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Extending quickdraws and cam slings


ironcheff

26-Jul-2012
9:19:25 PM

What’s the consensus on extending quickdraws and cam slings with another quickdraw. Whats wrong with using a quickdraw and clipping carabiner to carabiner. From personal observations it seems like clipping carabiner to carabiner is a no no but have not seen any good argument to avoid it. No manufactures recommendation or tests to say it shouldn’t be done.

Someone told me once to avoid it as it creates a point to point contact and therefore a weakness but I’m skeptical. Carabiners are clipped to metal fittings all the time in the form of bolt plates, metal rings and chains.

Another climbing myth, or not.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

26-Jul-2012
10:21:43 PM

On 26/07/2012 ironcheff wrote:
>What’s the consensus on extending quickdraws and cam slings with another quickdraw.
>Whats wrong with using a quickdraw and clipping carabiner to carabiner. From personal observations it seems like clipping carabiner to carabiner is a no no but have not seen any good argument to avoid it.
> No manufactures recommendation or tests to say it shouldn’t be done.
>
>Someone told me once to avoid it as it creates a point to point contact
>and therefore a weakness but I’m skeptical. Carabiners are clipped to
>metal fittings all the time in the form of bolt plates, metal rings and
>chains.
>
>Another climbing myth, or not.

Leverage.
It leads to unclipping or breakage.
Most cases it probably won't happen...
~> But it only needs to happen once to potentially produce a bad result...

If you need to extend, then clip the second draw directly to the sling of the first draw / cam-sling, if you want to run less risk of leverage.

Karabiners not only open but break at surprisingly low loads when levered, and this can happen on bolt brackets (etc) too!

_{Where is Mikl when we want an informed opinion?

;-)}

It is not quite what you asked, but this Black Diamond QC Lab article tends to support my view inasmuch as they are not extending by clipping krab to krab, even though they could in the situation presented...


timfreddo

27-Jul-2012
3:48:01 AM

Quickdraws get whipped around in all sorts of ways during a fall. All it takes is a little slack in the draws and a twist and they'll unclip from each other.

patto

27-Jul-2012
4:31:49 AM

On 26/07/2012 ironcheff wrote:
>What’s the consensus on extending quickdraws and cam slings with another
>quickdraw. Whats wrong with using a quickdraw and clipping carabiner to
>carabiner. From personal observations it seems like clipping carabiner
>to carabiner is a no no but have not seen any good argument to avoid it.
> No manufactures recommendation or tests to say it shouldn’t be done.
>
>Someone told me once to avoid it as it creates a point to point contact
>and therefore a weakness but I’m skeptical. Carabiners are clipped to
>metal fittings all the time in the form of bolt plates, metal rings and
>chains.
>
>Another climbing myth, or not.

There is no need. Just clip the sling. Clipping snap gates to snap gates is just asking for trouble with unclipping.


BlankSlab

27-Jul-2012
7:40:01 AM

On 27/07/2012 timfreddo wrote:
>Quickdraws get whipped around in all sorts of ways during a fall. All it
>takes is a little slack in the draws and a twist and they'll unclip from
>each other.

I have always thought the licklyhood of having one cross loaded on the gates or something like that would be very likly also. Just go take a look at the thred where a binner was in a ringbolt and snapped from a weird loading (cant be bothered digging it up).

Its just better to be safe i think. only takes one to twist, unclip, break and it will get ugly

gfdonc

27-Jul-2012
10:04:29 AM

I think it is somewhere between being cautious and a myth.

Common practice when I started climbing (before Forrest invented quickdraws, can you imagine?) was to clip wires with two biners if they were in line with the direction you were climbing. Or with krabs. Whatever.

Ditto for bolts.

