New resin anchor website

[bograt]

The last pitch of Flood/Wade's Entrance to GG had spits in the roof, now it has bolts.

Vertical mounted spits??, now that I would not trust!!

 

[MJenkinson]

you should never pull ropes through any of these anchors, else any grit on the ropes  will eventually wear through the anchor and require it to be replaced. That is why DCA have installed big rings esp. for pull-throughs in certain places. Eg:- the descent from the upper passage back into the crabwalk in Giant's Hole. 

Is this true? Aren't the bolts in Swinsto and Simpsons set up specifically for pull through trips (i.e. the arrangement of the bolts) thus indicating that it's expected people will pull rope through them?  These are pretty popular SRT trips as well.

 

[Les W]

you should never pull ropes through any of these anchors, else any grit on the ropes  will eventually wear through the anchor and require it to be replaced. That is why DCA have installed big rings esp. for pull-throughs in certain places. Eg:- the descent from the upper passage back into the crabwalk in Giant's Hole. 

Is this true? Aren't the bolts in Swinsto and Simpsons set up specifically for pull through trips (i.e. the arrangement of the bolts) thus indicating that it's expected people will pull rope through them?  These are pretty popular SRT trips as well.

I believe the Swinsto anchors were some of the first placed back in the early 90s and have been recently (last few years) checked and have been found to have very little wear on them. Certainly not enough to require replacement.

I stand to be corrected on this though 

That said, I doubt the ropes in Swinsto are going to be full of grit, at least not after the first couple of pitches... 

 

[MJenkinson]

That said, I doubt the ropes in Swinsto are going to be full of grit, at least not after the first couple of pitches... 

True!

 

[MarkS]

This is probably relevant to radial testing: http://www.cncc.org.uk/documents/angled_load_test_14_sept_2013.pdf.

Not strictly radial of course, but the 60 degree test is closer to radial than axial.

Was there an answer to the question of whether it's safe to pull-through/tie in directly to these anchors?

you should never pull ropes through any of these anchors, else any grit on the ropes  will eventually wear through the anchor and require it to be replaced. That is why DCA have installed big rings esp. for pull-throughs in certain places. Eg:- the descent from the upper passage back into the crabwalk in Giant's Hole. 

Am I right in thinking people are often lowered down from that point above the crabwalk rather than doing a pull-through, hence the wear? For normal pull-through trips the wear on anchors is minimal.

I was curious in the context of the anchors in this thread, since the main difference in terms of normal use seems to be the more angular shape.

 

[bograt]

[Am I right in thinking people are often lowered down from that point above the crabwalk rather than doing a pull-through, hence the wear? For normal pull-through trips the wear on anchors is minimal.

Any leader worth his salt would encourage the descending person to climb down and thus ease the dependance on the artificial aid, its not a difficult climb, there is a massive oxbow in the stone up there that can be used as a good friction lifeline, I have led many newbies on the round trip and never had to lower them down. ---

--- OFF TOPIC!!!!!----

 

[Mark Wright]

Bograt, that is the old tried and tested spit I was talking about. I cant remember what type of hanger it was, but it could well have been one of the old Troll bolts, as I had quite a few of those back in the late 80's, which is when I did the Hilti course. There was some deformation of the hanger, as you would expect, but it did hold the load.

I've got an 8mm spit type anchor in a concrete floor at our training centre that I use for demonstrating how strong they are. I carried out an 'Axial' test on this a few years ago with one of the old style Petzl ring hangers (welded). The ring hanger started to deform at around 10kN and eventually broke at the weld at 14.6kN but with no visible damage to the spit anchor. The ring hanger has an 800kg maximum load stamped on the side of it.     

On the point of lowering off on a bolt, I would have thought any leader worth his salt would use a lowering device, e.g. Petzl Stop, attached to the bolt/s with a sling and carabiners to do the lowering as this would be much safer all round. 

Mark

 

[MarkS]

[Am I right in thinking people are often lowered down from that point above the crabwalk rather than doing a pull-through, hence the wear? For normal pull-through trips the wear on anchors is minimal.

Any leader worth his salt would encourage the descending person to climb down and thus ease the dependance on the artificial aid, its not a difficult climb, there is a massive oxbow in the stone up there that can be used as a good friction lifeline, I have led many newbies on the round trip and never had to lower them down. ---

--- OFF TOPIC!!!!!----

At the risk of continuing off topic, but just to clarify: on the trips I've been on there we've climbed it, but I just thought I'd heard somewhere that lowering was the reason for the wear...after a quick look, it was probably here. Anyhow, that's a separate issue - back on topic!

 

[bograt]

Thanks for that Mark, so it appears that the old spit is as reliable as anything, but only for a short time!, I know that they are prone to rust in the hole after a couple of years.

 

[martinm]

[Am I right in thinking people are often lowered down from that point above the crabwalk rather than doing a pull-through, hence the wear? For normal pull-through trips the wear on anchors is minimal.

Any leader worth his salt would encourage the descending person to climb down and thus ease the dependance on the artificial aid, its not a difficult climb, there is a massive oxbow in the stone up there that can be used as a good friction lifeline, I have led many newbies on the round trip and never had to lower them down. ---

--- OFF TOPIC!!!!!----

Probably slightly off topic too, but I led a small party round the round trip in Giant's a couple of years ago and had forgotten the depth of that climb down to the crabwalk, so my rope was too short. (And I was the only experienced climber.) :-[ I rigged a pull-through on the DCA ring then showed them how to do a semi-classic abseil on to the sloping ledge half way down and showed them how to control their descent speed. Rope around waist as if lifelining. (One person in the party besides me was scared of heights!) So we did it in 2 pitches, the 2nd one off a natural belay. Luckily the rope came down from both easily.

