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ridgeclimber
Sep 16, 2006, 1:32 AM
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Wondering what everyone thought: how much force can a duct-taped hook, clipped w/ a screamer, take? Obviously it varies on the placement, but assuming it's a reasonably strong piece.
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musicman
Sep 16, 2006, 1:34 AM
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wouldn't it depend on what type of screamer you've got on it? some are rated to tear at different forces than others, right?
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euroford
Sep 16, 2006, 3:28 AM
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maybe enough, but probobly not, but certainly more than nothing.
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stymingersfink
Sep 16, 2006, 3:28 AM
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I have in my posession a cliffhanger which opend up when a partner took a short daisy fall onto it. She continued falling to the copperhead she had previously moved off of, which caught her fall.
In the situation mentioned above there was no screamer (other than her), so forces probably exceeded 4Kn. Bounce testing a hook can easily expose it to forces in excess of 500lbs (though why you'd want to test it that hard is beyond me), so figure somewhere between 500 and 1000lbs the hook will un-bend itself (?).
In another location farther up the climb, I was leap-frogging cam hooks up a pin-scar'd crack through the middle of a slab, when the placement I had moved onto failed. :shock: Luckily I had not removed the Leeper cam hook I had just stepped off of yet, and it caught me at the end of a 6' daisy slide/fall. Slight tweakage to the tongue of the hook, but it did catch me, preventing a nasty pendulum swing. Good thing too, as there was no gear between me and the anchor 20' away. I still use that hook today.
Scream-aids activate at 1.5-2 Kn. Thats between 335-450lbs force, and if you were to daisy-chain a scream-aid with a zipper, one would expect it to dissipate up to 8Kn perhaps a little more (AFAIR, 2-3Kn force absorbtion for the scream-aid, 7Kn for the zipper). One caveat to daisy-chaining: girth-hitching reduces runner strength, use a biner to connect the two.
Now, I've never had a screamer deploy, but reports I've heard inform me that the deployment action generates a substantial ammount of vibration (this makes sense to me, as the stitching would tend to catch and tear as forces occilate between too much and not enough for it to rip?) which could potentially cause an ice-screw to weaken its placement (so i've heard), or perhaps dislodge a hook from its happy little home (certainly probable).
The Captain Hook (by Fish Products) is reportedly bomber enough to haul bags off of, so it would probably take more impact provided it was secure in its placement.
My suggestion:
Tape the fuck out of it.
Pray you won't test it.
think of it as psychological pro, if that's what you need to get the job done.
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tarsier
Sep 26, 2006, 2:04 AM
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817 lbs.
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epoch
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Sep 26, 2006, 1:10 PM
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How much tape are we talking about here???????
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stymingersfink
Sep 28, 2006, 11:22 PM
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Personally, I believe 0"(zero inches) of tape to be sufficient.
IOW, I would suck up and keep hookin' before I'd tape a hook for a false sense of security... either that or it's time to back off, right?
Of course, down-aiding on hooks is about as much fun as having fingernails pulled, so why not just keep going up? Worst case scenario: you survive the fall.
DFU!
YMMV.
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ridgeclimber
Oct 13, 2006, 1:55 AM
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Do you mean "worst case scenario: you survive the fall" because if you rip then you'll probably wish you hadn't survived it?
DFU is certainly good advice -- I haven't really heard of many people dying on a super-hard aid pitch because they zippered gear then smashed into a ledge. Mostly its the rope gets cut by sharp edge etc. Probably because only the real hardmen attempt hard aid and they are very focused on not falling, so they don't.
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stymingersfink
Oct 15, 2006, 11:17 PM
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I've a ways to go to be considered a "hardman", but if you would like to test the boundaries of your hooking pleasures be sure not to miss Zenyatta Mondatta's P5.
One rivit off the anchor, followed by 25(?) right-trending hook moves, to a mantle out of the ladders to a 5.6 ramp, with a .75 placement behind a sketchy block 8' away. (topo calls for improbable hook move over the roof, but with the loose block of sharp diorite hanging in the way I opted for the obvious hook line around the danger)
NTB, if the fall would be clean... but it wouldn't have been, as the P4 anchors are located on a ledge above a broken right-facing ramp. And yes, I would rather die than survive a fall on that section.
