new biner

SRTTech, I respect your comfort with steel. Steel is good.

That being said, I have yet to hear of a tree worker/rec tree climber having an accident due to the breakage of an aluminum biner. I will continue to toss my thick stock Omega modified D aluminum carabiner with joy and abandon. And what about aluminum rope snaps? The manufacturer does not say that I am allowed to throw it, but how else am I going to get my lanyard around a fat stem?

i always catch the end of my flipline when i finagel it around a fat trunk...you can also attach a short accessory cord with soft weight and toss that, then pull the line aorund.

SRT-Tech-
I must back track here and openly admit to the error of (ass-u-me) assumption of you using the steelie for throwing purposes. Carabiners are indeed designed for connections. I have personally never heard of carabiner failure from bumping wood though I have seen gate barrels stuck from bark fragments after throwing. I have chipped a tooth once myself to add to the evidence of sticking with a tool’s function than using it for non-design functions.

Habits die hard, especially if they are reinforced by frequent use. Spending a little extra time certainly increases safety in the trees if you can break past the inertia of unfamiliarity of use using a new climbing technique. I think I will try a key chain carabiner (non life support) and a small throw bag the next time if I need to quickly advance my rope a short distance instead of the carabiner so easy at hand.

Anybody else want to try to break the habit? If so, what technique will you use?

no hard feelings!

i'd liek to see the throwbag + mini keychain biner setup as a standard operating procedure (instead of using our life support biners).

I'd like that Petzl steel biner much more if it had a no-snag tip. It's hard to find steel no-snag biners.

SRT, carabiners of steel or alloy HAVE to be able to put up with being used to throw a rope over a limb. There is such a tiny abuse involved in throwing the rope over. It's equivalent to dropping the carabiner to the ground when you're standing on the ground. They can't be that delicate. Any manufacturer would be stupid to make climbing equipment THAT delicate.

I know window washers, tower workers, etc are not that careful with their equipment.

love
nick

Instead of using a biner to throw over branches I trained my Super Fly Monkey to do it for me.I just feed him "super strong magnets" that I keep in my other throwbag & he always comes back to me. especially to give an edge for more distant monkey retrieval.

Originally posted by NickfromWI
I'd like that Petzl steel biner much more if it had a no-snag tip. It's hard to find steel no-snag biners.

SRT, carabiners of steel or alloy HAVE to be able to put up with being used to throw a rope over a limb. There is such a tiny abuse involved in throwing the rope over. It's equivalent to dropping the carabiner to the ground when you're standing on the ground. They can't be that delicate. Any manufacturer would be stupid to make climbing equipment THAT delicate.

I know window washers, tower workers, etc are not that careful with their equipment.

love
nick

I know Nick, about the manu's factoring in for that abuse. Still bugs me when gear is used for something other than its intended use, especially life support gear. . I dunno, i guess i'm just one of those persons that cleans his tools and puts them away, and then logs their use, and not using life support gear for other uses.....

OGHAM: :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Originally posted by SRT-Tech
Biners are not designed to be used as a throw weight!! and this is something that i CONTINUALLY see in treeclimbing, be it Rec or Pro.....gear that is used wrong, abused or used for something OTHER than its INTENDED purpose.

Treeclimbing is NO different than any other rope access area. Simply put, ropes (just like other rope access fields) are used to access an area of the tree. (just another medium, like rock, steel, tower etc)
WHY THEN, do treeclimbers insist on abusing their gear, not caring for their ropes, climbing on dirty ropes, storing their ropes wet, using carabiners for uses other than the intended use etc etc etc etc?????????? Why do treeclimbers not follow BASIC rules and procedures for gear care and use? its YOUR life, why jeapordize it by not maintaining your gear, by abusing your gear, and by not caring for your gear?

about a dozen or so Rope Access techs i used to work with, have been following this forum and other forums related to treeclimbing, and have commented on the apparent lack of basic knowledge in rope skills,namely the use and care of gear or the basic understanding of what you do or don't do with your gear.

i'm not singling out anyone here or any forum in particular, but there is a real need for treeclimbers (any/all) to come up to par with the rest of the rope access world, in terms of basic do's / don'ts related to our gear.

There is pushing the boundaries in terms of new techniques or gear, then there is abuse of your LIFE SUPPORT gear. Choose one.

Wow, "to come up to par with the rest of rope access world," indeed!
While rockclimbers might prefer NOT to be thought of as rope access
--they climb rock, with rope sometimes not even used--,
it was in their activity that carabiners were developed.
And while rockclimbers have no exact use to throwing 'biners about,
the metal can be slammed hard into the rock on a fall as the ropes
snap taut.
Need I point out that rock is much, much harder than a tree
(anyone climbing ebony?)?

Recently, in another rope-access sort of endeavor, the old tired
myth of microfractures arose, and drew this authoritative response from
one who worked for over a decade in the gear side of climbing--to wit

Neither the steel used in carabiners or the aluminum alloys are subject to micro-cracking. There may be over-heat treated steel or titanium alloys that exhibit it, but the theory of micro-cracking only came up when they started using fancy ceramics for jet engine turbines.

You can drop your carabiners thousands of feet onto granite, and if they still open and close smoothly, they are fine to use. If you feel uncomfortable with this advice, then go ahead and retire them, or send them to me.

