“The more you twist the head, the more the nut gets sucked up.” The Bolting Bible The Book of Mechanical Bolts Welcome to our free course as our way of contributing to the bolting community. It's nice to understand what you are clipping and trusting with your life, even if you never plan on installing or removing bolts. Also, if someone is going to spend their time and money to bolt something, I assume, they probably want to do it as good as possible. Hopefully the Bolting Bible gives you the tools you need to do a great job. Get it? Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an over arching blog we call a text book. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. So mechanical bolts aren’t rocket science. If you have the right size hole, and a quality bolt made of stainless, the basic idea is that you smash it in and tighten it. A wedge gets sucked into something that expands. You can have a rod with a flared end or wedged nut, and if the part that expands is big enough, it’s no longer a plain ol’ wedge bolt but magically transforms into a sleeve bolt. However, like everything, it’s what they don’t tell you that gets ya… so let's go over the little nuances of each type of bolt that will help you install a safe mechanical bolt. Sleeve Bolts Smash them in and tighten them. It’s not much harder than that, but here is some stuff you need to know. It is important to install the hanger onto the bolt BEFORE hammering it in. If you forget to put the hanger on, then you may not be able to pull it back out. If you can partially remove it like the Power-Bolt, then you risk debris getting into the threaded cone at the bottom. If you take the nut off of Fixe’s Triplex bolt, then the whole rod can fall into the hole and probably deep enough to where you can’t get it out because there would be no way to grab it. So, install the hanger of your liking to the bolt BEFORE hammering it into hole. Place the coned nut, that is at the bottom, so it is just touching the sleeve but don’t pre-expand the sleeve (see pic above). Now it’s time to hammer it in (the hole is clean, right!?). If it goes in really really easy, you may have a hard time getting it to tighten because the entire bolt and all its parts are spinning in the hole. If it is a bitch to get in the hole, then your hole is too small and you risk breaking or compromising your bolt, and the harder it is to get in a removable, the harder it will be to get it out! Then tighten it. All bolts have a specific torque pressure they require to achieve the ratings that the manufacturer claimed. Torque wrenches are not expensive but can suck to take on a long hike. If you don’t use one on the mountain, at least use it on some practice bolts at home in your backyard so you know what it should feel like. If 25 foot lbs of torque is required and you have no freaking clue what that feels like, use a small to medium wrench and pull until your face scrunches but not so hard that you grunt. If you don’t tighten it enough, obviously the risk is that it could come out. When I tensioned bolts from 25 to 35 torque lbs, I was shocked how much umpf I had to give it. There is a limit, like everything, that if you really really tighten it that you compromise its integrity by breaking the bolt or stress cracking it. A fun experiment is to try to pull out your test bolts after hardly tightening it at all. It is amazing how well they hold. However it is important that they are properly tightened. Hangers want to be a certain direction depending which way you pull them. You don’t want to randomly place your hanger and then, when tension is applied to it, forces it to spin to the correct orientation while under pressure. If it doesn’t spin, then you are pulling on that hanger in a very unfavorable way. It can reduce the strength. Hangers break lower in our tension tests on BoltBusters than in shear. Put a carabiner on the hanger and pull on it in the direction it will be used. And on highline anchors, remember that the furthest outside bolts are going to be pulled diagonally towards the master point, and not necessarily the same direction as the highline. Keep in mind that if your hole is too shallow, the bolt obviously won’t go in all the way, but that means the hanger will be spinning because it isn’t secured to the rock. That doesn’t mean it will blow out the hole if you use it, but it is considered sloppy and I don’t know if I would trust a bolt that I knew nothing about if the hanger is loosely spinning. If you really goofed, and it is sticking way out, then it could leverage the bolt, breaking it at a much lower force. Sleeve bolts are better for softer rock because they have a larger surface area and can open the split sleeve wider than just a wedge bolt with a small clip at the end of it. The softer the rock, the deeper and bigger you will want your bolt. There is no downside to using a sleeve bolt in hard rock so it is a good idea to use them unless you want marine grade 316 stainless, which is hard to come by in a sleeve bolt. Wedge Bolts The real difference is the size of the expansion clip at the base of the rod. There is no real reason to use wedge bolts over sleeve bolts other than it’s easier to find 316SS, as most sleeve bolts are 304SS. So if you have an area that is prone to corrosion and have hard rock (as it’s not a good idea to install wedge bolts in soft rock), then these might be the right choice. But if the area is high risk of corrosion, you might as well put in titanium glue in bolts to make sure that it lasts. To install, start in the same way as the sleeve bolts by putting the hanger on the bolt before hammering. These too require a specific torque. Tighter isn’t always better. Be sure to line up your hanger with the direction you will pull it and wrench it down. The rod will stick up higher than the nut after you torque it so start with the nut as high as possible without hitting it with the hammer. Make sure the wedge is expanding immediately and not sliding up the hole as you tension the nut 20+ rotations, leaving very little bolt left in the rock. You can feel if it is getting tighter and expanding in the hole. Are you an Innie or an Outie? Ok, so bolts don’t have innies as much as flush hex heads. A hex head attached to the rod sucks up the nut at the bottom like a good cough will do to yours! The rod/shaft doesn’t get any higher the more you tighten it; all the magic happens in the hole. Only sleeve bolts have this design. But then there are outies where the rod/shaft is being pulled out of the rock as you tighten the nut. This can be on some sleeve bolts, but it is on every wedge bolts. The nut should be installed when you hammer it in, but you don’t want to hit the nut because that means you are putting all the force on the threads and that can damage them. However, you don’t want the rod sticking way up when you are done, so you want to start the nut as high as you can get it, without actually hitting it. If the rod is sticking out far enough, it can hit the gate if your carabiner gets rotated and literally open it! Hangers matter The hanger that the bolt is securing to the rock, is as important as the bolt itself. Many hangers are rated for 22kn to 25kn just like the carabiners climbers generally attach to them. However some hangers have broken past 50KN as seen in our BoltBuster tests. It is nice to have a hanger that is similar strength to the bolt it is attached to, otherwise you could be leaving some strength on the table since the weakest link will break. Hangers made from round stock can have rope threaded directly into them for highline anchors. The round stock generally has less of an impact as they don’t shine quite the same way as a flat hanger, so that can be a benefit to using them in climbing, but is not ideal for climbing anchors as they could wear down quickly if ropes are constantly running inside of them. Offset hangers are designed for anchors so your rings or quick links added to them allow the rope to go sideways and not get smashed against the rock. Additional hardware should be added to hangers for climbing lower off anchors. ● Fixe Hardware has a 316L SS hanger that meets all new EU Standards for $3.95. It has an MBS of 25kn and broke at 30kn or higher in Bolt Busters. DON’T BE A CHEAP ASS AND BUY THE PLATED STEEL HANGERS. THOSE ARE FOR INDOOR GYMS. ● Petzl has a 316SS hanger that is about $4 each and they are rated by Petzl for 25kn. ● CMI has a hanger for a ⅝” bolt and is powder coated steel that has been chromated first. If used in shear they break as low as 7500lbs or 34kn instead of 10,000lbs they are rated for. If pulled straight out, they hold 44kn or 10,000lbs. They are NOT made for climbing or slack lining but instead made for Challenge Courses and Arborists. They are over sized, not for giant bolts in soft rock, but for tree overgrowth. ● Bolt-Products has a hanger made from a 8mm 316SS (A4) welded rod for a 12mm bolt at a price of €5.20. These allow a rope to be threaded directly inside of them. For highliners, these are amazing. They work great with Fixe’s Triplex