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General Climbing Discussion

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Carrot failure @ Muline 21-Nov-2013 At 8:15:45 PM nmonteith

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On 21/11/2013 patto wrote:
>My question regarding Trubolts wasn't to bring up "Trubolts" are crap fanatics.
> They clearly aren't in cohesive, strong materials. It was intended to
>explore the reasons for poor performance. In hard rock there is no reason
>for poor performance. And as pointed out in many parts of the Grampians
>the rock is hard.

Yes, much of the Grampians has excellent quality hard rock - for sandstone. The problem is the places that have the best steep sport climbing (ie the caves) are usually where people take the most falls, and where the rock is the softest (that's why they are caves usually!). And being natural rock it's really hard to know what is hard rock and what is soft rock. It can change from solid to shite within metres. A climb may consist of many different bands of good rock and bad rock. That's the "beauty" of sandstone, and especially evident in the Grampians with the cool wavy bands at places like Muline.

So in answer to your question - some of the time Tru-bolts may work - but it is very hard to work out when!

One of the reasons it is very hard to get a perfect 10mm hole is that when you drill rockclimbig anchors you do so in a non-conventional environment. You are always doing it in awkward positions - especially when bolting caves. Usually it is a one handed operation, holding the drill above your head whilst using the other hand to stay upright and as a brace. Try holding a 5kg dumbell above your head and keep it steady whilst massive amounts of torque tries to spin it out of your hands and drill dust pours into your eyes - all whilst focusing intently on the sketchy sky hook you are attached to! It's hard work - and if you hit a band of tougher rock midway through the hole it can cause weird stop starts - every bit of wobble creates a larger hole. A lot of the time it takes many attempts to drill a hole above your head - its super pumpy! In construction you just stand there above the concrete and drill a perfect hole every time using both hands on the drill.

The other problem with them is that when they have a hanger attached on steep rock the hanger gets forcibly rotated - and this unscrews the nut, then the bolt is loose, and then it starts spinning and creates a bigger hole (in softer rock). The way bolt anchors are used for climbign is very different to construction. Ours get pushed in all sorts of directions as a single bolt - whilst in construction it is way more common to have multiple bolts working on holding one attachment point (ie 4 bolts on each corner of a plate against a rock)

There is a lot of 'theory' in bolting but most of the knowledge I have gained is from practical experience.