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General Climbing Discussion

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Rock and Ice: Bolting guide 12-Jun-2012 At 4:48:37 PM Jim Titt

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As far as I am aware no manufacturer specifies recessing the eye, Fixe used to have an installation video on their website which showed doing this but it was clearly labelled `unnoficial´. It doesn´t appear to be there anymore but maybe I didn´t search too hard! (There are differences in the advice given on the Fixe Hardware website which belongs to the US importer and the original Fixe website from techRock).
There are two reasons for this:- There is no any provision in the EN testing for this to be done, clearly if unlimited manipulation of the test block was permitted almost anything would pass, we could even drill two holes and thread something through. Also the eye requirements for EN959 would not be achieved if the head is recessed too far as the standard test bars would no longer fit through, while the standard shows this as a stand-alone test the rquirements must be fulfilled when the bolt is installed as specified. It is very unlikely that any bolt has been certified with the head recessed.

Strength wise it makes no discernable difference, resistance to twisting it might do something but this is supposed to be incoporated into the bolt design by for example angling the end, not the placement (this is only relevant for UIAA, EN has no torque requirement). However the drawback of not recessing with certain designs is that the rope can be pulled up into the angle between the bolt and the rock which makes further progress difficult to say the least.