Bolts or any 12mm bolt that you have. I have to drill the hole slightly bigger if I want to use them on ½” bolts. Team Tough is the US distributor for Bolt-Products. ● Bonier has a hanger without sharp edges so that a rope can be threaded through, which is ideal as a highliner since we won’t have the rope running over this surface wearing it out like a climbing anchor. Comes in 304SS. See this EPISODE. ● Bonier also has an omnidirectional hanger for 12mm or ½” bolts, though power bolts will NOT work with it because this gets set on a bolt after it is installed. Certified for the construction world but possibly a great highline hanger for lines pulling straight out of a wall. ● Chain links require many washers between the link and the rock to raise it high enough so the second link doesn’t grind on the rock. This means all the pressure is being put towards the top of the bolt instead of the base, significantly reducing strength. Also, they should not be pulled in tension, so if you put your bolts in the middle of a cliff face to be pulled directly outward, chain links should not be used. Keep in mind these don’t work for sleeve bolts (because of the flush heads). If you use chain, wedge bolts are the best bolt. They can have a rope threaded in them eliminating the need for quicklinks in a highline rig or for a lower off at a climbing anchor. However, chain links you may see are probably zinc plated because cost was the determining factor when installing them. 1st Chain Supply also offers ½” made from 316SS but it is 14.90 per foot with a 10 foot minimum. This can be a good solution for those in countries without easy access to good climbing hardware. HowNOT2 SWAG Believe it or not, bolting companies are not lining up to sponsor us; mostly because there is no money in such a niche industry. $1 per episode helps a ton and so does grabbing MERCH if something grabs your eye. Lots of designs and options. Ugh, why is it doing that? (FAQs) ● Why is my sleeve bolt just spinning and not getting tighter? ○ The hole is probably too big, the entire bolt and all its parts are spinning inside. The nut at the bottom of a sleeve bolt needs to stop spinning, so give friction to the nut by pulling up against the sleeve while you tighten. This is done by pulling up/over on the hanger. If it comes out too much, after you get some progress, hit it back down flush against the hanger and rock and finish tightening it. ● Why is the wedge bolt rising as I tighten but not getting tighter? ○ The clip at the bottom is either spinning with it or the wedge at the bottom is lifting the clip instead of expanding it. The clips commonly have 2 bumps on them to give some friction along the rock and so it shouldn’t do this, but if that’s your problem then try to pull up on hanger while tightening but if you try to hammer a wedge bolt back down because it got to high/extracted, it only knocks the wedge out of the clip and you are more or less starting all over. Hole size is pretty important here. ● Why is it snug and tightening but won’t get solid? ○ If you are sure the sleeve or clip is expanding and it is snug but not increasingly getting tighter, then the rock is shit and it’s expanding the rock (I have had this happen to me before in Iceland). ● What are those plastic parts on the sleeve bolts? ○ Sometimes there are spacer sleeves or bushings or compression rings that are made out of plastic. These just separate the parts and it’s not holding any force but helps with installation. The powers spec sheet states, “The Power-Bolt is also designed to draw the fixture into full bearing against the base material through the action of its flexible compression ring. As the anchor is being tightened, the compression ring will crush if necessary to tightly secure the fixture against the face of the base material.” There is also a plastic star shape below the nut on some bolts and that helps with the loose nut syndrome, something we all try to avoid! Leave them on there, they help. Don’t worry, they aren’t the parts that hold the bolt in the rock. ● The wedge bolt is secure but the rod sticks up higher than the hanger, is that ok? ○ It cosmetically looks bad and leaves any wandering climber curious as to how much bolt is left in the rock. If you are absolutely sure you have a sufficient amount of bolt left in the rock, and the wedge and clip are NOT just below the surface, then it is going to hold. If it sticks out too much it could hurt someone or be an unclipping hazard as the gate would be opened if the carabiner rotated. I recommend loosening the nut, hammering it in again and trying to get it to seat deeper. Just having the tip in the hole isn’t going to satisfy everyone involved! Real life shit This video is of a bolt breaking during a highline whipper. Andy Lewis set up a highline for an Alex Mason’s Red Bull eclipse shot and had to use some existing shitty bolts. They were shitty zinc plated bolts that corroded enough to snap during approximately a 5kn whipper which was spread out over that 3 point anchor probably only putting a maximum of 3kn on that bolt. Buying Guide As nice as it would be to write in this book, “Just use this 1 bolt”, there is no perfect bolt as each has pros and cons. We want you to know HOW to buy bolts and NOT tell you WHAT to buy. Consider the following when reviewing bolts you see online... ● Length is TOTAL bolt length for mechanical bolts. If you have a 4 ½” bolt, you may only end up having 3.75” embedded in the rock when you are finished. ● Some bolts are certified with EN 959:2007 certification or CE/UIAA or some construction certification. And some are not. Go with a reputable company in either case. ● Don’t buy zinc plated or plated steel or galvanized bolts.If you can’t afford stainless, don’t install bolts. PLX stainless is awesome but fading out for the new standards of 316L SS. ● Read the spec sheets and know what the torque specs are (how tight that bolt is supposed to be wrenched down). ● Be sure your hanger is made of the same metal as your bolt so you don’t get galvanic corrosion. These companies sell mechanical bolts that I would take a whipper on. BoltProducts is based in Europe and Team-Tough is their distributor in North America. Their products are quality. The only mechanical bolts they sell are wedge bolts. Fixe Hardware has great selection including Powers sleeve bolts but unfortunately they sell PS (plated steel) which technically can be used in the driest of deserts but it ought to be made more clear as they get installed in wetter areas all too often. They still have some PLX products but are phasing them out for 316L SS. All their products are bomber. Manufactured in Spain and distributed in the US. ClimbTech sells Powers sleeve, wedge and removable anchors. Unfortunately they also sell PS Powers!?!? US Based. Vertical Evolution has a single mechanical bolt option that comes in 8mm (too small), 10mm and 12mm… in 316SS or galvanized??? Most of the bolts on their sight are glue in bolts. Based in Italy. Climbing Technology has a great selection of HCR (PLX) and 316L mechanical bolts. Based out of Italy and France. CaveExploration is a US distributor. Raumer sells wedge and double wedge of all sizes. Based in Italy. CaveExploration is a US distributor. CanyonZone is European Distributor. Petzl sells quality bolts but they aren’t cheap. Sold everywhere. The Power-Stud was a great 304SS wedge bolt that is about $3 each and is very accessible and comes with a SS washer and nut. In our Bolt Buster shear tests, they will snap at 60kn, higher than almost any hanger you can buy for it. Confast’s “American 316SS Thunderstud Anchors” are a good price at $5ish each with washer and nut included. We have not tested these in BoltBusters yet. What NOT to Buy I am NOT convinced Keith Titanium makes bolts that are OK to use but my OCD won’t let me exclude it from this book if I’m attempting to make a complete guide to bolts. I tried buying some but they supposedly don’t sell these in the US and after researching the product this is what I found. Someone couldn’t screw on the nut when they bought it because the threads were poor quality. The website claimed UIAA approved and the UIAA took action and it is no longer on their website. It is not certified to EN959 either. Tested by a third party said this is NOT a titanium alloy like the website states but is commercially pure and not an alloy. The nut and bolt threads appeared cut and not rolled (rolled is stronger and holds up to fatigue). The wedge piece is floppy so a large portion of the bolt gets pulled out of rock when tightening leaving a shallow embedment depth. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Climbing, Caving and Canyon Gear & Over 30 Bolting Products HowNOT2 Contribute If you see a typo, or see a resource online we haven't linked to, or have something to share, we'd love to add it. If you are contributing a video, image, or words, please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. ryan@slackline.com What's Next? This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.