If someone could design an anchor that was resistant to wear from gritty ropes (maybe the Titanium ones, they need testing by BCA),  then you wouldn't need the pull-through ring. Maybe made from a thicker material? Food for thought...  :-\

Oh, and they all heard me say (supposedly to myself) "they're not going to like this" when I saw how far down it was, lol. Lesson learnt... (Oh, and yes I did tie a knot in the end of the rope, not that that would have helped much in that situation!)

But I put my legs across the rift where the rope was and got prepared for trying to catch anyone who lost control, (no-one except me had abseiled like that before), luckily no-one did and we all got out safe and sound...

This looks like a sound proposition for a pull-through setup:-

http://www.titanclimbing.com/Titan%20climbing%20products%20-%20forged%20titanium%20anchor%20rings.html

Don't know what DCA use...

 

[peterk]

AFAIK titanium has a very poor resistance to abrasion

 

[Mark Wright]

The old style spits are certainly reliable from a strength point of view. For aid climbing routes I generally use the even smaller outside diameter HKD drop-in anchors with an 8mm thread and the testing I have done on these has shown they could meet the requirements of the EN795 standard. All the new high level discoveries in Rowter Hole were climbed using the 8mm HKD type anchors. From an industrial standpoint however, the minimum outside diameter of the anchor would normally be 12mm.

Whilst rust is a well known issue I think one of the bigger problems is over tightening the hanger plate and the subsequent flexing of the hanger if they are not loaded 'Axially'. If pitches are rigged with a 'Y' hang between two sides of the passage then this they won't be loaded 'Axially'. When we were down the Berger this summer, at least 50% of the hangers that were rigged across the passage sides worked loose after only two or three descents. At least two of these had worked loose sufficient that one full anticlockwise twist with the hand had the hanger plate out of its anchor. As the threads become more loose with heavy use so the tendency is to tighten them a bit more. The result is what happened to me on the awkward traverse along the left wall at the top of Aldos. The bolt on the buttress just before the ledge popped out on me as I loaded it.

Another important aspect is the correct depth setting of the anchor, but thats another story.

Mark

 

[Madness]

I think the term 'shear test' is misleading.

Surely a test in the direction of use is a shear test on the bolt, whereas a pull out test is a shear test on the resin.

 

[Simon Wilson]

If someone could design an anchor that was resistant to wear from gritty ropes (maybe the Titanium ones, they need testing by BCA),  then you wouldn't need the pull-through ring. Maybe made from a thicker material? Food for thought...  :-\

It's quite a simple matter to produce heavy weight versions of my anchor.

 

[Simon Wilson]

I think the term 'shear test' is misleading.

Surely a test in the direction of use is a shear test on the bolt, whereas a pull out test is a shear test on the resin.

Mark cleared up the terminology by reference to the EN standards. The terms used are 'axial' and 'radial'.

On my website I say that in the axial tests all the anchors came out by shearing the resin.

The UIAA have introduced a third test which is for rotation resistance. It's on my website with a link to the UIAA standard.

http://www.resinanchor.co.uk/2.html

 

[Fulk]

The last pitch of Flood/Wade's Entrance to GG had spits in the roof, now it has bolts.

Vertical mounted spits??, now that I would not trust!!

Well, there really were vertical spits in the roof above the last pitch (~40 m) (and a right bugger to get at they were, especially for a short-arsed caver)! Putting them in must have been quite 'interesting'. Thinking about it, I suppose they must still be there.

 

[Simon Wilson]

The last pitch of Flood/Wade's Entrance to GG had spits in the roof, now it has bolts.

Vertical mounted spits??, now that I would not trust!!

Well, there really were vertical spits in the roof above the last pitch (~40 m) (and a right bugger to get at they were, especially for a short-arsed caver)! Putting them in must have been quite 'interesting'. Thinking about it, I suppose they must still be there.

Off topic but -

Me and Geoff Barber put those in and we are both short arses. The technique was to use the natural belay to tension out, place ring hangers and get a nice free hang. I seem to remember the natural belay 'immovable boulder' later got chucked down the pitch then I don't know what people did to get the hangers in place.

There are circles within circles here. Geoff was very keen on putting Spits in and I eventually insisted it was not a good idea, as an engineer amongst a load of non-engineer cavers (deftly segues back on topic). Geoff was passionate about his beloved CNCC and was Chairman for many years. It was he that encouraged me to take an interest in the CNCC. It was a very different animal back then I can assure you.

 

[Fulk]

Still off-topic ? but I was under the impression that spits were designed for an axial pull, hence if you're hanging off vertically-placed ones, you're doing what they're designed for . . . . ?

 

[bograt]

Still off-topic ? but I was under the impression that spits were designed for an axial pull, hence if you're hanging off vertically-placed ones, you're doing what they're designed for . . . . ?

Hmm, think you are mistaken there, think of the way the wedge fits, I am responsible for the fitting of many spits 'back in the day', all of which are 'radial' loaded, Rawlbolts, however, are a  different matter---.

 

[Mark Wright]

Most of the bolts, both drop-in (HKD) and the traditional Rawlbolt i've seen on large UK building sites over the past 30 years have been used mainly for the suspension of racking systems, pipework and suspended ceilings, so loaded 'Axially'. I've just been on the Rawl website and the load ratings for both 'Axial' (although they call it 'Tension') and 'Shear' are the same for the small HKD drop-in anchors. I couldn't find any detailed information about the traditional Rawlbolts.

Mark