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AntinJ
Mar 14, 2009, 11:31 PM
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In my pursuit to improve my understanding and abilities of gear placement and aid climbing, I spent all day yesterday aiding some single pitch routes at a local crag in my area. When it came time to clean my gear, I had to seriously wrestle with a few small pieces and ended up funking a few of them out. One of my #1 Black Diamond Stoppers got pretty mangled. So herein lays my question: Should stoppers/nuts not be extracted by way of a funkness device (not a typical cable and hammer, but a Trad draw attached to the nut-end of the cable)? Is there a good way to straighten this nut out for easier future use? Any advice would be great.
Thanks,
J
(This post was edited by AntinJ on Mar 14, 2009, 11:35 PM)
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jeremy11
Mar 14, 2009, 11:58 PM
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with any gear removal, it generally works best to reverse how it was originally placed. Since pitons are hammered in, the funkness device is to hammer it out.
Nuts are generally placed in constrictions, so push up on it to remove it. micronuts can be hard to remove, so bring something really skinny (skinnier than a nut tool) to remove them - I have a small screwdriver that I ground down. Others use a small center punch. Put a leash on it. A hammer is almost a must for cleaning small gear.
If you actually funked UP on the nuts, that could explain the fried cable.
The thing to really avoid is failing to clean the piece, but mangling it so much in the process that it is unreliable!
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sungam
Mar 15, 2009, 12:34 AM
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What did you do to that poor nut?
The nut itself is fine, I'd say, but WTF happened to the wire? I'd have to see it in person and look for frays etc. in the twists of the wire.
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AntinJ
Mar 15, 2009, 12:43 AM
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haha - I was aiding and the nut took no falls, just my 230lbs of body weight. I went to remove it the "traditional/conventional" way; i.e. reversing it's path, trying to loosen it with my nut tool, even tapping from the bottom up with the biner/nutool combo. Then I pushed some of the wire up through the top of the nut, clipped a Trad draw and started yanking up. After about 5 tugs, the nut was free and I was left with this beauty
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krosbakken
Mar 15, 2009, 12:43 AM
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yeah like sungam said wtf.
How did you manage to do that much damage? Why is it twisted like that?
I would say the hell with that nut. One, because it would be really hard to straighten out again and two, nuts are not expensive.
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bill413
Mar 15, 2009, 1:58 AM
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Wow - an art project!
I wouldn't be happy climbing on that nut anymore, because of the cable. But, if you are more comfortable with it, check especially at the entry to the nut itself for wire damage.
Might have been better to push the wire up thru the head & funked on the wide side loop to free it.
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vegastradguy
Mar 15, 2009, 2:02 AM
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a hammer and a nut tool go a long way when removing nuts.
i like the idea of a ground down screwdriver if you havent got a really skinny nut tool.
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AntinJ
Mar 15, 2009, 2:26 AM
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In reply to: Might have been better to push the wire up thru the head & funked on the wide side loop to free it.
That's what I did.
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pendereki
Mar 15, 2009, 2:32 AM
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 Ohh... thank you. Those pics made me laugh out loud. You really know how to set your nuts! Did you try a nut removal tool?
CM
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AntinJ
Mar 15, 2009, 2:41 AM
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Read above; most standard pro-removal techniques to my knowledge were applied during this extraction.
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coastal_climber
Mar 15, 2009, 5:26 AM
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Try tapping with a hammer. preferably this one:
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AntinJ
Mar 15, 2009, 10:16 AM
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I would love to add one of those to my rack! However I need to spend some more time plugging pro, before I start banging away at pitons. Maybe with next year's REI dividend. Besides, I'd rather spend the $10.00 dollars on a new nut, than $100.00 on a hammer.
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forkliftdaddy
Mar 15, 2009, 1:42 PM
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If you want a cheap hammer that you'll use for a limited time, I recommend going to a hardware store and buying a cheap hickory handled hammer of some sort and a screw in eye. Screw the eye into the end of the hammer and, ta-da, a cheap hammer that'll last you at least a little while. A buddy did this with a hardware store hammer. I have a nice Omega Pacific hammer, but he said not to bring it out in my luggage, that he had one we could use. I was skeptical, but we used it with a hand drill on the FA of a free route. I don't know if I would bank on it driving a lot pins, but I'm sure it will tap out clean gear nicely.
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ja1484
Mar 15, 2009, 2:45 PM
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Black Diamond (and pretty much every other gear manufacturer) states in their literature NOT to remove nuts by grabbing the wire and pulling upward, least of all funking them out.
That said, if you had no other option, you had no other option. You do what ya gotta do.
Check for the usual problems - frays, twists, kinks. However, just by looking at the picture I can say that nut would be a pain in the ass to use again and the wire is probably not safe after being mangled that badly.
I say retire it/them. Nuts are cheap.
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coastal_climber
Mar 15, 2009, 3:26 PM
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AntinJ wrote: I would love to add one of those to my rack! However I need to spend some more time plugging pro, before I start banging away at pitons. Maybe with next year's REI dividend. Besides, I'd rather spend the $10.00 dollars on a new nut, than $100.00 on a hammer.