“Know what thy is shoving in thou hole.” The Bolting Bible The Book of Anatomy Welcome to our free course as our way of contributing to the bolting community. It's nice to understand what you are clipping and trusting with your life, even if you never plan on installing or removing bolts. Also, if someone is going to spend their time and money to bolt something, I assume, they probably want to do it as good as possible. Hopefully the Bolting Bible gives you the tools you need to do a great job. Get it? Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an over arching blog we call a text book. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. Some bolts have 5+ separate parts and others are just a single rod bent and twisted into shape. Some are welded and some have hangers built into them. Surprisingly, for being just a metal “stick” you shove into a hole, there are a lot of details that go into them as they are basically tiny machines. Know how your little machine works so you know that it will be installed correctly. Types of bolts Compression Bolts Old school button heads have no moving parts. They are cut and shaped to be a little bigger than the hole and have such a tight fit that they stay in. The bolts are called split shaft, the concept is called compression bolts. The little tiny ¼” button heads are found more in blank sections of big walls where bolt ladders needed to be installed, rather than for anchors. The next size up is ⅜” and has a threaded top with a nut. We found while installing them that it takes so much work to pound them in that the nut and hanger have to be preinstalled or the threads get too damaged to put on the nut. We tested these in shear and tension on BoltBuster and found the top of the bolt snaps off before coming out, at least for a new bolt, which means they are super duper tight in that hole!. They rarely come in stainless and is the kind of bolt that is being replaced today. They existed, so we share them here, but please don’t use these. Spike bolts are similar in the fact they are bent but they are the same idea. Nail drives and Drop ins “Nail drives” or “Hammer set” or “Hammer Drive” or “Strike anchor” or whatever the hell you want to call it, it is a bolt that expands the sides as you smash a nail through the center. If that nail is flush, it isn’t coming out. Petzl used to sell one called the “Petzl Long Life”, clever name for a bolt, but apparently it wasn’t popular enough and was expensive. Some are flush with the hanger and prevent hanger thieves, others have nuts that hold down the hangers. Since none available today are designed for life support climbing applications, they are not certified and can be a risk. ASCA broke an off brand (AALL American) ½” in tension at only 10kn, substantially below its MBS. ¼” strike anchors are a popular size online (not for climbing but general use) and those can break below 2kn. Drop in anchors are have a similar design but after the “nail” is pounded in with a set tool, spreading out the bottom flange, and a threaded bolt can be installed onto the threads. This VIDEO shows how they work. Short story, just don’t use them, there are much better options these days. Concrete Screws These work similar to normal wood screws. Pre-drill a hole and the threads bite into the sides of hole. The screws have a cutting thread of harder steel at the tip and the rest of the threads just follow along. This does require a quality impact drill with a ⅜” drive (NOT ¼” like so many are) as it takes quite a bit of torque to get them in, but you won’t need a hammer. The hole doesn’t have to be super clean like glue in bolts require, but you should blow out the dust before installing them, or you may not get it all the way in as the dust in the bottom stops it. Adding some water can help lubricate and cool when installed in harder rock and the bolt could be compromised if trying to install this in a super hard rock. These are NOT safe in softer rock. A ⅜” bolt requires a ⅜” hole (overdrill the length by ¼”) and should be used with a hanger that has a ⅜” hole even though it can feel tight getting it on there. Don’t try to hold the hanger while using your drill to put the bolt in the hole. The threads can grab the hanger and spin around so fast that it could break your hand! The Titen HD’s are the work horse in BoltBusters but we found using a hanger with a ½” hole that it would peel off the bolt sometimes in our tension tests, albeit, above 30kn. We use these a lot in BoltBusters to anchor down our hydraulic testers and to test all sorts of hangers as they are easy to remove. We even reused the same holes (in concrete) during our hanger tests over a dozen times and it was still stronger than our hangers even though the hole was being clearly compromised. Any hanger test video has these bolts and they are how we test hangers that go to 60kn. It did break once in shear at 46kn on test 66 and after reusing the same hole enough in concrete it will come out like in this VIDEO (at very high forces) Pulling in tension snapped the head off at 43kn as you can see in test 142 (amazing slow mo at 1:15) but it is hard to do as the hangers typically fail first. Some are concerned that after many freeze/thaw cycles these bolts will become loose over time but there hasn’t been enough examples of this problem for us to be concerned about it. These are the easiest bolt to remove and replace from a bolt stewards perspective. They come in zinc plated steel, 304 SS, and 316SS. Please use a stainless that is right for your area. Keep in mind this is a newer fad and the ASCA or any old school bolter does not currently approve of these for the good reason that extensive science has not been done specifically for climbing. Local areas may frown upon this more than others for cultural reasons and these are NOT good in sandstone as it won’t hold up to cyclic loading in soft rock. However, they have been used by several climbers in solid rock without any signs of issues and are often used in highly regulated construction. The TitenHD bolts have also been very impressive in Bolt Buster tests. Mechanical Bolts with Wedges These bolts have a small expansion clip with bumps on the side located near the base of a bolt shaft. Those bumps don’t allow it to move since it is slightly bigger than the hole diameter. The very end of the bolt is cone shaped, so when the nut is tightened, it pulls the TAPERED END of the shaft up, expanding the clip. This kind of bolt is recommended only in hard to medium rock as the contact point is very minimal. Sometimes, this bolt gets extracted quite a bit if the clip slips, that the threaded rod sticks out so much it gets in the way of carabiners and leaves significantly less bolt in the rock. If the threaded rod is protruding enough, it could also depress the gate of a carabiner open if the quickdraw was rotated upwards, possibly unclipping it or just reducing strength if loaded in that position. Never use these in sandstone or other soft rock as it can wear down the rock at the contact points under cyclic loads and become loose from the now oversized hole. Mechanical Bolts with Sleeves These bolts are threaded rods with a coned nut on the end. These are called sleeve anchors because the