Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

camming 101 16-Jan-2006 At 10:28:33 AM shaggy

Message

On 10/01/2006 one day hero wrote:
>regarding undercamming,
> imagine a small TCU which only has a couple of mils of range, yet will
>be considered "safe" by lots of folks if rolled up quite tight. A #4 friend
>will have just as much "spare expansion" when it's almost tipped out yet
>be considered shonky by the same folks.
> I reckon you can relax a bit on the undercamming front

Sorry ODH, You are absolutely wrong here.
Small cams are built with very small tolerences,
the bush (baring surface the lobes rotate on) is much finer, with very little movement which eliminates any lobe slop,
the lobes are very wide compared to their length, which provides very good rigidity, and
the cam is relitively wide in relation to it's thickness, which prodides excellent stability.
In opposition, Large cams generally have a looser bush, to prevent tortional jamming when trying to manipulate the lobes,
The lobes are very narrow, compared to their lenght, which enables lobe flex and twist, And
The cams are fairly narrow compared to their overall width, which allows the whole came to be less stable and rotate and twist.

Overall, the larger the cam, the futher from 'tipping out' the placement should be.