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celticelement
Mar 18, 2003, 3:06 AM
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I have not been in the climbing market for long.
All of my safety gear I have bought from prominent gear labels. Having dealt with backpacking gear I know the truth that good gear is worth paying for, so will probably always stay with these kind of companies.
My problem comes in when I see stuff like what is on acme. From all that I can tell it looks like they have at least met the standards. Still I can not bring myself to buy something so cheep to hang my life off of.
I would like your take on this kind of cheaper gear, and really any company. Which company would you never buy from under any circumstance? Are there certain lines of products that you will not buy from certain companies (i.e. maybe black diamond harnesses, or maybe blue water quick draws)? Or is there a certain specific product that you will not use?
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farmerc
Mar 18, 2003, 3:35 AM
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Acme? I love it. As a new climber, I bought a bunch of faders biners (still my favorite biners) a lanex rope (2 years and its still going strong) a set of nuts and a set of hexes (awesome, but fairly heavy for leading trad routes; especially heavy on long approaches) I trust the gear entirely, and I don't feel guilty for buying european intead of from a local shop, because if I didn't buy from europe I couldn't even afford a basic trad rack.
~Chris
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talons05
Mar 18, 2003, 3:49 AM
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Of course, the Lanex ropes have fall ratings as low as 7 (For a 10.5mm!!!)Better companies, for example: BlueWater Ropes have fall ratings of 11 for their 10.5s...
What it boils down to is that the Lanex rope will need to be replaced much more often than the BW rope...
Just something to keep in mind.
A.W.
http://www.bluewaterropes.com
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apollodorus
Mar 18, 2003, 4:21 AM
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What you have to remember is that the Jardine patent expired about 1998. So, the price premium that the patent monopoly commanded also expired. But, WC can't just drop the price of their gear because they would seem like Gougers. So, WC improves the product, but keeps the price about the same. Very few people would argue that the WC Friends don't have a great overall quality to them. I don't think they're overpriced, the same way a Range Rover is not overpriced. It costs more than an Isuzu Trooper, but they are different things.
Now then: making cams is not rocket science. Sure, there are things you need to do to maintain quality, but overall the product is pretty simple. And there is no reason why they can't be mass produced to sell at the Acme/Robot prices. In fact, if ESPN were to show Trad Competition (speed ascents up Half Dome - geezus . . . .), then some Chinese company would flood the market with cams at $19.99 each. And they would pass the CE and UIAA tests. And probably be just fine.
If you have to trust you life to just one piece, then you are in the wrong game. Redundancy with pieces is RC-101. So, even if you get the highly unlikely bad piece (which can also come from the high $$$ companies), you're backed up.
Probably the best reason to buy the higher priced gear is because people that use it are designing it. The perfect examples are the CCH Alien mini-cams. Clearly, someone who's placed those things designed them, and refined them.
Cheaper gear isn't going to be weaker, but it might have irritating problems that could be easily fixed, but aren't. The big Robots walk because the axle is too short for their width. That sort of thing.
And speaking of Brand O'Death (in honor of St. Patty's Day), sometimes the specialized gear you need is so arcane, and the need so rare, that it either doesn't exist, or there is NO way to finance any sort of CE/UIAA nonsense. In such instances, you either go up without gear, or use what you can find.
Find it here:
http://home.pacbell.net/takasper/slcd/valleygiant.html
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blindslap
Mar 18, 2003, 4:26 AM
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I was just wondering how many factor 2 falls you put on your rope?
Lanex ropes only have seven falls but how many times does anyone put even close to that kind of force on thier ropes?
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apollodorus
Mar 18, 2003, 4:35 AM
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BlindSlap, the UIAA ratings are a way of measuring the relative safety of different ropes, not how many falls the rope can take. EVERY rope manufacturer recommends retiring a rope after ONE bad fall (i.e. similar to the UIAA test fall).
Hang-whipping your way up a route generally involves lower forces than the factor 1.8+ thing the UIAA testers do. So, a beefy 12 fall rope is probably going to be safe enough to "work the line" and "send it with blood", and all that.
Clearly, experience, judgment and some common sense are needed to evaluate what life is left in a rope that has used for sport whipping.
The trend towards thinner and thinner ropes is kinda scary, I think.
But, then again, ropes are getting better and better. My first real climbing rope (to replace my 3-strand twisted Goldline coiling nightmare) was an Edelrid 11mm that was rated for about 6 falls. The UIAA Crash Test Dummy has not lost weight since then, but a typical 11mm these days holds 12 or 15 falls.