I never saw or heard of one unclipping due to biner on biner. However I have seen a single biner unclip itself when gear popped (search my posts for a description) due to a 'twang' on the line.

ymmv.


muki

27-Jul-2012
2:18:28 PM

On 27/07/2012 gfdonc wrote:
>I think it is somewhere between being cautious and a myth.
>
>Common practice when I started climbing (before Forrest invented quickdraws,
>can you imagine?) was to clip wires with two biners if they were in line
>with the direction you were climbing. Or with krabs. Whatever.
>
>Ditto for bolts.
>
>I never saw or heard of one unclipping due to biner on biner. However
>I have seen a single biner unclip itself when gear popped (search my posts
>for a description) due to a 'twang' on the line.
>
>ymmv.

way back when clipping wires directly with biners was common it was also common to find that the biners were ovals, as apposed to the offset shapes that are common today.
the offset shape is unfortunately possible to load in leverage that results in failure.
to see evidence of this look for a post about a ring bolt on Taipan snapping a biner.


sliamese

27-Jul-2012
3:26:19 PM

i would call that bolt a bad bolt, another thing on the list to watch out for.

its fine to go biner to biner, i worry much more about something like gate orientation on a bolt.

obviously, as with every time you place a biner anywhere you will look to see if it will get cross-loaded, have nasty leverage effects etc. if anything like that could happen make a call as to how this affects the whole system.

once you've been climbing a while you'll have seen snap-links come unclipped in the most random fashion. ways that make absolutety no sense but still happened. anything to reduce the likelihood couldnt be a bad thing could it?

martym

30-Jul-2012
9:07:06 AM

i know one thing I'm unhappy about (that I do all the time) is sport climbing on my quickdraws using the flatter biner in rings / bolt plates... theory being - one biner gets rope-rubbed smooth; the other scratched up by the rings.
Then I use the same biner into the slings of cams, other draws, slings in anchors etc. - so there's potential there for serious damage to material.

I've checked and there are definite scratch marks and sharp bits in my "wall biners"

So there's an argument AGAINST the myth

One Day Hero

30-Jul-2012
9:52:42 AM

On 30/07/2012 martym wrote:
>
>I've checked and there are definite scratch marks and sharp bits in my
>"wall biners"
>
So why don't you get a little bit proactive and use a bit of fine sandpaper to get rid of the burrs? It's not like climbing gear explodes when it gets touched by tools.


BlankSlab

30-Jul-2012
10:10:39 AM

On 30/07/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 30/07/2012 martym wrote:
>>
>>I've checked and there are definite scratch marks and sharp bits in my
>>"wall biners"
>>
>So why don't you get a little bit proactive and use a bit of fine sandpaper
>to get rid of the burrs? It's not like climbing gear explodes when it gets
>touched by tools.

Or just give them to us so we can "test" them....

Wendy

30-Jul-2012
10:49:41 AM

I'm going to go against the grain here and say clip quickdraws biner to biner all you want. If you are worried they might unclip themselves, you can try a reassuring home experiment by grabbing two draws, clipping them together in the unapproved manner, taking the two end biners (where the gear and the rope would be) in each hand and flail around madly with them. It's difficult, possibly to the point of impossible, to get them to unclip because any leverage is basically lost because you have two floppy draws in the system. Try crow barring with a piece of rope. No leverage funnily enough.

If you want to worry about something, try clipping one of those draws into a bolt and flicking the thing around a bit. Once you have one fixed end on the system, it's much easier to wiggle it until it can unclip itself. If you're not going to worry about that, why worry about the two draws?

It's a pain in the ass both to do and to clean to clip the sling of the draw (assuming it's not a sewn draw anyway, in which case you often can't get two biners in there, so suddenly you are taking quickdraws apart on route), plus you are wasting a biner that you bothered to carry up the route by leaving it hanging there, unless you feel like faffing some more and retrieving the extra biner. And the extra length of the biner is sometimes good to have too.

Worry about the rope unclipping from the biner more. Or having only one piece of gear between you and the ground. Or your belayer being run over by a flying pink antelope.


muki

30-Jul-2012
10:52:47 AM

On 30/07/2012 One Day Hero wrote:

>So why don't you get a little bit proactive and use a bit of fine sandpaper
>to get rid of the burrs? It's not like climbing gear explodes when it gets
>touched by tools.

totaly agree with this comment, a fine grit sandpaper (wet and dry is my favourite) will do.
Its also good to trim the climbing calluses, so as to reduce the risk of tearing them off on a bad or sharp hold.


Eduardo Slabofvic

30-Jul-2012
11:11:21 AM

Why don't you just carry a couple of extendable draws?


