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Dropped gear-to use or not to use |
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29-May-2006 10:41:49 AM
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I dropped a screw gate biner from half way up Ali's on the weekend, it looks ok apart from a few scratches. What are people’s views on using dropped gear? I've always been told to retire dropped gear but I’ve also heard that micro fractures don't occur in aluminium.
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29-May-2006 10:50:33 AM
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There is a few topics floating about on this subject Trish...
http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=Display&ForumID=6&MessageID=89&Replies=1
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29-May-2006 11:20:24 AM
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Thanks Neil. Just saved me $20 :)
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29-May-2006 11:29:01 AM
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Some people don't seem to mind. I found a rather battered Alien (the teeth were worn out etc) at the base of El Cap. It could've fallen the full 3000 feet plus for all I know. I stuck it on Ebay, I was perfectly honest about its unknown history and some guy still paid 25 sterling ($60 bucks) for it!
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29-May-2006 11:47:02 AM
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I dropped a Trango micro-cam off white water wall in Tassie and it went to the retired pile straight away.
Unless it's made of steel i tend to retire anything that has a decent length drop onto anything hard.
But then you think of the trashing your gear gets smashing against the rock while you drag it up climbs
(happens a lot in my case!) and the way your gear gets thrown around in your backpack and car, that's all
got to be equivalent to dropping it.
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29-May-2006 11:59:11 AM
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On 29/05/2006 belayslave wrote:
>Unless it's made of steel i tend to retire anything that has a decent
>length drop onto anything hard.
From the link to old forum topics it seems you should be most concerned about dropped steel-i.e. it can have micro fractures.
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29-May-2006 12:24:15 PM
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On 29/05/2006 belayslave wrote:
>I dropped a Trango micro-cam off white water wall in Tassie and it went
>to the retired pile straight away.
Based on my own personal experience, I would put all Trango stuff in the retired pile straight away.
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29-May-2006 12:43:36 PM
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On 29/05/2006 Paradise wrote:
>From the link to old forum topics it seems you should be most concerned
>about dropped steel-i.e. it can have micro fractures.
hmm maybe i should read that link...
--> read the link now... interesting discussion. would like to see the reports of the experiments performed
by BD and any others. Interestingly steel is nearly the only type of biner used by industrial access
companies. although not only for the reason of drop-ability.
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29-May-2006 12:44:22 PM
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On 29/05/2006 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:
>Based on my own personal experience, I would put all Trango stuff in the
>retired pile straight away.
When you don't pay for it you use whatever you can get your hands on :)
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29-May-2006 6:02:32 PM
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From a metallurgical point of view, although it may be totally safe, I'd not trust. Even if you do an extensive series non destructive tests, you still might not detect a micro-crack. There are plenty of other uses for binners with a dodgy history such for haul packs, basically anywhere where someones life isn't on it.
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29-May-2006 10:20:18 PM
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thats a fairly big fall onto rock...
wats $20 in the big scheme of things?
i recommend buying a new one and using the old one to rack stuff etc.
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