What caving related thing did you do today?
- Thread starter TheBitterEnd
- Start date
PeteHall
Moderator
We haven't decided yet, but the last similar trip (about 15 years ago) was to Rowten Pot, which was absolutely magical on the main pitch, with the ladders twinkling in the half light from the entrance.
We'll have to see how the weather is...
Babyhagrid
Well-known member
This has got to be the safest this pitch has ever been rigged! Looks amazing
The Old Ruminator
Well-known member
Packing kit. Off later. Well it is a Tuesday.
AlexR
Active member
Do they? It'll certainly do a lifetime of Mendip caving 
To be fair that rack has now had ca. 5km of travel, which I consider pretty good going. Especially as 1.5km out of that was with a 25kg cement bag attached to me. Think it'll easily do another 4km before I have to change most of the bars (which I've got ready in the garage). Still a specialist descender for the UK I reckon, it does def take longer to rethread than a bobbin descender even with practice.
I never did figure out just how often I had to change the Stop bobbins, but it was to often.
To be fair that rack has now had ca. 5km of travel, which I consider pretty good going. Especially as 1.5km out of that was with a 25kg cement bag attached to me. Think it'll easily do another 4km before I have to change most of the bars (which I've got ready in the garage). Still a specialist descender for the UK I reckon, it does def take longer to rethread than a bobbin descender even with practice.
I never did figure out just how often I had to change the Stop bobbins, but it was to often.
AR
Well-known member
Aluminium alloy versus gritty rope... only one winner. I was shocked at the amount of wear done by a 10m descent on very dirty rope with my old CS rack. There's also an article in an old PDMHS bulletin where a bit of experimental archaeology was done to replicate the wear grooves we see in shafts, and gritty hemp rope can cut into limestone pretty quickly, it seems!
pwhole
Well-known member
That was Trevor Ford's follow-up article to his original Longcliffe article in the PDMHS Bulletin, where he speculated that the miners must have used a chain in the main shaft owing to the size of the rope-grooves. He rigged up a test block of limestone in the lab at Leicester Uni, and I think he may have just used string, with some weights and a pulley, and cut into it in about an hour, and so revised his opinion!
Our hauling ropes were starting to leave a groove on the overhangs after only a few weeks, and so we covered them up with conveyor belt. But now there are three grooves - one about 8cm, one inside at about 4cm, and ours at 1cm in the middle. This shot is just after we got started, so pretty much untouched miners' grooves in solid calcite - which here, incidentally is one of the toughest substances I've ever encountered in caving.
Our hauling ropes were starting to leave a groove on the overhangs after only a few weeks, and so we covered them up with conveyor belt. But now there are three grooves - one about 8cm, one inside at about 4cm, and ours at 1cm in the middle. This shot is just after we got started, so pretty much untouched miners' grooves in solid calcite - which here, incidentally is one of the toughest substances I've ever encountered in caving.
Riftpotter
New member
paul
Moderator
They will be the same as the flints used in cigarette lighters, etc.
Standard Unit of Tom
Active member
Made an Instagram post celebrating my 100th caving trip yesterday 🥳