Can I prove this? There is an engineering argument - aluminum alloys (might be exceptions, but 7075-T6 is not one of them) and ordinary steel alloys (as used in carabiners) are not the type of material that exhibits micro-cracking. There is an evidence argument - while working at Black Diamond for 12 years, we NEVER saw a carabiner that exhibited any form of micro-cracking or loss of strength from being dropped (while still functional), including quite a few dropped the full height of El Cap (3000 feet). But no, I cannot PROVE that all biners over all time will never exhibit loss of strength.

And just to cover all the bases, carabiners dropped from outer space, on re-entry, will heat up substantially which will screw up the heat treating. There will likely be ablation of material off the outside also, so I advise against using biners that are dropped from outer space. Those should definitely be retired.

Perhaps Brian knows of some examples of hidden micro-cracking in conventional alloys.
...

So, should the old adage "trees don't grow to heaven" be proved false,
THEN one might be concerned about dropping a 'biner; but doing
so in more mortal ways won't cause you to get to heaven.

*knudeNoggin*

i guess over a 100,000 rope rescue techs are wrong then......standard protocol is to destroy gear (specifically carabiners) that is dropped any distancemore than a few feet.

tell you what....i'll drop a biner from the top of the Sqaumish Chief in BC, Canada, onto the granite down below. i will then send it to you, i'll even pay the postage, and you can go climb on it. I'm sure as heck not going to reuse it, except maybe for a truck tie down clip.

It is standard in rec tree climbing to retire a biner if it is dropped to a hard surface from height. This is different than swinging a lanyard around a branch with a biner on the end of it. On the Petzl web site one of the recommended uses for the AM'D Triact is as a biner to be used on the end of a lanyard. This kind of use is not tenderly caressing the biner (as fun as that may be). However it's not remotely like smacking biners hard against granite (as pointed out by kNoggin).

The discussion of microfractures or lack of them from impact in alloy biners is very interesting, I've been following it. It may be that the conventional wisdom of 100,000 rope rescue techs is wrong (their heart is in the right place). I will continue with the accepted "retire after hard impact" policy but the comments from the expert quoted by knudeNoggin are intriguing and have a ring of truth about them.

Welcome to the TCI board knudeNoggin!
-moss

Originally posted by SRT-Tech
i guess over a 100,000 rope rescue techs are wrong then......standard protocol is to destroy gear (specifically carabiners) that is dropped any distancemore than a few feet.

Tell me, whaTHEck is "over 100_000 rope rescue techs" denoting?
I doubt you can enumerate so many, and if they've been paying attention to reality,
they shouldn't hold such a braindead opinion. But there are some kinds
of people who love to hold strong opinions and keep their minds clamped shut.
One needn't look all that hard to find nonsense. ("The insurgency is in its last throes.")
If 100_000 or any number of whomever choose a course of over caution,
well, yes, then they can be wrong. (Maybe standard practice for the case of dubious
gear should be to test & learn, rather than destroy w/o gain.)

The report I quoted was from someone who tested such dropped 'biners.

And, as noted, the conditions of practical issue to this forum are FAR
removed from the potential 1_000' drop onto rocks. If there is no
visible defect to a 'biner after a drop, then it's fine.

*kN*

be as that may, there is no way i'm trusting MY life on rope, based on tests that someone may have done, on a dropped biner. Obviously if i drop a biner on grass or forest floor i'm going to reuse it, but not after an impact with stone or int he case of my building rope work, concrete.

again, i will drop a biner from hieght onto a hard surface, and you are welcome to go climb with it after if you trust one test so much.

just saying.

and my sources were training guides form rescue courses, rope instructors, local sar techs, and their bretheren. They do not reuse biners that dropped, its in their protocols.



anyways, i love my new steel biner, will probably buy a few more to add to my kit, and yes, if i drop one i'll retire it, relegate it to truck tie down use etc. no skin off my back.

based on tests that someone may have done, on a dropped biner.

No, a few tests would likely not suffice.
But it wasn't just testing--it was knowledge of the materials,
and what could happen to them, without detection.

So, beyond some myth and initial caution, the burden's on the
retire-at-once believers to put a rationale to this: WHAT
do they think might have happened to the metal such that it no
longer is safe? (If you drop a glass on your kitchen floor and it doesn't
break or crack, do you retire it? NO, you understand that any damage
would be observable, and absent it--whew!--, the glass is okay.
Now, why do you think a 'biner is different? Where's the theory of risk,
and the testing to validate it?)

And, again, esp. with those in THIS forum, what much lesser impacts are
even likely?

(People used to warn against getting petrol on ropes, and on stepping
on ropes, but both have been shown to be without basis--even impaling w/crampons!!
(though both are hardly desireable).
There's some uncertainty about the additives in petrol, though--the unknown.)

*kN*

NOT stepping on ropes is drilled into rope users and rope techs, because stepping on a rope can grind dirt (abrasive) into the inner core. This is why rope users are encouraged to NOT step on their ropes, and to use a rope tarp anytime the rope needs to be on the ground. And yes, im aware that cavers use muddy ropes, but they also retire their ropes a lot sooner than any other user.

ads for the unkown (petrol on ropes etc), it is that SAME unknown that cause many rope techs and rescue units to have written protocols that when a biner is dropped onto a hard surface, they retire it. Biners are cheap to replace, human life is not. Simple really.

whats the big freeeeeaaaaaking deal about retiring a dropped biner anyways? biners are cheap to replace, life is not.

by the way, i have a biner i dropped last year, onto concrete. You are welcome to use it, climb on it, i dont care, i will even ship it free of charge.