Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Gear Lust / Lost & Found

Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

Topic Date User

Cam failure discussion 21-Apr-2015 At 11:07:02 AM Wendy

Message

On 20/04/2015 Macciza wrote:

>
>Half of the gear that looks bomber is shit, and had the shit gear is pretty
>bomber; and half the time you can't tell the difference between whats good
>or bad . . .
>
Macciza's world has 3 halves! This sort of overgeneralisation is what leads lots of people to thinking their gear is good when it isn't or isn't when it is. Other than 1 inciident when I'd been climbing barely a month and really had no idea what I was doing, I have never had gear fail that I didn't think would probably fail. I reckon you can make a very high percentage assessment on what is good gear when you know what you are doing. The only bit I would agree with is some percentage of pretty crap looking gear actually holds and I have been pleasantly surprised by this a few times. And unpleasantly not surprised when it doesn't. So in the end you are best assuming that the crap looking gear really is crap.

Slippery cracks and cams? I don't know. I have heard of them coming out of supposedly good spots at the mount, but I have never had it happen to me, including on notorious for it placements like just before the crux on Trojan. Someone mentioned Frog as being a slippery parallel crack crag in that thread, and I'd have to say if your gear is coming out at Frog when you think it is bomber, the problem is your judgement of the placement, not the rock. I don't think Frog really classes as slippery at all and I've never had anything pop out of even the smoothest parallel cracks, like Yankee. I can't think of a crag I would actually be particularly worried about it on in Australia. The Mt would be the closest thing we have to smooth polished cracks and do we hear about it happening all the time???

Do people really "set" cams? I place, assess and run most of the time. Unlike wires, where setting actually has some purpose of preventing them getting lifted or knocked out, "setting" a cam seem like a waste of energy - it will function exactly the same way after setting as before and will walk, twist or lift in whatever manner is not managed through appropriate placement and ropework. And you could still kick them on the way past. "Setting" cams seems more like a nervous habit then a useful thing to do.