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farmerc
Mar 18, 2003, 4:37 AM
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Good point about the falls... I trust my rope because I have used it for TRing and Trad (no falls yet) and haven't ever put any nasty falls on it.
~Chris
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arlen
Mar 18, 2003, 5:41 AM
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To the original question: in the US we pay quite a bit for things that aren't directly related to product quality at all: advertising & marketing and an old-fashioned chain of distributors. Stores can't charge a lower regular price than MSRP and they can't sell cheaper brands. Magazines like Climbing won't even advertise most sources for the cheaper Euro gear, because they couldn't afford to publish without the premium gear's ads-- they threatened to pull them when Barrabes ran a small ad last year. So we in North America don't know much about the cheaper gear.
Of the handful of gear-failure climbing accidents every year, it's mainly the premium gear that breaks, because that's mainly what climbers use. With our tendency to fixate on accident analysis, I think we'd hear about exceptional failure modes in cheap gear.
I'm confident that my Rock Empire cams are as trustworthy as my Camalots, but I doubt that their North American distributors have the same level of legal liability insurance, if any. It'd probably take just one frivolous legal action to bankrupt Acme. That sucks, but it's probably the only meaningful difference between the cheap gear and the premium gear.
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crimpmaster
Apr 4, 2003, 3:46 PM
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also i would say that when you are buying name brand equipment you are forking over a good bit of your climbing budget towards the climbing budgets of the many professional climbers that are sponsered by these companies.
these climbers, however, are involved in making improvements on the gear. so this is not to say that it is wasteful to do so, but just something to be kept in mind
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wlderdude
Apr 4, 2003, 5:33 PM
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Brand of death?
Umm, well, there are plenty of companies that make key chain carabiners that would likely kill you if they were used for climbing. Is that what you mean?
In backpacking, the stakes are not as high and there is no real need for a mandated level of quality. Of course you can find junky equiptment that may or may not work right out of the box and will likely fail whithin a few uses.
Welcome to climbing. You don't see much of that. Manufacturers test each piece of gear to half its rated strength and do tons of destructive testing to pretty much ensure their gear to be strong enough.
Even with quality contol measures, there are rare cases of gear that is weak and fails when it shouldn't. Don't loose sleep over it. Just back things up. The alternative is steel climbing gear.
If you misuse ANY piece of equiment, you can get it to fail.
This girl at a gear shop sarted going off on how Black Diamond tested some Czechlosovokian cams (shows how current she is on world events), and how they EXPLODED in the testing jig. They failed above their rated strength, but she was upset about how they failed.
I really don't care how a cam fails. If the force of the fall bends the axles, shears the metal, breaks the webbing or crushes the rock, it is not going to hold me.
I heard about a Trango 4 cam that fell aprt under body weight. I have not wanted to buy any of those particular cams. But you will hear these stories about EVERY gear manufacturer. You will hear the stories about the cheap gear from those trying to sell you the expensive stuff.
Ask around about the older BD cams. Boy have they got a reputaition.
It goes well beyond the trigger wire issues.
Do you know how Balck diamond was formed?
Why BD's logo has a diamond with a C in it?
How does a conmpany that stats in the trunk of a car go to employee ownership?
Find out if you don't know.
The story is not one that gives you the most confidence in the most expensive gear on the market.
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beaner_says_hi
Apr 5, 2003, 4:38 PM
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Are cold-forged biners really better? if they are, does anyone know why? This is one time I really wish I were an engineer. Drat. And, forgive me while I wear my ignorance on my sleeve, but why don't I see titanium biners...is it because the gear shops around here carry next-to- nothing, or the cost, or is it not suitable for beaners but it is for ice screws...I dunno...Hunnert Dahlerz for a belay device now... :cry:
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meataxe
Apr 5, 2003, 6:06 PM
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Exploding Cams?
You can spin anything I guess. I don't know about cams specifically, but if a piece of equipment "explodes" I assume that means all parts failed at once. I could see that interpreted to mean that the cam has no weak spots.
EG. if one part fails, say the axle, then that part is the weak point. If the strength of all parts are balanced, then the parts could all fail at once.
The Czecks are known for many fine machined metal products:
http://www.czub.cz/index_en.php
http://members.rogers.com/georgeparada/articles/skoda.htm
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wlderdude
Apr 7, 2003, 11:57 PM
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To those interested in Ti,
http://ushba.com/tifacts.html
Ti biners are addressed in FAQ #5
Yeah, I don't know for sure what she meant by "exploding," but I suspect that the screws that hold everything on the axle broke, so the pieces flew off.
Because the axle is hollow, you can get a stonger, stiffer and lighter axle than you can get with a solid axle. So, perhaps the solid axles on BD cams are a weak link, where the fasting system is the weak link in Robots.
