The walls probably have a fine coating of dust/mud from the drilling, meaning the paint will not necessarily be well adhered to the rock. A simple nylon brush and water should shift most of it before resorting to the wire brush or grinder wheel stuff suggested above. The slate will be worn down...

Although I completely agree with the folks saying that rope access harnesses are not ideal for general caving, I just want to chip in with a quick observation based on a few years of teaching SRT. The right harness for someone depends what caving you do and what you find actually works best for...

Seems to work great. I've had a few years experience already using JustGo as an assessor, but I'm sure most folks will pick it up quickly. The club administrator bit looks simple enough, and it's nice to finally see my profile list of clubs that I am a member of with something in it. Well done...

Some fencing has gone up on the lane side of the wood today and the replacement of the damaged anchors is in hand. Installing barbed wire fencing in hawthorn bushes is not something I'd recommend trying! There are some more holes to patch up in the fencing on the field sides at some point, and...

Monday the 9th - I'll be there doing some fencing and Fabian will be checking out the bolts in the shaft. Another couple of hands to help with the fence or dry stone walling would be very helpful.

Olympus (now OM System) TG Series. I've got 2 TG-4 cameras still going strong that I bought second hand many years ago. Light painting is excellent, but needs high ISO settings for active shots unless you use an off camera flash. I find that running them through the denoise software makes them...

Did Diccan years ago on brand new 9mm Mammut that we had just collected from Inglesport. Scariest wet rope I ever used on my Stop! If the product was harmful then I think it must have to come with a warning. Someone once told me it was essentially just fabric softener, but I cannot verify this.

This has been covered on a very recent thread on here. Also, this thread is from 2007! In short, it's no bad thing to soak ropes and might still be a good idea to get the last of the white lubricant off before use in a wet cave, but the user instructions don't ask you to do it for any of the...

Fencing materials have been purchased and a date has been agreed for re-bolting the shaft. I need to get out of the office and stretch my legs, so I'm planning on going over for a few hours later today to rebuild some of the drystone wall around the wood. If anyone fancies keeping me company...

Thank you very much for your work here @Gritstone, and of course the Team Awesome folks too. DCA are making arrangements to replace the anchors in the shaft soon. We still need to sort permission from NT for access across their land from the Engine Shaft in future, but will likely move ahead...

Mine are the mk 2 yellow ones. Interestingly, now I think about it, I rarely ever use the waist strap. Perhaps that is a factor, because my yellow one is Chuck Norris. The failure mechanism Badlad describes is exactly what my friend experienced with his mk 2, and he also got a replacement from...

Oh, and it's also carried a big chain winch (20kg?) and shackles across Eldon Quarry several times over the years to appease Alex's desire to break more of his dyneema creations.

I think they crapped out on the materials or the quality at some point. I have had one of the originals for a long time, maybe 8 years now. Carried 3 bags of cement in it, rolls of zip wire cable, steel, and as my back reminds me often, several loads that were akin to having a full human on my...

Myself and @AR made a visit today (but not as early as @Gritstone!) and fitted a new M12 nut to the lid. We have discussed some options for increasing the resilience of the lid and potentially changing the access route which would allow us to fence off the lane side of the wooded area. Nothing...

Brilliant. I'll get over tomorrow with some spare M12 nuts to secure the lid again. @AR are you free tomorrow for a chat over the lid? No worries if not, we'll go another time.

That would be good Adam. I have a bit of spare time in the next couple of weeks so happy to meet you over there.

Brilliant reading those articles, thanks for that. If someone can give Steve a poke towards this thread when he gets back home that would be great. If anyone from the CCPC team wants to be involved or help out with this then please get in touch. (Some interesting stuff on Cascade Cavern that...

Does anyone know if this little wood is National Trust like a lot of the land up there? It has no right of way in it. I think one of the issues with this site is the welcoming stone stile off the track into the wood and the relative seclusion of the shaft top lends itself to miscreants. I wonder...

Rain-x for the lens helps it shed water drops well. Or resort to licking mud off it like many of us probably have had to do over the years!

Now I think about it, we may have accidentally left the old metal sheet by the stile! Unless one of the other team picked it up. If someone passing by wants to take it to weigh it in for scrap you're welcome!