sleeve part covers the entire bolt shaft. The hex head and the shaft are one piece, rather than threads at the top with a nut. The “nut” is instead at the bottom and is coned shape so the tighter it is, the more it expands the sleeve. Therefore the hex head stays flush on the hanger rather than the rod sticking out. The sleeve also allows for more contact area and is ok to use for all types of rock although the softer the rock is, the more glue in bolts are preferred. These bolts especially need to be tightened at a specific torque, so if you don’t take a torque wrench with you, practice at home to get the right feel for it before doing your project. If these become loose after placement, they could be prone to unscrewing themselves as the hanger is torqued back and forth by rope tension, and pulling out under body weight. See the buying guide for all your options at the end of the “Mechanical Bolts” section. HowNOT2 SWAG Believe it or not, bolting companies are not lining up to sponsor us; mostly because there is no money in such a niche industry. $1 per episode helps a ton and so does grabbing MERCH if something grabs your eye. Lots of designs and options. Removable Bolts Removable bolts are great where you don’t want to leave permanent bolts because it is a high traffic area, a highline that rarely will be rigged, or an overhanging sport route that you need temporary anchors to install better permanent ones. It’s also great if you don’t want to wait for glue in bolts to cure, because these allow you to install the glue ins AFTER you highline on the removables. The concepts are the same as wedge and sleeve bolts, however the harder you pull on those bolts, the more they grab the rock. Contrarily, removables are designed so the sleeves can be pulled up separately after untightening, allowing you to avoid the wedging action that keeps the bolt in the rock. These should not be used as a long term anchor because if they ever were to loosen, they will not be safe to use. Just like all bolts, there are some downsides. They need to be drilled perfectly because if it is too big, it just spins in the hole and if it is too small then it’s a real bitch trying to remove them. If a hole is repeatedly used for a removable, mostly in softer rock, it can wear out the hole, and no one likes a hole that is worn out! If someone tries to repeat a highline, they may not know if it was a 12mm or ½” hole and that’s important because they require different bolts. If on top of a cliff, a hole can get filled in with debris and need extensive cleaning. Also, in my experience, removables can look pretty mangled after a few “removings” so that’s why they aren’t called “reusable bolts” but “removable bolts”. They can be reused but not indefinitely. Fixe’s Triplex (12mm) has a threaded rod with a tapered cone and Climbtech Legacy bolt (½”) is a flush hex bolt with a coned nut on the end but is unfortunately no longer available, as I have found Climbtech to be easier to remove than the Triplex.. I like using Bolt Products’ welded hangers on fixe triplex bolts so I can thread my rope directly into the hanger. If you are real experimental and rich, you can try Climbtech's fancy removable anchor. They are designed similar to cams and it is just a round version of ball nutz. If you bottom them out (put them in too deep), they will be almost impossible to remove. These can be great if you need a temporary bolt for establishing a route but if you highline on them it could kink the flexible wire and the ½” ones are only rated for 11kn. If you use 8 of these for a highline, it should only cost over $600!!! They have ¾” and 1” sizes but we don’t need to be drilling holes in our rocks that big for temporary anchors. You can drill the hole at an angle to minimize the wire kink but if you plan on using that hole for glue, then they need to be drilled properly. The inventor of these does human testing on them in this video which I always appreciate when someone falls behind their products. Petzl now has the Coeur-Pulse a 12mm removable that doesn’t require tools (assuming you already have a clean hole waiting for you). Those also are expensive but they can be used for highlining and are pretty fancy. They have a thin sleeve layer that gets pulled out of the way when you pull the trigger… aka… tooless. They require a perfect hole and so you need to use fresh 4 point bits. The fat heads on them limit how much you can clip to them but I do recommend them if you can afford them. Some previous versions have the hanger fixed on there and not free spinning, so if it is not installed in the right direction and it turns, it would turn the entire bolt in the hole compromising it. A video on installing them can be found here. Glue-in Bolts And now for my favorite... glue-ins! A bolt that doesn’t need a hanger that people can steal, lasts longer than just your interest in climbing/highlining, and they can have static rope directly threaded through them, eliminating 6 or 8 heavy quicklinks or steel carabiners for the lazy highliners. However, if you install a threaded rod (stainless steel please), then you will need a hanger. But if you will be using an anchor for more than one highline and therefore will be pulled in more than one direction the glued in threaded rod can be a good solution. This allows the nut to be loosened and the hanger turned. However, if hangers are removed and replaced often, the threads can get damaged making that bolt worthless. Glue-ins can come as a single shaft with a welded eye on top or a continue rod. U-shape (or staples) are a rarely used glue in, requiring 2 holes (one for each leg) which is more impact on an area and rare to see as they are prone to unclipping carabiners. Glue always comes in two parts and is very important to mix it right as most glue in failures is a result of improper mixing. But if mixed right and the hole is dust free, it can offer some of the strongest anchors available. Mechanical bolts are just pushing on a fraction of the sides of a hole but glue-ins grab 100% of the hole and that is especially important in softer rock or layered rock. The glue gets into the pores of the rock and makes for a bomber anchor compared to a wedge. It also keeps water out of the hole preventing corrosion where you can’t see it. They are much more technical to install and can cost more (if using hilti epoxy) than a mechanical bolt, but they will last a lifetime therefore leaving less of a long term impact. Do not use glue with mechanical bolts. You don’t get the best of both worlds, you get the worst. The glue will only sit on the outer sleeve and not attach to the actual rod that holds the hanger down. The glue could prevent the anchors from expanding. If the hole is big enough for glue, the wedge won’t wedge. If the hole is the right size for the hole, there is no room for the glue. The glue can also clog the threads. It’s not like a mechanical bolt is going to fall out of the hole easily if you use glue, but that is not how they are designed. Don’t try to get fancy! Girth Matters Back in the day, skinny ¼ bolts were used and yikes. Now they are all getting replaced. It is very common to have a 10mm or ⅜” bolt for climbing and 12mm or ½” bolts are the standard for