What throughbolt?

[SamT]

Hmmmn, not sure I completely agree, SamT, as I've certainly had a few bolts pop on me over the years so it's absolutely possible.  Top of my head: a Spit pulled out on Beardy down the Scialet de la Fromagere (a non-caver reading this thread would wonder what sort of kinky shit we get up to!!), a thru-bolt popped on Martin Groves in the Dachstein, and I've had more than a couple go on me but the only place that I remember was in Papua New Guinea & I think the issue there was that it was relatively soft & friable karst so we probably needed long thru-bolts with double sleeves.  Saying that, I get your point about getting bogged down in the irrelevant micro-details, though... 

I was thinking more with regards to resin bolts, not through bolts.  Yes, I can imagine spits  pulling quite easily, (not happened to me) and I've placed some pretty shonky short through bolts in crap rock on occasion.

I think the topic was extracting a through bolt, to re-drill with a bigger hole, to presumably place a resin anchor, and phil expressed concern about the 'pre stressed' state of the limestone, which is I think over thinking it. 

That whole 'stressed' rock thing comes from days gone by when spits were (re)placed in near proximity on popular pitch heads.  Since the area of stress is very close to the surface with a spit, then you could get 'dinner plating' of the rock.  However, at the depth of through bolts and certainly resin anchors, I just cant see an issue and the replacement resin anchor is (if correctly installed) going to be utterly bombproof in comparison. 

Even on those videos, where people are pulling through bolts, sometimes without doing the spinning trick, there is very little or no scabbing of the rock. (clearly the quality of the rock is a factor here)

 

[Joel Corrigan]

The ease of bolting with battery drills has meant that somewhere along the line the caving world has down-skilled as a lot of the current batch of riggers have missed out on learning some of the fundamentals as poor skills get passed along the chain.  We used to have a policy in Austria whereby nobody was allowed to touch a battery drill until they'd done at least two years of hand bolting & that produced some capable explorers.  Sadly, that's not been a thing for quite a while which is a shame ;-/

Explains why it took you so long to find that connection if you stopped everyone using drills.

But seriously, what key bolting skills do you think don't get passed on if someone is taught using a drill as opposed to hand bolting? I have a lot of respect for people with good handbolting skills and caved with some Austrians who could place spits by hand about as quickly as some people I've caved with could do with a drill. I will openly admit I'm not very good at it; I remember taking ages to tick off some poor surface leads in Austria (not the Dachstein) with hand bolts when I'd just started alpine caving. But I don't really see what you miss out on by jumping straight to bolting with a drill, apart from maybe not choosing your placements carefully enough since it's too easy to whack another anchor in?

You youngsters are far too cheeky, Rob!  This is obviously far away from Ari's original post but I'll try to justify my sweeping statement although my brain is struggling a bit today.  A few major changes happened in the rigging game during my time & I saw the effect that it had on subsequent generations of cavers. 

1), When I started, Spits were the standard anchor & just learning to rig ropes down already-explored caves was a challenge as a lot of the time you had to search for the little buggers.  This meant that as a newbie I had to really think about where the original explorer would have placed the bolts in order to find them which meant that I was subconsciously self-training myself for the time when I'd be placing my own anchors.  I'm not explaining myself very well but the huge difference today is that you can just drop down a hole & join the dots without having to put any thought into it & the result is that pretty much anyone can rig SRT routes without necessarily understanding the principles. 

2), Placing anchors was also a challenge that required thought, fitness, and some skill.  Our Baby-Rigger soon learned that in a cold cave with absurdly hard limestone that proper placement was vital as he may only have the energy to install a couple of bolts before his arm fell off or his legs went numb so he had to make them count, and because installing fancy traverses etc... wasn't necessarily an option he'd have to choose his spot wisely.   

3), Because hand-bolting was difficult & time-consuming, our "pre-battery" rigger also learned a host of other rigging skills to help him along the way.  These included the use of pegs, wires, naturals etc... that aren't very common nowadays because battery drills are so convenient.   

Don't get me wrong: I'm obviously a massive fan of battery-powered tools but I will also make sure that I have a Spit Driver with me for the initial preparation/cleaning of the rock & if the batteries die then I will also be able to install a Spit by hand in order to finish the route off, escape etc...  That could make a difference between having just a bad day at the office & a nightmare for some. 

I just feel that in order to be a "complete" rigger that some of these skills shouldn't necessarily be abandoned & I've observed a massive difference in skill levels since the rise of the ring hanger.