Preventing theft of lower-off hardware

Hardware enthusiasts,

We have had a problem at some Missouri crags with hardware thiefs, mostly involving fixed lower-off hardware or "permadraws". It is fairly unlikely that it is climbers doing the deed as we have a very tight-knit community. Some of these permadraws are often placed just before the lip of a cliff so they are easily reached by leaning over and accessible to non climber types. I have used LOCTITE Red on screw link threads, which allegedly requires high heat to loosen the threads once cured, but I'm curious if there are any other solutions people are using.

Ryan Surface wrote:Hardware enthusiasts, We have had a problem at some Missouri crags with hardware thiefs, mostly involving fixed lower-off hardware or "permadraws". It is fairly unlikely that it is climbers doing the deed as we have a very tight-knit community. Some of these permadraws are often placed just before the lip of a cliff so they are easily reached by leaning over and accessible to non climber types. I have used LOCTITE Red on screw link threads, which allegedly requires high heat to loosen the threads once cured, but I'm curious if there are any other solutions people are using.

There are other solutions like use kneadable epoxy putty in the barrel which will also require heating to remove. The method I provide to customers is to screw the barrel shut (in the workshop) and drill a hole through so a stainless roll-pin can be inserted preventing it being unscrewed. To remove it you have to carry a suitable pin-punch to drive the pin out.
Mostly I just supply all-welded systems anyway.

Jim, no integrity issues? I guess it depends too on which hardware is getting pinned and the size of the pin. Would love to see a pic. Good work!

how about a cold shut

And if you aren't using them already, something like this will keep those rope-end carabiners on fixed draws from wandering away.

Steel captive pin carabiner from ClimbTech

Most of our anchors are of this variety

I think that the stolen anchors may have not been Loctite-ed, I appreciate all the input though.

There you are, a crap photo of one.

This one is an 8mm standard length stainless maillon with a 5mm stainless steel roll pin ready to drive home. You drill the hole to just miss the threads on the body of the quicklink, drill 4.5mm first then 5mm otherwise the swarf gives loas of problems afterward (it does anyway but drilling twice makes it less). We shorten the roll pins to suit but you might get something suitable in Imperial sizes.
You can use a smaller diameter pin but life gets fiddly so I don´t bother, mostly the quicklinks are 10mm ones anyway.

Drilling the hole weakens the barrel but it doesn´t matter in reality, the link shown has a breaking load of 60kN which means the barrel should be holding 30kN, roughly calculated the barrel itself will hold 55.8kN and drilling the hole weakens it to 40.9kN so fundamentally of no interest.