highlining since they can potentially see a lot more force than the ones used for climbing. If bolting in softer rock a 16mm or ⅝” bolt might be better, not to benefit from the strength of the bolt, but because a bigger bolt can hold the rock better. And if the rock is soft enough, you will want those fat bolts to be glued in. Drill bits are important to get right. Although ½” = 12.7mm, you CANNOT interchange 12mm for a ½” drill bit for the Fixe triplex removables because they have a tight tolerance. Also, the Petzl Coeur Pulse requires a 4 point 12mm drill bit so the hole is perfectly round so diameter is really important sometimes. A wave bolt glue in is TIGHT in a ½” hole, so I doubt you could get one in a 12mm hole but fit great in a 14mm hole and is a preferred method if it is not over hanging and you don’t need the tight tolerance. With most glue ins you have a little wiggle room on sizing since it’s the glue holding the rock and not some tiny wings spreading out at the bottom of the hole. You just don’t want to put a ⅜” glue in bolt in a ⅝” hole. Too much of anything is bad. Know your bolt and do a practice install! Length Matters Your length depends on how hard you are… I mean, how hard the rock is. The harder the rock, the harder the hole, so don’t worry about deep penetration. 2.5” or 55mm is fine for hard rock. The softer the rock the softer the hole and so you want to get it in as deep as you can. 6” or 150mm is common for softer rock. Remember, mechanical bolt lengths describe the entire bolt so keep in mind how much will be below and above the surface. Glue ins are often measured by just the section that goes inside the rock. It doesn’t matter how long you think it is but how deep it actually penetrates! Washers Washers distribute the pressure over more of the hanger (serious rocket science material here!). They might not be fancy but they are important. Some bolts, like Powers 5 piece rawl, comes with the washer. They are also very important if chain links are used instead of hangers (which is not an ideal method). In BoltBusters, we tested with and without washers on ½” holes on ⅜” holes, see this hanger peel off the bolt in this VIDEO at 0:54 seconds! Use the right size hanger with the right size bolt, but also use washers when applicable. The most common mistake when using washers is to buy the shiny cheap ones at the store. Don’t use zinc washers! Stainless and stainless need to be together or that washer will rust quickly. Hangers We aren't talking about the airplane kind or the closet kind, but climbing hangers… and they are not all created equal. The holes on hangers generally come in 10mm, ⅜”, 12mm, or ½”, and if you ask nicely, Jim Titt from Bolt-Products sometimes makes his awesome welded hangers in the bigger size. It’s important to use the right size bolt with right size hanger, otherwise it floats around the bolt and can even peel off. CMI makes a rare hanger with a ⅝” (16mm) but it is for arborists and not climbing or slacklining. It’s also insanely large which is good if a tree is growing around it but not for the visual impact of our climbing areas. The hanger strengths vary on normal size hangers around 25kn but Fixe's stainless ½” and 12mm hangers are 30kn certified with a 44kn ultimate breaking strength and we have occasionally achieved up to 60kn! See this Fixe SS hanger getting twice the MBS on this TEST. CMI’s ⅝ hanger is rated the as one of the strongest hangers at a whopping 44kn but broke in our BoltBuster tests as low as 33kn in shear, because it puts too much stress on one side of the hanger. In tension it is full strength. It isn’t made for climbing so don’t buy them. Every hanger made today is as strong or stronger than the aluminum carabiners we will be clipping to them… as long as they don’t corrode. The materials that hangers are made of also vary. Aluminum hangers are rare but were made for lightweight temporary uses. They are not as strong as steel and it mixes metals because bolts are not made from aluminum, so it is a problem to leave them permanently installed. Fixe sells PS (plated steel) which is cheaper than stainless but then they rust and corrode if used outside. They are intended for indoor use such as climbing gyms. Stainless steel hangers are the only kind of materials that should be used for hangers since we should only be using stainless steel bolts. Fixe and Petzl both sell 316L stainless hangers. PLX hangers are phasing out with the new EN standards of 316L. Titanium hangers are pointless since we don’t have titanium mechanical bolts. Bolt-Products makes a 12mm (the size of the bolt hole) hanger out of 8mm stainless rod so rope can be threaded through. Not ideal for climbing anchors as it would wear the metal quickly but eliminating the need for quicklinks in highline anchors since ropes cannot be threaded directly into normal sharper hangers. The downside is that it is welded, increasing the risk of SCC (stress crack corrosion) in certain harsh environments, and the weld point is a risk point of failure (though unlikely). They are rated for 45kn and we could NOT break them in tension at 42kn and in shear at 52kn (bolt heads snapped off first) so we are very happy with strength. They are a great solution to be able to run the rope directly in the hanger, which you cannot do with a normal hanger. Bonier makes a super unique hanger called the DUPLA where it is bent up on both sides and shaped in such a way that there are no sharp edges that touch the rope. We did break tests on them in this EPISODE and like them very much, however they are difficult to find/buy as the company is in Brazil. Chain links are commonly used as a cheap “hanger” that a rope can be threaded in for highline anchors and is generally rated for 30kn to 70kn. Basic new steel chains used on ⅝” bolts that we tested in sandstone broke in the 60kn range when they broke. The bolt broke more often. One downside is that they rust because no one buys stainless chain links. The other problem is the 2nd chain doesn't sit flush with the rock, so a stack of washers goes under the first chain pulling higher up on the bolt and creating a lever that can bend the bolt. Also, if you see chains, there is a 90% chance there is a zinc plated bolt in the rock since price was the obvious deciding factor when installing the anchor. One chain link cannot be used, but instead 2 or 4 links need to be used to get a proper orientation and consider the more links, the more points of failure there are. These chain link bolts should only be used to pull shear (sideways) and should not be used to pull a bolt in tension (straight out) because it deforms the chains significantly even though it is at forces you wouldn’t get in a normal use. We do not know the strength of zinc plated chains after corrosion has begun. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Climbing, Caving and Canyon Gear & Over 30 Bolting Products HowNOT2 Contribute If you see a typo, or see a resource online we haven't linked to, or have something to share, we'd love to add it. If you are contributing a video, image, or words, please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. ryan@slackline.com What's Next? This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.

