Scarpa Phantom Guides and Toe Bail tweaks?!?!?

Joe Palma wrote: Moving the bails on G14's is extremely unpleasant and way more of a problem than it should be. Used a vice, large slotted screw driver, hammer and lots of muscle to get mine out/in. Wear leather work gloves to protect your hands as well.

Don't do this. It will work harden the bail and lead to premature failure.

Do as Joe Palma suggests above. Place the crampon on the ground on its side, step on it, and loop a section of cord through the bail right wear it enters the crampon frame and pull up. It will pop right out. It's actually pretty easy. Reverse the process to replace the bail.

The webbing and stand on process seems simple enough. Gloves will still protect you as required. Still not that easy, I don't like it and I do lots of them.

Work hardening?

Taking bales on and off isn't going to do much (if anything) to work harden the stainless Petzl bales and nothing at all to the chromoly bales on the BDs or Grivels.

Pounding (as in climbing in them) on the stainless Petzl bales over time will. Not a bad idea to change the Petzl stainless bales once in a while depending on how much you climb. Climb a lot? Change them every season or two. Love the Petzl bales but there is a down side to even the best stainless steel.

What can be much more of an issue is a stress riser that you put in a bale by even tiny cuts in the bale wire with a pair of vice grips, or the errant wack of a hammer, or the nasty nick using a sharp screw driver for a lever. Done it all. Rope or webbing on the bale is a much better idea. The hammer as the last resort.

But then how many front bales do you know of that have failed besides the stainless Petzls? And that is not a common occurance by any means. None made of chrome moly that I can think of off hand.

Ah, I stand corrected. It was stress risers I was thinking of, not work hardening.

Dane wrote:The webbing and stand on process seems simple enough. Gloves will still protect you as required. Still not that easy, I don't like it and I do lots of them. Work hardening? Taking bales on and off isn't going to do much (if anything) to work harden the stainless Petzl bales and nothing at all to the chromoly bales on the BDs or Grivels. Pounding (as in climbing in them) on the stainless Petzl bales over time will. Not a bad idea to change the Petzl stainless bales once in a while depending on how much you climb. Climb a lot? Change them every season or two. Love the Petzl bales but there is a down side to even the best stainless steel. What can be much more of an issue is a stress riser that you put in a bale by even tiny cuts in the bale wire with a pair of vice grips, or the errant wack of a hammer, or the nasty nick using a sharp screw driver for a lever. Done it all. Rope or webbing on the bale is a much better idea. The hammer as the last resort. But then how many front bales do you know of that have failed besides the stainless Petzls? And that is not a common occurance by any means. None made of chrome moly that I can think of off hand.

I have broken a grivel bail seen another one.

When removing the petzl bails it helps to file off a little bit of the bail end. Leave the end with the 90 degree bends alone, the other has a pressed-flat section that acts as a key so the bail can only be removed when bent all the way back. After the pressed section there is about 7.5 mm of round cross section again, I filed this off and the crampons come on and off much easier. You could file through the pressed section as well and then you wouldn't need a sling to remove the bail.