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6-May-2011 10:53:51 AM
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I'm going to be breaking ground soon on a rather ambitious crack machine and am in the market for keen monkeys/helping hands, materials, and input/suggestions. It is much more worth the effort I'll be investing if other people are keen to use it. I live on a substantial block of land in Alphington and have several options for incline and where to stick it.
Plan is to run it up one of two hillsides; one is about 30 degrees with about 30 meters of distance, and the other about 45 degrees and about 20 meters of distance. Both slopes come off a large flat area so I could run, say, 20 meters horizontal then move uphill. Want a variable, not consistent, incline as well as variable widths and shaped wooden wedges/spacers so every jam isn't parallel. Thinking about coating it with textured exterior paint, that burly Dulux stuff that has sand mixed in. Need a bunch of wood (2x4's and 2x6's) and a bunch of bolts if anyone sees/knows of such materials sitting around from a house demolition or something. Thanks!
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6-May-2011 12:05:15 PM
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Forgot to tell ya the cable will need a good degreasing.
And what exactly is a crack machine?
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6-May-2011 12:31:48 PM
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Training to do cracks.
I'd be interested (since my crack climbing technique stinks).
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6-May-2011 12:38:00 PM
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On 6/05/2011 shortman wrote:
>Forgot to tell ya the cable will need a good degreasing.
>
>And what exactly is a crack machine?
Charlie Sheen
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6-May-2011 4:42:21 PM
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My old house will be demolished shortly. There should be quite a bit of structural wood in the walls that isn't fire/water damaged. I'll have to double check access but we might be able to pillage it before demolition. I've already liberated a bunch of 100 x 100 posts to build a bouldering wall frame.
You'll need a trailer and tools. Email me for details if interested.
And I'm happy to help as an unskilled laborer. Given I can't swing tools maybe I could supervise;)
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6-May-2011 5:39:39 PM
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On 6/05/2011 widewetandslippery wrote:
>On 6/05/2011 shortman wrote:
>>Forgot to tell ya the cable will need a good degreasing.
>>
>>And what exactly is a crack machine?
>
>Charlie Sheen
This is more like the crack machine I'm familiar with!
Singer - I'll help ya. I got post hole diggers and am tooled up. Time, however will be the issue. Will be down your way Sunday if my dog and me can visit? Would like to have a look at ya block.
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8-May-2011 10:08:49 PM
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Keep away from textured paint. You will shred your hands and shoes in no time. Smooth is much better for training = increased contact strength.
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9-May-2011 3:29:03 PM
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Singer,
This sounds awesome. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) I'm about to bugger of to Europe for 3 months, but if construction is still underway when I return I'll definitely help out.
cheers
Cam
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9-May-2011 4:22:14 PM
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So can I have the keys to your (woodie) shed while you're gone?
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9-May-2011 4:28:29 PM
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I'm sure we could come to some arrangement...
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11-May-2011 5:21:53 PM
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Will send/post a sketch of the plan, Cam. Have fun and we'll strangle each other when you get back.
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11-May-2011 8:58:29 PM
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Thought about it a bit since I seen ya Singer -
For variations in the jam width without spending too much money u could hand render a mix of polyester resin and wood dust along the entire length on each side. Creating something between a glue and a filler. (This may be one of polyesters shortcomings, I cant remember) Epoxy would be better, but the price would run into the thousands if you had to pay for it. (Sort of how I would think they do artificial hand cracks at the gym). You would then probably have to bolt the polyester at 100 - 150mm intervals along it's entirety, these bolts could be counter sunk and then filled in after it had set, so they wouldn't get in the way when jamming. Otherwise you could run the risk of the entire guts falling out if that makes any sense. The texture of the polyester could be as smooth as a gym crack or as rough as granite, depending on what you want.
Matching both sides would be complicated with a varied crack but could probably be done by eye if you wanted to save money. Otherwise you could use inverted latex or plaster molds. But this would be messy and pricey. (Plaster would probably be too fragile for a 10m length anyway) Actually the more I think about it, doing it by eye would deliver a much rougher and ultimately more "realistic" crack. Offering the irregularities that are common on rock. (Not that I've climbed a 40ft odd foot overhanging crack mind you!) It would be a work of art to create!
Also thought about putting a 6 inch kickboard on either side for us mere mortals that you could screw the odd plastic footer on to make life a little easier. I know you think this is cheating, but it could be easily removed!
Also, the whole thing could be easily turned into a vertical crack with that big tree in your backyard and some tricky rigging.
Hypothetically you render the crack to run from fingertips to comfy hand size, (varied along the length of course!) then when adjusted it runs from hand size to fist size, and with a bit more reinforcing you could make a full offwidth sized crack.
Food for thought.
Parts of it are ambitious, but worth the try if ya wanna build the most kick arse crack machine known to man.
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12-May-2011 7:54:32 AM
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Nice one Singer,
Will look forward to seeing the plans. We don't leave until the 31st, so I may pop in on a Wednesday for a strangle or two.
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12-May-2011 10:12:09 AM
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the jamb crack at the Altona gym has very thin ply added to the inside of the crack to vary the width. Its mostly hands with a few flaring & off-hands sections. These create rests at the top of the thin sections. finger sections would be easy
Surely ply is easier than fking round with resin?
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12-May-2011 10:24:05 AM
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On 12/05/2011 james wrote:
>the jamb crack at the Altona gym has very thin ply added to the inside
>of the crack to vary the width. Its mostly hands with a few flaring &
>off-hands sections. These create rests at the top of the thin sections.
> finger sections would be easy
>
>Surely ply is easier than fking round with resin?
Heaps easier. But even with rounded edges, its still gonna be blocky. You still pack it out with ply or something similar. For a bit of xtra cash you could get a much nicer feel, and variations with a resin coating. Just an idea.
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12-May-2011 12:42:28 PM
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I shaped the jam crack at Altona (the one that starts as a handcrack up the corner, goes through a little roof and then turns into a tips crack up the slab) and used a sabre saw to carve the wood. Managed to create jams of varying widths and little pods. It seemed to work pretty well, although the first time we fixed everything in place on the top slab I realised I had made it too difficult so had to pull it apart and carve it out a bit more. It later got coated with textured paint.
I can't quite picture the thing you are building but it sounds interesting and quite sizeable.
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12-May-2011 1:07:44 PM
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On 12/05/2011 simey wrote:
>I shaped the jam crack at Altona (the one that starts as a handcrack up
>the corner, goes through a little roof and then turns into a tips crack
>up the slab) and used a sabre saw to carve the wood. Managed to create
>jams of varying widths and little pods. It seemed to work pretty well,
>although the first time we fixed everything in place on the top slab I
>realised I had made it too difficult so had to pull it apart and carve
>it out a bit more. It later got coated with textured paint.
>
>I can't quite picture the thing you are building but it sounds interesting
>and quite sizeable.
Simey, any time you want to go back and finish the last 2-3 metres of that tips crack on the slab, please feel free to do so. Nails.
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12-May-2011 1:28:30 PM
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On 12/05/2011 cruze wrote:
>Simey, any time you want to go back and finish the last 2-3 metres of that tips crack on the slab, please feel free to do so. Nails.
It's all there. The idea was for it to get harder the higher you went. Intial crack 16ish, pulling through roof 22ish, whole route 24ish.
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12-May-2011 1:46:05 PM
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Ha! I don't think that the roof is that hard, but it doesn't really matter anyway. I have never seen another person on it, tucked away in the corner as it is.
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12-May-2011 1:48:57 PM
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Wow, have fun getting the public liability policy!
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