“Make sure it is hard and that it lasts a long time!” The Bolting Bible The Book of Metal Welcome to our free course as our way of contributing to the bolting community. It's nice to understand what you are clipping and trusting with your life, even if you never plan on installing or removing bolts. Also, if someone is going to spend their time and money to bolt something, I assume, they probably want to do it as good as possible. Hopefully the Bolting Bible gives you the tools you need to do a great job. Get it? Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an over arching blog we call a text book. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. Just like mom always said, “it’s what’s on the inside that counts!” What your bolt is made out of really matters if you want it to last a long time. Most of the bolts you see on the shelf at the local hardware store are not going to make it more than a few seasons. And you can’t just buy whatever you want on any bolt-specific online retailer, even if they market directly to climbers. Some sell zinc plated hardware without being very very clear it should only be used for indoor gyms or very, very, very dry desserts. Zinc Iron ore is mixed with carbon and processed making steel, the most commonly used metal on earth. Fun fact - there are over 3,500 different grades of steel! Most grades of steel will rust quickly if left exposed to air and water. Painting steel, like on cars and bridges, slows the corrosion process down, but paint is not practical in many applications as it doesn’t last very long and will wear off or chip when there is constant metal to metal contact like in climbing. So the next level of protection is to use chemicals and electricity to apply a very thin metal coating to protect it. Zinc can corrode up to 100x slower than other metals but is much weaker than steel, so steel is often “zinc-plated”. Fun fact - zinc isn’t a hard metal, in fact it is less than half as hard as steel (159DPM hardness vs 70DPM hardness). The zinc is a “sacrificial coating”, so when it is plated on steel, it will always tarnish and corrode first. However it is very thin, and naturally doesn’t give long term protection in any environment with moisture. Once it has fully corroded, the steel underneath begins to rust. Plated steel is generally intended for interior uses. To make steel last longer, more zinc can be added. However, that takes a completely different process called galvanization. Hot-dipped galvanized coatings is a 7 step process creating a metallurgical bond and can achieve a bond of 3,600 psi (harder than the base steel). This creates the rough surface you see on galvanized nails, but since the threads on galvanized screws can’t be too rough, it is spun in a centrifuge to clear the threads of excess zinc, though it still requires an oversized galvanized nut. Think of cooking a piece of chicken in a pan with a little oil in the bottom (zinc plating) vs deep frying that turkey (galvanizing). They both have oil on it, but one has a much thicker coating. Zinc plated products are not intended to be an outdoor building material, but galvanized is, however it doesn’t last forever and is not an ideal outdoor anchor. Plated steel bolts can last as little as 3 months in areas like Thailand, Brazil or Hawaii before they can be broken off by hand due to the corrosive nature of water, salt, heat and the chemicals in the rock. Stainless The word “stainless” is thrown around like it is a type of steel, when in fact there are 5 types or categories with a total of 150 grades. Chromium and nickel are the 2 major ingredients to make steel more resistant to corrosion (not corrosion proof). They don’t plate steel with these metals, they melt them together creating an alloy. The two different grades you will see in climbing bolts are 304 and 316 stainless. 304 Stainless Steel is also referred to as 18/8 (18% chromium, 8% nickel). Most stainless climbing bolts and hangers are made out of 304 grade and are significantly more resistant than any plated steel but fail quickly when near the ocean. 316 stainless or “marine-grade” is better because they throw just a little Moly in the recipe. 18% Chromium & 10% Nickel & 2% Molybdenum, and less than 1% of carbon, phosphorus, sulfur, nitrogen. The Molybdenum is added to help resist corrosion to chlorides (salts) like in coastal areas. 316SS is the most corrosion resistant mechanical bolt that you can buy since titanium isn’t available as a mechanical bolt (only as glue ins). However, in the harsh conditions of Thailand, Brazil and Hawaii, 316 stainless climbing bolts can completely fail within 3 years and so something even more corrosion resistant is required. We played with these discontiued 400 stainless hangers in this EPISODE. Duplex stainless or PLX stainless or HCR (high corrosion resistant) or 904SS or steel grade 1.4362/1.4462, whatever the hell you want to call it, was offered as a super stainless option. It is roughly 50% ferritic steel and 50% austenitic steel making it twice as strong as either one as ferritic or austenitic by themselves. Fixe usedto sell their PLX HCR bolts and hangers as a more corrosion resistant version of stainless, however they did have a recall on them because they were rusting, go figure! They narrowed down the batches affected and manufacture the hangers differently now. We currently haven’t found any reports of them failing outside of those batch numbers and we really like how they perform (strength-wise) in BoltBuster tests. Currently FIXE is phasing out their PLX inventory in favor of 316 SS. However, Peter Randelzhofer put out a paper testing Fixe’s anchor PLX chain links that were in an outdoor covered climbing gym in the Netherlands and they discovered cracks near the welds. Apparently duplex steel 1.4362 is easier to weld but duplex steel 1.4462 is better for corrosion. So the chains they tested were 5kn under the 25kn mbs in only 2 years in mild outdoor conditions. Petzl sells a HCR wedge bolt with a HCR hanger for the low low price of what a car costs. Bolt Products in Germany have their “Sea Water” series with twisted rod glue ins that supposedly break at 100kn and last 50 years for around €10 each. Here is some toilet reading if you think PLX HCR is interesting. However, titanium shines (metaphorically more than literally) over stainless. Fun fact: INOX is sometimes stamped into bolts. It is a french way of saying stainless from the word “inoxydable”. It could be 304 or 316 SS but it doesn’t mean duplex stainless, that has PLX stamped into it. Titanium With a tensile strength similar to alloy steel, almost half the density of steel (56%) and platinum level of corrosion resistance, it is the “Cadillac” of all bolts. It is estimated that they can last up to 200 years (see www.titanclimbing.com) Fun fact: titanium is the 9th most abundant element on earth and melts at 3,135F (400F more than steel). Titan Climbing manufactured the first certified titanium glue in bolt. It’s a “P” shape made from one continuous rod so there is no structural weld point to break. It requires a 14mm, or ⅝ inch hole and has an MBS of 35kn. Our BoltBuster tests all were above 35kn in shear and in tension. They are about 30% more expensive than marine grade stainless and similarly priced to Bolt-Products duplex SS, but are much more corrosion resistant. Durability Sometimes, corrosion isn’t the #1 concern but wear and tear. Jim Titt from www.bolt-products.com demonstrated in an experiment that titanium wears down about twice as fast as stainless does. He buried these metal links in a box with dry, sandy soil and had a 10mm rope run back and forth 1.6m or 5 feet through the two different metals and got these results. ● 0 cycles - SS 8mm, Titanium 8mm ● 100 cycles - SS 7.52mm, Titanium 7.07mm ● 200 cycles - SS 6.76mm, Titanium 5.74mm ● 300 cycles - SS 6.07mm, Titanium 4.37mm ● 400 cycles - SS 5.53mm, Titanium 3.57mm ● Titanium (top photo) wears about twice as fast as SS (bottom photo) HowNOT2 SWAG Believe it or not, bolting companies are not lining up to sponsor us; mostly because there is no money in such a niche industry. $1 per episode helps a ton and so does grabbing MERCH if something grabs your eye. Lots of designs and options. Rust Steel is mostly iron, which rusts as it reacts with oxygen. If it is dry enough, oxygen typically just stays in the air and leaves the poor iron alone. However, the more water, the faster the process. Salty environments create positive and negative ions with the dissolved salts speeding up the corrosion. Heat also speeds it all up. Acid rain or acidic water really really speeds up that corrosion. Fun fact: the chromium that is added to iron actually oxides faster but put the two together and they don’t oxidize. Nickel makes it less brittle and is also corrosion resistant. Throw some moly(bdenum) in there for