Just fun speculation. Could be a ficticous rumor, anyways.
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petsfed
Apr 8, 2003, 12:46 AM
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In addition, BD bought Chouinard after a big legal battle that killed Yvon's gear business. Out of all the pieces of equipment that failed that killed the guy (whose family in turn sued for resititution), the chouinard pieces were from the biggest company. That's all.
Also, I've seen most every kind of cam ripped apart through incorrect usage. Personal favorites include Forged Friends that literally snapped in two, camalots ripped off below the head, completely inverted Technical friends, Aliens missing lobes... Its impressive stuff. Not a one was in a correct placement.
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hangdoggypound
Apr 8, 2003, 1:09 AM
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In defense of "moe expensive is moe bettah," I've seen really expensive gear not hold because it was placed poorly.
But I have to hold stuff in my hand and look at it and decide what I like about it and so forth.
Hell, ever hear of "The stove legs" pitch on some little known route somewhere in california? The story as I heard it goes that these clever gents went to the junkyard back in the early days of Yosemite climbing and pulled some legs off of some old stoves in order to protect some ungodly wide crack. That's some really cheap gear. IUAA testing...HA.
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cynic
Apr 10, 2003, 3:58 AM
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In reply to: Are cold-forged biners really better?
I'm currently studying to be a materials engineer and I can tell you that the short answer is yes, they are better.
Here's the long answer: with a standard, or hot forge, the metal is worked above its recrystallization temperature which means that as it cools it still undergoes microstructure changes, which in steel tends to make the material more ductile (will deform and stretch more before breaking). Aluminum, however, has the oposite reaction to the recrystallization process and will actually become more brittle (more likely to just snap under a major load). By cold forging aluminum you can work the material to precisely the properties that you want without worrying about them changing after cooling. Also, the most effective way of hardening the surface of aluminum is through forging (called impact or work hardening) this means that, while the bulk of the metal will stay ductile enough to absorb force well, the outer layer of metal will become harder and therefore more durable.
Ultimately, however, I should note that once the piece has been formed, by any method, it can still be heat treated so as to ensure that the final product has precisely the correct material properties, so just because a biner wasn't cold-forged doesn't mean that it is going to snap when you fall on it, and it probably won't even wear out faster. In fact, the real benifit to cold-forging is the cost savings to the company which no longer has to pay for the energy to heat the metal through the forging process and then to reheat it for the final heat-treatment.
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beaner_says_hi
Apr 10, 2003, 6:24 PM
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Wow! Thank you for the information! I'm wondering too if you could give some advice about what the best materials (and structures, really) are for climbing equipment. What would you use?
Thanks! :D
Beaner
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pico23
Apr 11, 2003, 1:55 PM
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In reply to: Of course, the Lanex ropes have fall ratings as low as 7 (For a 10.5mm!!!)Better companies, for example: BlueWater Ropes have fall ratings of 11 for their 10.5s... What it boils down to is that the Lanex rope will need to be replaced much more often than the BW rope... Just something to keep in mind. A.W. http://www.bluewaterropes.com
Lanex is made by Edelweiss engineers and it supplies rope for Kong and other major climbing companies. Edelwiess is a great rope company. UIAA falls are misleading. Even if you constantly fall you are never going to subject the rope to the theoretical UIAA fall let alone 7 in a row. As far as replacement?? Ropes should be replaced every few years not matter what. If you climb enough the rope is going be dead in a year or two tops. I think when you start climbing you feel ropes should last a long time, as you climb you relize they are disposable. I'd rather drop $100 every year and have a fresh rope then $200 and run out the life span on the rope.
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cedk
Apr 11, 2003, 2:20 PM
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Regarding the BD/Chouinard lawsuit. Wasn't it a case of the guy failing to use the gear correctly versus the gear itself failing. I heard he didn't double back his harness buckle. Also heard the lawsuit was instigated by his employer not his family.
Oh yeah. All climbing gear that's tested for sale in Europe is safe or as safe as it can be considering the nature of the sport.
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micahmcguire
Apr 11, 2003, 3:03 PM
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someone has said it already I am sure, but the very same people who make all the hardware parts for Black Diamond are the same people who make stuff for companies like ACME. Same exact metal, same strength nylon, just different brand-name. However, I do find that with shoddier brands come problems like cams springs that get busted up really easily, screwgate biners that cross-thread, etc. Also, the more expensive the backpack, the nicer it seems to be. Other than that, go for cheap!