I mean tap the nut up with the nut-tool using the hammer.
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altelis
Mar 15, 2009, 3:52 PM
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coastal_climber wrote: AntinJ wrote: I would love to add one of those to my rack! However I need to spend some more time plugging pro, before I start banging away at pitons. Maybe with next year's REI dividend. Besides, I'd rather spend the $10.00 dollars on a new nut, than $100.00 on a hammer. I mean tap the nut up with the nut-tool using the hammer.
Some advice for those of us who have a tight budget and are just getting into aid climbing.....
Instead of a hammer (whether it be a hardware hammer or a wall hammer), I'll carry a larger hex. It works pretty well for the type of force (ie. relatively minimal) needed to extricate a stuck nut. Plus, if need be you can always leave it behind as a "wide" piece of pro!
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johnwesely
Mar 15, 2009, 4:10 PM
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Those nuts look like a work of modern art.
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AntinJ
Mar 15, 2009, 6:26 PM
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In reply to: Black Diamond (and pretty much every other gear manufacturer) states in their literature NOT to remove nuts by grabbing the wire and pulling upward, least of all funking them out. That said, if you had no other option, you had no other option. You do what ya gotta do.
JA1484 - thanks for answering my question.
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rrrADAM
Mar 15, 2009, 7:49 PM
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Another trick that will save you from twisting the wires is to push the wire up through the nut... This will make a loop on top of the nut that you can sharply yank up on.
It will likely rip the plastic on the swage, but that's not a big deal.
I've taken some large falls on stoppers while trad climbing, and I've never left a man behind.
(This post was edited by rrrADAM on Mar 15, 2009, 7:52 PM)
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angry
Mar 15, 2009, 7:54 PM
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Since you're practicing, I'm assuming you tugged the nut into place hard, then bounced it a few times. That's my guess on why it was stuck, not just holding your body weight.
Also, since it briefly got covered. Pitons are only a throwback to the past. Learn clean aid, get good at it, try harder and harder clean aid, never aid off of pins. We (should) have moved past this already. Pins are good for some anchors and chossy frozen alpine rock/moss. Past that, they're a cop out.
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the_climber
Mar 16, 2009, 4:48 PM
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AntinJ wrote: I would love to add one of those to my rack! However I need to spend some more time plugging pro, before I start banging away at pitons. Maybe with next year's REI dividend. Besides, I'd rather spend the $10.00 dollars on a new nut, than $100.00 on a hammer.
Hammers aren't just for pins ya know. They are just as usefull for cleaning rock, cleaning gear, and bolting as they are for reseating pins and hammering pins.
The only real reasons for betting a heavy hammer like the BD YOS is if you are planning on getting on a LOT of nail up aid routes, or planning on doing extensive hand drilling.
I would consider something along the lines of the Camp Brenta, or the Petzl hammer for most applications, and are far more affordable than the BD.
(Note that I do love the BD YOS hammer and would love to have one, but it really is overkill for most stuff).
(This post was edited by the_climber on Mar 16, 2009, 4:56 PM)
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the_climber
Mar 16, 2009, 4:56 PM
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angry wrote: Since you're practicing, I'm assuming you tugged the nut into place hard, then bounced it a few times. That's my guess on why it was stuck, not just holding your body weight. Also, since it briefly got covered. Pitons are only a throwback to the past. Learn clean aid, get good at it, try harder and harder clean aid, never aid off of pins. We (should) have moved past this already. Pins are good for some anchors and chossy frozen alpine rock/moss. Past that, they're a cop out.
Angry, I'll agree that we as a group should strive to use clean gear whenever possible, but pins are not simply a throwback from the past. Granted a lot of it depends on rock type/quality. However, there are many area when the choice is a sketchy piece or a pin, a solid belay or something that resembles a bad joke, or a feature that simply will not take anything else.
I'll never encourage someone to use pins where something else will work, infact I encourage people to climb clean as much as possible. One does have to ask if a bolt beside a perfect knifeblade seam is more ethical than a pin in that seam.
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clausti
Mar 16, 2009, 9:41 PM
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now you have necklace nuts!
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skinner
Apr 4, 2009, 10:52 PM
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I've never left a nut behind either, but especially with the smaller one, brass being the worst.. if it gets loaded enough, it can sort of weld itself in place. The small nuts when welded in place, don't tend to come out as easy with a nut tool because there is very little surface to tap on. If you tap hard enough to dislodge it, you wind up deforming the nut or damaging the the wire. *If* you can fish the wire up and get on it from the top, great, but that's not always possible in tiny cracks. Sometimes there's just not a lot you can do. Good thing the small wires aren't that expensive eh?
Of course you could take your hammer, bust the rock out all around it, until it falls out, leaving a nice large hex placement for the next person and overall improving the level of safety on the route. 
Pitons.. err, climb in the less traveled regions on chossy limestone enough, and you'll learn to love them, or end up wishing you had brought some. And as mentioned, pitons *can be* placed passively. This can save a lot of wear-n-tear on cam stems/wires when aiding long horizontal'ish cracks.
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