a good time and now it’s 316ss - the super star of stainless. Galvanic Corrosion Metals are finicky in that you can’t just mix any 2 that you want. They all have a different electric current and the metal with less nobility (less electrode potential) will corrode very rapidly if mixed with a higher nobility (more electrode potential). So if you mix a stainless steel bolt with a zinc plated nut or washer, the nut or washer will corrode quickly. If you mix a SS hanger with a zinc plated bolt, you won’t see the corrosion happening in the hole. And SS bolts with zinc plated hangers will be real obvious. This also includes galvanized chain links on stainless bolts. So be mindful of your bolt, washer, and hangers. They all need to be made of the same metal and that metal should be at least 304 stainless if not better. See these photos as examples. Climbing Magazine published an article saying that as long as the bolt isn’t near the ocean or constant water, galvanic corrosion isn’t that bad. They may be right in the fact some rust doesn’t mean it’s a death trap…. today. However, eventually it will rust enough to be dangerous and you don’t know when that is. If you spend a couple extra dollars, you can install something that won’t rust at all. Stainless on titanium in theory can have galvanic corrosion but not in the real world use that we use our hardware. So a stainless pigtail/ramshorn can be placed on a titanium glue in, however if you needed a titanium bolt due to the elements, then chances are you need all the hardware to be titanium, so again, you wouldn’t mix the metals. Stress Corrosion Cracking We love the coast, but the coast doesn’t love our bolts. So many coastal areas, especially in Thailand or Malta, eat away stainless bolts quickly, even 316SS. Fixe calls their 316SS “marine grade” but it is not suitable for all marine environments. Other factors that speed up corrosion can be elevated temperatures, crevices, mixed metals, mixture of high and low humidity, overhanging rock where rain cannot rinse off harmful chemicals and compounds. See the bolts failures in these photos and see how important titanium glue in bolts are in corrosive environments. This video is also gnarly! Crag Chemistry has testing kits for people to test their crags to see if the rock has the magic recipe for SCC disaster. Climbing magazine put a good ARTICLE out about all the different metals and corrosion our bolts are susceptible too. So titanium is the best option in any areas that have a risk of SCC. It may feel more expensive but it isn’t that much more. If a 100 year cost for an anchor is considered, titanium is significantly cheaper if it doesn’t have to be replaced. High traffic areas will handle the wear and tear better if it had stainless steel components. Just weigh the risk of corrosion with the frequency of ropes running over the metal. The new EN standards are 316SS everywhere and Titanium for areas near the ocean. Hopefully the rest of the world can follow suit. Staining Just like skid marks on your underwear, we should avoid the same problem on our rocks. When the zinc coating on plated steel is exposed to hydrogen and oxygen (aka water) long enough it creates zinc hydroxide (similar to iron oxide which is rust). Zinc hydroxide is a white powder that forms and can leave streaks on the rock. Also when the iron is exposed, it will rust, not only making the bolt dangerous but leaving the areas looking… shitty. Camouflage Ideally, bolts would only be seen from the last clip in point and not be shiny bling you can see from space. In an effort to keep our climbing areas less impacted, people have tried camouflaging bolts and hangers. The biggest problem with this is that it doesn’t last very long, especially as people clip carabiners to them and that metal on metal contact wears down any effort someone put in. PAINT - Roughing up the metal with sandpaper and spraying them with Rustoleum at home prior to installation is one way but that process doesn’t last forever if the bolt is exposed to elements or used often. You can increase the adhesion by priming it first and doing several THIN layers. Etching zinc plated hangers, is obviously bad, as the zinc coating is super thin and when your paint wears off, you have unprotected steel exposed. Plus zinc or galvanized metal cannot have an oil based (alkyd) product on them. The process of the galvanized layer and the alkyd creating a layer of soap is called saponification and shit starts peeling like your skin with a bad sunburn. Try painting galvanized gutters with oil based paint… I can tell you from experience as a licensed painting contractor… it doesn’t work! If for some weird reason you don’t care much and install zinc plated shit but still care enough to camo them, please use water based primers and products. Stainless isn’t stoked for some etching either. Jim Titt from Bolt-Products.com explains the risk in painting stainless in this forum. “Stainless steel gains its corrosion resistance by producing chromium oxide which is passive and prevents further surface corrosion by blocking oxygen diffusion to the steel surface, this blocks corrosion from spreading into the metal's internal structure. Passivation occurs only if the proportion of chromium is high enough and oxygen is present, a coating which prevents oxygen reaching the surface prevents passivation from happening. The usual problem is that the coating either becomes damaged (by tightening the bolt or by karabiners) or porous due to aging and allows water to penetrate which becomes anaerobic. We passivate all our products during manufacture and any attempt to apply a surface coating using methods such as abrading or etch priming is removing the passive layer.” Powder Coat - As a painting contractor, I can attest to the fact that powder coated surfaces definitely last longer than painted surfaces, but it isn’t permanent by any means. Metolius sells their Enviro stainless hangers in dark grey and tan and Fixe has 4 colors - black, grey, tan and rust, each in ⅜” or ½” holes. These come in 304 stainless which is awesome but they sell them also in plated steel. PLEASE stop making plated steel products intended for outdoor use Fixe! Sure, it works in some very dry deserts but for saving only 50 cents on the hangers and not much on the wedge bolts, too many make the mistakes of putting them where they don’t belong. Anyways, if a route isn’t used often and visual impact is a concern, the colored stainless hangers are amazing to have as an option. Alternative Coatings Automotive paint can be a fancy and expensive way to camo. And Plasma coatings are next level in overkill if you really are determined to hide your bolts while having chaulk tick marks on the route! I doubt plasma will be available from your climbing bolt suppliers anytime soon when people try to save pennies per hanger when establishing routes. Heat treating - This seems to be a fancy permanent way to mess up, I mean color, your bolts. How much can you heat up steel, stainless or duplex steel before it is compromised? If you don’t know, don’t do it but if you want to nerd out on it go to this forum on Mountain Project. And please don’t blow torch a glue in that is already installed! The glue doesn’t like that. Supposedly ClimbTech will darken wave bolts for you if requested. Conclusions Never use zinc plated bolts. Just the slightest scratch and the iron underneath is exposed to corrosion. And think about what holds the bolt… the wedge or sleeve at the base of the bolt. That contact point is what holds everything, and now that contact point is compromised as it is scraped against the inside of the hole. Also consider that most highline anchors are placed on TOP of rocks, allowing water to go into these holes and just sit inside, so it is very important that a bolt can withstand corrosion. Don’t mix metals or you risk bimetallic corrosion, speeding up the corrosion of 1 of the components of your bolt. And coastal areas cause excessive exposure to corrosion that even 316SS or even PLX HCR stainless may not withstand and so titanium might be your only option. If it is a lower-off anchor and will have ropes running through it constantly, stainless will hold up twice as long as titanium as long as the environment is suitable for it. Don’t be cheap with people’s lives, so please install the highest quality bolts on your climbing routes or for your highlines. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Climbing, Caving and Canyon Gear & Over 30 Bolting Products HowNOT2 Contribute If you see a typo, or see a resource online we haven't linked to, or have something to share, we'd love to add it. If you are contributing a video, image, or words, please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. ryan@slackline.com What's Next? This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.