Sometimes falling is not an option. Period.
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holdplease2
Oct 16, 2006, 12:09 AM
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If you're really interested in taping down hooks for pro, be sure to check out the hooks made by Verm. They are in the mountain shop and come in four sizes. I don't know how I'd climb without the biggest one anymore.
These hooks are wide, an inch or more wide at the spine. These are the hooks that I would leave for pro. The metolius hooks are particularly soft and will give out long before the BD hooks will.
Also, don't forget to sling them with strong stuff just in case you need to leave one for pro.
Hooking is my favorite kind of aid climbing. Delicate.
-Kate.
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holdplease2
Oct 16, 2006, 12:12 AM
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Re: Screamers - When these were made with bar tacks they apparently created more gate-flutter-inducing vibrations than they do now that they don't use bar tacks.
The "Shock Absorbers" by Mammut are super sweet because they are made of spectra and far lighter than the yates. However, they are stitched with bar tacks. Still, I switched to Mammut. They are about $30 each.
Also, if you have a life-saving piece you can get creative with your screamers. If I only get one or two good peices on a pitch I will use three screamers on the piece. Two clipped in tandem to the piece of pro and one more clipped to those before the rope is clippend in. This way they begin to deploy at a low rate, then at a higher rate until the piece of pro is loaded. Much more force is absorbed before your weight finally loads the pro.
In a massive fall (read: very long) one screamer may not be enough. I deployed 8 screamers in one fall, where smarter use of screamers could have stopped the fall much earlier had I known to use them more creatively. Maybe. ;)
-Kate.
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madbolter1
Nov 2, 2006, 1:23 AM
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I've had a bit of experience with hooking and with taping hooks (with screamers) for pro. Here is what I have learned:
1) Taping talk often sounds like the tape is adding to the strength of the placement ("tape the sh*t out of it, and hope it holds..."). Tape does not make the placement stronger (read: more likely to hold a fall). ALL tape does is to keep the hook from being jiggled off of its little ledge by rope movements. There are many other ways to accomplish this same thing without tape, but I won't go into those alternatives here. Tape works fine for that purpose, but it does NOT add to the fall-holding capacity of a hook.
2) Screamers do create a harmonic vibration as they tear. However, this vibration is at fairly high Hz, which means that the "jackhammering" effect on the rock is not significant (imho). I can imagine where there might be an issue on ice. But on rock, if the hookable ledge has any real chance of holding the impact, the harmonic vibration isn't likely to be what causes rock failure.
3) Rope run matters most of all in this game. A hook that's bomber for a straight-down pull might be total garbage when pulled at the slightest sideways angle. If you are running the rope into the hook 'biner from the side at all, you must pay close attention to the ACTUAL pull-angle that will result when the rope weights the hook in a fall. Tape will NOT save you here either--NO amount of it! Remember, the tape is doing nothing more (given the forces generated in a fall) than keeping the hook from jiggling off due to rope motion.
4) Cliffhangers are worthless for pro. I've had them straighten out with the minor shock-load of GENTLY settling back (uhh, quickly) from the next placement failing. They are rated to only 250lbs, which isn't much of a shock load at all. There are, however, many other sorts of hooks and claws that have higher tensile strength to resist straightening out. El Cap rock is amazingly good, and Mark had one 20-foot fall held by a small claw on a 3/8-inch thick ledge.
Hope this helps a bit.
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ptpp
Nov 2, 2007, 1:59 AM
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Madbolter1 is full of it! How could anyone with the moniker Mad Bolter know anything about hooking????
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Madbolter is none other than Richard Jensen, who with his buddy Mark Smith put up Wings of Steel, probably the hardest damn hooking route ever done, and still unrepeated a quarter-century later. I tried it, and failed miserably. Those boys know how to hook - they are SICK. Their hook placements are microscopic, and they were not afraid to run it out, taking huge falls in the process.