IdratherbeclimbingM9

30-Jul-2012
1:00:58 PM

On 30/07/2012 Wendy wrote:
>I'm going to go against the grain here and say clip quickdraws biner to
>biner all you want. If you are worried they might unclip themselves, you
>can try a reassuring home experiment by grabbing two draws, clipping them
>together in the unapproved manner, taking the two end biners (where the
>gear and the rope would be) in each hand and flail around madly with them.
>It's difficult, possibly to the point of impossible, to get them to unclip
>because any leverage is basically lost because you have two floppy draws
>in the system. Try crow barring with a piece of rope. No leverage funnily
>enough.
>
I have had krab to krab exert leverage on themselves simply from a tensioned rope causing them to twist enough, that the two gates came in tensioned contact and started levering open...
Admittedly I was back-cleaning a roped solo aid climb at the time and the situation also involved a short traverse move, but I was still a bit freaked when I noticed it happening, ... though they did not come completely apart, as I reduced the tension in the rope system when I noticed it.
The draws involved were open loop style rather than the captive krab end style.

Similarly during various climbing shenanigans, I have noticed that the krab on my belay loop has sometimes tried to self detach due leverage, however I attribute this to the belay loop being considerably stiffer than most open-loop quickdraws.

>If you want to worry about something, try clipping one of those draws
>into a bolt and flicking the thing around a bit. Once you have one fixed
>end on the system, it's much easier to wiggle it until it can unclip itself.
> If you're not going to worry about that, why worry about the two draws?
>
I would expect a fixed point to exacerbate any potential leverage, whether twist induced, snafu induced, or otherwise!

>
>It's a pain in the ass both to do and to clean to clip the sling of the
>draw (assuming it's not a sewn draw anyway, in which case you often can't
>get two biners in there, so suddenly you are taking quickdraws apart on
>route), plus you are wasting a biner that you bothered to carry up the
>route by leaving it hanging there, unless you feel like faffing some more
>and retrieving the extra biner. And the extra length of the biner is sometimes
>good to have too.
>
True enough, but that may also reflect the nature of the routes and grades that you climb.
I have found on easy and wandery trad routes that it is often prudent to double-clip the sling to sling point with that extra krab in a gates opposed fashion.
~> Yes, this is likely overkill.

>Worry about the rope unclipping from the biner more. Or having only one
>piece of gear between you and the ground. Or your belayer being run over
>by a flying pink antelope.

True, though that last scenario would be a bugger if it wasn’t patented beforehand!
;-)

On 30/07/2012 Eduardo Slabofvic. wrote:
>Why don't you just carry a couple of extendable draws?

+1
... or a variety of sling lengths and types!
☺


Eduardo Slabofvic

30-Jul-2012
1:28:36 PM

On 30/07/2012 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>>+1
>... or a variety of sling lengths and types!
>☺

I’m with you all the way LBJ. I recon the problem is in the predilection for tiny little draws with tight little sewn loops for the biner. They’re fine if all you do is hang dog sport routes, but they make improvising difficult

kieranl

30-Jul-2012
3:14:25 PM

On 30/07/2012 Eduardo Slabofvic. wrote:
>On 30/07/2012 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>>>+1
>>... or a variety of sling lengths and types!
>>☺
>
>I’m with you all the way LBJ. I recon the problem is in the predilection
>for tiny little draws with tight little sewn loops for the biner. They’re
>fine if all you do is hang dog sport routes, but they make improvising
>difficult
Improvising? Isn't that when you get your coffee in a takeaway mug?

gfdonc

30-Jul-2012
5:14:04 PM

On 30/07/2012 Eduardo Slabofvic. wrote:
> I recon the problem is in the predilection
>for tiny little draws with tight little sewn loops for the biner. They’re
>fine if all you do is hang dog sport routes, but they make improvising
>difficult

+1

Wendy

30-Jul-2012
6:17:22 PM

Don't you guys remember the mass of slings and extendable draws I carry? Then i still clip the biners into other biners. And still run out of slings and long draws and start creating trains of short draws.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

30-Jul-2012
6:44:47 PM

On 30/07/2012 Wendy wrote:
>Don't you guys remember the mass of slings and extendable draws I carry?
> Then i still clip the biners into other biners. And still run out of
>slings and long draws and start creating trains of short draws.

Arhh there's the answer!
Create a long enough 'train' and the slack ensures that the krabs don't torque each other!

~> You need to patent that idea Wen!
... & that is why you haven't had probs with the krab to krab system to date!!
;-)

There are 25 messages in this topic.