How Important is it to Taper your Splices? Dyneema is DSM's brand name for Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight-Polyethelyne (UHMwPE) or plastic for short. If you tie a figure 8 knot, for example, you will reduce the strength of the extremely static material by as much as 70%. However, if you splice it, you can retain 100% of the quoted strength. The finger trap magic only works in a splice if you bury it 3.5 fids long. A fid is a tool used for splicing that is 21 diameters long. So 6mm x 21 = 126mm and 3.5 of those is 441mm or 17 inches. So 6mm x 21 = 126mm and 3.5 of those is 441mm or 17 inches. Our 6mm Marlow D12 SK MAX 99 has an average breaking strength of 5440kg or 11,993lbf or 53kN. Cutting the end blunt before tapering makes it go from fat (since the other strand is inside the 12-braid hollow rope) to thin too quickly. Cutting it at an angle is also not a proper taper. The idea of a good taper is that it slowly reduces the change in diameter, but what happens if you don't. We aimed to test just that in this video, but we got more than we bargained for. No taper broke it about 13-20% lower than the ABS. The 3rd test, however, broke in the eye showing how and what you connect it to is just as important as the taper. A diagonal cut was better, but not above ABS. The first two broke at the eye, even though we had it on a proper size pin, but when it did break at the taper it was higher at 50kN. Marlow's taper specs made every test break above ABS but why did the eye stop breaking??? We are, literally, getting over 15kN more force out of the same test on the same pin on the same eyes. Samson's Tapers included a brummel splice locking it into place, even if it is NOT under tension. That extra bend did NOT reduce the strength even though I suspected it would. The 3rd test broke at the eye, though. All our tests were above ABS. Grab your popcorn. Teufelberger's brummel splice did not break, but PULLED OUT. All 3 tests failed about 50% of ABS because the bury wasn't deep enough. This just proves brummels don't add locking value when it is under load, but only when it is NOT under load. I don't know why or what we were misunderstanding. Behind the Scenes John Fioroni, who owns and operates Extreme Gear (10% supports us and the rest funds Cave Exploration Society), nerds out on dyneema like I do and decided to pursue testing taper differences with me. He spliced all the samples together, which takes a lot of work. Then, I pulled on them. It's pretty frustrating trying to isolate a piece of gear or rope to break where and how I want, so I can explore just that niche part. Having the eye continuing to break was disappointing, but it actually revealed that how and what we connect to can be more important than the taper, if you are trying to achieve the maximum strength. It's pretty awkward to discover something like Teufelberger's brummel coming undone and presenting it in a way that doesn't throw them under the bus but just to show our data. There has to be an explanation. Maybe I pulled it too fast or too slow compared to "standards". However, what is exciting is NOT knowing or caring about "standards" and just pulling on stuff, because then I don't fit the stuff into a box but explore what's outside of that box. Their brummel is super good enough if you make it longer, and that is good to know if you really need it to hold. 10% supports us They sell Samson SK75 & Marlow SK78 & SK99 Dyneema Samson Amsteel Blue Sk75 - https://tinyurl.com/mr3zvsa6 Marlow's SK78 - https://tinyurl.com/mufez42t Marlow's D12 MAX 99 - https://tinyurl.com/y64emcwh After Posting Thoughts The main theory behind why Teufelberger's brummel slipped is that it was intended for a 12 braid made of a different material like polyester which is not as slippery and therefore does NOT need to be buried more. However, this PDF does not clarify that and was in the dyneema section of website. It's very surprising to me how many people think lock stitching, or threading the splice, is to hold it from slipping. It is only intended to keep it from coming undone when it is NOT under load and even brummels benefit from this because they can come undone a little bit. We will test that in dyneema next so demo how little lock stitching plays a role in holding under force. This was a helpful comment from the technical manager at Marlow copied from youtube comments. "Hi, I'm actually the technical manager at Marlow Ropes, i don't normally comment but I think there are some things to address on this film. BTW it's good to see our ropes performing at, or better than, the figures we quote!I may be able to answer some of the questions raised in the video and the comments so, in no particular order:-Big one first: as was pointed out in the film the splice works by friction, if the buried tail isn't long enough then the splice will slip. Putting a lock (brummel) in doesn't alter that. If the tail is too short then all the force is held by the lock stitch which will eventually fail. Exactly as shown. I've seen this many times before so one simple message to all fans of the Brummel lock: A LOCK IS NOT A SUBSITUTE FOR THE CORRECT TAIL LENGTH. - The lock (done properly) doesn't reduce the strength where the stitches are made because there's double the material content of the rope at ths point (think of the cross section area), i.e. a small loss here does not reduce the strength below 100%. However there is a risk, not observed in this film, if the tail of a locked rope is disturbed then you can get a small loop form below the neck of the splice, this will reduce the strenght of the locked splice. For this reasion I still prefer to whip the entry point and for testing I don't use a lock.- There's a comment about tail lengths and fids etc. I'm not sure where that all came from however we simply recommend the tail length minimum to be 50x the rope diameter, longer is better.- There's always a weak point, that's why no matter how good the taper often that's where the rope breaks.-The ropes that broke in the back of the eye are due to the D:d ratio (ratio of the rope diameter to the pin diameter). When this is large (5:1 or greater) the rope will almost always break in the splice, however when small (less than 2:1) the rope will mostly break in the back of the eye. At the in between D:d ratios the location of the break could be either but it has little effect on the strength. In practice at the very small D:d the rope is often stronger than the shackle as was pointed out early in the video. This assumes the eye size is sufficent, the angle the rope makes at the throat shouldn't be more then 30 deg.I'm sure there's more comments i've not addressed, sorry guys I need to get back to my day job!" Go see this next video.

We broke 12 locking carabiners all lined up from weakest to strongest. They did not break in that order though! These carabiners have different gates and we show them to you before breaking them. It's a hybrid between a buying guide and teaching what HMS lockers are and just pure edutainment. I think it helps trust carabiners you trust your life to, when you see HOW they break, not just a number printed on the side. Our lowest broke at 20.82kN and our highest broke at 31.88kN. Please don't make strength a main purchasing decision, use and shape and function and size, etc are good things to consider. They are all super good enough! 10% supports us when you buy HMS locking carabiners at https://www.extremegear.org/search?q=hms Watch the first video at https://youtu.be/Ts5bK_luHl8 Our website https://www.hownot2.com/ 👉SWAG at https://www.hownot2.com/swag 👉👉10% supports us at https://www.extremegear.org/ 👉👉👉Clicking this gives you 10% off https://rockytalkie.com/HowNOT2 👉👉👉👉 1000 Patrons makes us viable https://www.HowNOT2.com/donate 🙏 Behind the Scenes abc After Posting Thoughts Look at the Petzl carabiner in this gif. The momentum of the chain moving opened the locking mechanism and unlocked the carabiner and subsequently opened it. It was locked during this pull!