12:34am PT
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Shack, I like the idea... you could have two wedges split like the Bearing Splitter, with a "half hole" on each to allow the bolt shaft to miss. You tighten the threaded rod (need to work it out so that you can actually do this against the rock) once you have that on, you use something like what Steve G. has put together that pick up threads in the split wedges.
Sounds cool, but complicated.... but then again, maybe not...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Off, you're right, I'm way too cheery. Forgot where I am again. Sorry. OK, OK then, i guess I'll have to go bolt the Space Needle in a downpour as penance. But wait, maybe bolting my retaining wall in a drizzle is miserable enough. Have to check the Sufferin' Soggification Index to see if I am getting my regional minimum daily dose of self abuse this way.
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G_Gnome
Boulder climber
Sick Midget Land
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Steve, do you think that is robust enough to pull perfectly good Petzl Long Life bolts? You know, the ones with the pin driven down thru the middle that are impossible to get out? I know of a row of them put up next to a perfectly good crack that had already gone clean that need to get pulled.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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G Gnome, I haven't pulled any "Long-Lifes", but I have put in a couple of dozen (face routes only) and think that you may still have a chance to remove them. If the crack bolters did not go out of their way to obtain a metric SDS bit (expensive and not shelf-handy), then the bolts are not perfectly fitted to the hole, though they may be snug, and are possibly pullable. Good luck.
edit: You may also be able to "thread" them out, since the hanger is attatched to the stud--leverage and a cheater bar are your best friends.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder
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Between 1998 and 1999 I replaced a total of about 32 belay station/protection bolts on popular routes in Yosemite -
mainly stuff like Jam Crack, Butterballs, Wheat Thin, Reeds, etc.
Kevin Powell gave me tips on bolt removal - hole repair - and new bolt placement.
For removal I generally found driving a chisel BEHIND the hanger to act as an initial wedge, and create a gap worked well. Then a crowbar to lever the bolt out the rest of the way.
Some of the stations I replaced were so dangerous and dicey it gave me the chills during the "all-telling" removal process.
Tucker helped me a lot - but sometimes - Jam Crack, Reeds, I just soloed up.
I'm sorry I have no photos of the old/new bolts or anything.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Not nearly as cool as a lot of the stuff posted here, but here's a nice Star Dryvin stil in situ (barely) on Stolen Chimney, Ancient Art:
GO
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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G Gnome- those Petzl bolts are a bitch but I have successfully chopped and patched the hole. What you need is a modified SDS bit that allows you to attach a wafer thin die grinder cutting wheel (or a die grinder if you have power available) to your rotohammer.
Cut two slots well into exposed bolt face and use a chisel to fold and fatigue the metal into the space created. By extracting little pieces, the entire exposed bolt and drive pin can be removed so that the hanger frees up. You are then left with the problem of nibbling away at the remainder until hopefully a couple of solid blows with a stout punch will push the mess below the rock surface enough to patch the hole with PC7 and appropriately colored sand or rock chips to finish it off.
My giant puller would probably blow a big cone out of the rock with this bolt type unless the center drive pin and anchoring cone were drilled out first to reduce the internal tension in the bolt. I have to keep repeating that only bolt types which are directly hammered into the rock for their holding power (contraction bolts) should be pulled directly out without reversing the installation process or it may become unpatchable cone blowout time. Don't pull bolts unless you understand these design constraints well enough to differentiate and select the appropriate extraction pathway and methodology.
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