In fact, their route was and is so avant garde that their detractors TO THIS DAY say they somehow cheated, even though nobody can repeat it, and not for trying!
Ammon took several fifty-foot whippers working out a few of the pitches on WoS. But I knew better - I quit lots sooner!
Madbolter writes,
"Cliffhangers are worthless for pro. I've had them straighten out with the minor shock-load of GENTLY settling back (uhh, quickly) from the next placement failing. They are rated to only 250lbs, which isn't much of a shock load at all."
Hmmm, only 250 lbs, eh? I am not aware of that, but they seem a bit stronger.
I have tested this, incidentally. On my first attempt to solo Native Son, when a flake ripped I took a twenty or twenty-five footer onto a duct-taped Cliffhanger - with no Screamer - which somehow miraculously held! That hook was darn near straightened out, and seemed to be held only by the glue on the duct tape.
And yeah, the tape just holds the hook in place, it doesn't add any strength to the placements.
I've straightened Grappling Hooks and Cliffhangers on daisy chain falls - you generate huge fall factors on this kind of static fall.
But regardless, the taped Cliffhanger will indeed work - it's better than nothing, right?
Caveat: do not re-bend your straightened out hooks, cuz they will re-open. I, um, found this out the hard way on Reticent Wall [Doh!]
Fish hooks and Captain hooks are the BOMB, man - duct tape those things down for pro when you can. Don't be afraid to use your hammer to tap the hook onto the flake - sometimes the "springiness" of the steel can hold the hook in place.
Ah yes, Sty - the fifth pitch of Zed Em. I soloed that one a few years ago. I had a bit of a problem with one of my pigs, and used up all my duct tape repairing it. This meant I had nothing left to tape down hooks. What did I do?
I improvised! I carry long 5mm loops of perlon for making Klemheist rebelays while soloing, and I used these on the lead rope tensioned off against the hooks used as pro. The tension in the lead rope holds the hooks in place. It worked really well, and I've used it a bunch. It seems more secure than the duct tape.
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madbolter1
Nov 12, 2007, 11:50 PM
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PTPP, I'm ROFL! In addition to being "full of it," I stand corrected! Holy cow, man! I think an angel rather than the glue from the tape must have been holding your straightened-out Cliffhanger! I guess that they aren't "worthless" as pro, since they ARE clearly better than nothing! I do stand by my own experience, of course, and I generally wouldn't bother with one, but with enough rope out (to reduce the fall factor), your experience seems to make a case for "tape the sh|t out of it and hope it holds!"
Heh!
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the_climber
Nov 13, 2007, 4:58 PM
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madbolter, unfortunately Pete received the boot (yet again) from RC.com
If you want to get a hold of him look at PTPP profile and decode the email… or PM me for it.
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theirishman
Nov 13, 2007, 9:02 PM
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not taping a hook just isnt smart, it does have a little chance to catch you, and at least slow you down no matter how small it is
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moof
Nov 13, 2007, 10:18 PM
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In reply to: madbolter, unfortunately Pete received the boot (yet again) from RC.com
Too bad. Now he'll go back to puttig ALL his spray on supertaco. Ugh...
Still not sure what he did to get booted the first time. Or was it a matter of what didn't he do?
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the_climber
Nov 13, 2007, 10:23 PM
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Without getting into it too much, even Pete is a little baffled on the whole deal.
A plan is in the works for something better than sifting through the drivil on the Taco... I update everyone on it when it gets past the planning stage.
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gunkiemike
Nov 13, 2007, 10:57 PM
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ptpp wrote: you generate huge fall factors on this kind of static fall.
Daisy falls generate huge FORCES, not fall factors. (If the rope doesn't catch you, then FF is a meaningless quantity). I suspect this is what Pete meant.
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stymingersfink
Nov 14, 2007, 12:12 AM
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theirishman wrote: not taping a hook just isnt smart, it does have a little chance to catch you, and at least slow you down no matter how small it is
Sometimes falling is not an option, whereas retreat is always an option... just not always the better one.
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