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fishypete
Apr 11, 2003, 3:29 PM
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There is also another significant event coming up which should see quite a boost to "fringe" gear manufacturers: please click
Expiration of the BD double-axel cam patent
Perhaps only 10 months until ACME double axel cams hit the market!
Cheers
Fishy.
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smiley
Apr 11, 2003, 4:13 PM
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In reply to: someone has said it already I am sure, but the very same people who make all the hardware parts for Black Diamond are the same people who make stuff for companies like ACME. Same exact metal, same strength nylon, just different brand-name. However, I do find that with shoddier brands come problems like cams springs that get busted up really easily, screwgate biners that cross-thread, etc. Also, the more expensive the backpack, the nicer it seems to be. Other than that, go for cheap!
Yeah, I think there is a commonality, but I don't think the gear is identical; I think the manufacturer makes the product according to the buyer's specifications. So if one company wants price to be their main selling point, a lot of times you might get what you pay for. To make a cheaper piece of gear means cutting corners somewhere, even though the same company might make it. But other times I think you're buying an image. Not so much with hardware that I've noticed, but correct me if I'm wrong, but with other gear.
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pico23
Apr 11, 2003, 4:45 PM
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[quote="smiley"]In reply to: To make a cheaper piece of gear means cutting corners somewhere, even though the same company might make it. But other times I think you're buying an image. Not so much with hardware that I've noticed, but correct me if I'm wrong, but with other gear.
The lower cost is in the R&D, labor, marketing, and markup. Markup is huge in the US. We pay more because we can. Thats why you can't order Petzl stuff from Barabes anymore because we found a loophole even with the shipping cost.
But quality control on a UIAA and CE approved protection device built in a certified factory is not going to be an issue. ALL CAMS gunk up. Some people imediately say a Ocun or Rock Empire is lower quality if it sticks. CCH Aliens are a favorite among everyone for some reason and they are one of the worst offenders of sticking. BD Camalots have the worst trigger mechanism. The wires bend on the first day and by the first year of regular use they need to be replaced in many cases or become a pain in the ass. Mine are all destroyed but I refuse to drop $40 on wire replacements. The point is you've been programmed to believe only the big companies can make a good product. Thats just not true.
I think if you have the cash supporting the big companies that develope new gear from scratch is a good idea but if you are struggling to build a decent rack or whatever then buying from an acme type company is NOT gonna get you killed.
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cynic
Apr 11, 2003, 9:10 PM
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Beaner,
For ultimate strength and durability you can't get much better than steel, which is the reason all of the biners used in technical rescue situations tend to be made of steel. However, steel is WAY too heavy for use in standard climbing situations, if a piece of climbing gear has a CE and UIAA rating it is completely safe when used correctly (i.e. no tri-axial loading on the biners). There is a reason that aluminum is the most common metal used in climbing gear, IT WORKS!!! While aluminum is a tad bit more picky on the processing side than steel that only means it presents a tougher challenge for the engineers designing it and not less safety for the consumer. If you were to compare a steel biner with an aluminum biner you would notice that the steel biner is typically going to be at least twice as strong along any given axis, however, standard aluminum biners are still rated to ~22kN and if you ever generate that kind of force on a piece the biner breaking will be the least of your worries since most everything else in your system will have already given way, you would also notice in the comparison that the steel is more than twice as heavy, hence the greatest reason for going with aluminum: you won't break your back trying to carry your rack to the crag.
If you read through the gear-heads forum you will notice that any time people ask for advice on what gear to get there are always multiple opinions, your best course of action is to try out as many different pieces of gear as possible and then start buying based on what you like the best. The design and structure of climbing gear is interesting to look at, but ultimately it will all keep you safe and therefore does not need to be taken into account when deciding what to buy.
Well, that's it off the top of my head, but if you've got any more questions feel free to PM me.
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pico23
Apr 12, 2003, 3:29 AM
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In reply to: Beaner, standard aluminum biners are still rated to ~22kN and if you ever generate that kind of force on a piece the biner breaking will be the least of your worries since most everything else in your system will have already given way, you would also notice in the comparison that the steel is more than twice as heavy, hence the greatest reason for going with aluminum: you won't break your back trying to carry your rack to the crag.
keep in mind open biners are the largest cause of equipment failure. open a biner is only good to 6-8 Kn. Snapping the biner is not only possible but is likely to happen. You snap the biner, you hopefully hit you next piece before a ledge or ground and hopefully don't shock load that piece. For this reason wire gates are superior. They tend to stay closed when loaded and are easier to clip then straight gates. If your biner opens and doesn't fail in a fall consider yourself lucky because 6 Kn isn't hard to achieve.
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