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Gear mods

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EJN · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2012 · Points: 248

Whats your favorite DIY climbing/camping gear modification? Added pockets to a pack? Gear loops to a harness? Modified your grigri? Created an actual rope gun out of your .306? I wanna hear about it!

Currently my favorite is ultralight easy-aiders made from thin webbing, a bit of elastic, old auto-backing harness leg-loop buckles, and dog bones from old quickdraws.

CTB · · Cave Creek, AZ · Joined Jul 2015 · Points: 305

I like to put speed holes in everything

EJN · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2012 · Points: 248
CTB wrote:

I like to put speed holes in everything

You save a lot of weight if you drill holes in your water bottles.

Ryan Hamilton · · Orem · Joined Aug 2011 · Points: 5

I use the cheap blue sleeping pad foam to line my haul bags, but I think this is pretty common. I also made a clean aid hammer, for cleaning hard to remove nuts, from a small ball peen hammer. Drilled a hole through the handle, tied a loop of cord through and a length of keeper cord that clips to a carabiner. 

grant N · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2011 · Points: 1

The keeper cord on my grigri has save it a time or two. 

For those who dont know. Drill though the plastic on the bottom. Undo the screw and pry open, tie a knot inside. Screw back together And tie a knot with a bite/ loop, so your grigri can stay clipped to you while you load it.

Jake wander · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Aug 2014 · Points: 195

I added steel plates to the lobes of my BD UL cams to make them last longer and hold bigger falls

Brian L. · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Feb 2016 · Points: 90

Clibing gear: My DIY gear sling.

Camping gear: I make my own hammocks, tarps, down top/under quilts, ultralight backpacks (not for climbing, but I might tackle a hardier day pack or crag pack in yhe future).

EJN · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2012 · Points: 248

Other mods I've made:

- Modded a grigri 1 for rope soloing, as per http://ulrichprinz.com/alpin/equipment/selfmade/

- Made my own alfrifi, with my brother helping with the welding.

- Hand sewn cragging rope bags out of an old blue tarp.

F r i t z · · North Mitten · Joined Mar 2012 · Points: 995

Not my doing, but a mechanical engineering friend jigsawed this bomber 8.5" cam. It's so big, you can place a #4 between the lobes.

Nathan · · Tel Aviv · Joined Mar 2015 · Points: 107

As was mentioned above, grigri tether. http://imgur.com/a/Ksr6o

aikibujin · · Castle Rock, CO · Joined Oct 2014 · Points: 300
Mike Mellenthin wrote:

alpine forkbrush

You need a knife in there somewhere.

EJN · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2012 · Points: 248

the alpine forkbrush might be my favorite thing I've seen in a while. It's a fork! its a toothbrush! its a deadman anchor! its a nut tool!

PatMas · · Tulsa, OK · Joined Jan 2017 · Points: 40
adeadhead wrote:

As was mentioned above, grigri tether. http://imgur.com/a/Ksr6o

If you buy a petzl SMD it has a hole in the hinge side of the biner for putting a keeper leash on it. It's actually pretty sweet with this mod.

Doug Hutchinson · · Seattle, WA · Joined Apr 2014 · Points: 311
Kevin DeWeese · · @failfalling - Oakland, Ca · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 981

Too Many to count for Aid gear:

Drilling holes in peckers to reduce weight, tying p-cord loops through the top of the peckers for racking, reswaging the dclip-in loop with full strength cable (no idea why Bdel swages these with thin ass cable)

Drilling out an arrow to arrow for removing old 1/4" bolts

Grinding a chisel into a butterknife for head removal

Keeper slings drilled into the grigri

Swaging long cable with stiff rubber casing to create a long "cheater" rivet hanger, oh, and of course, swaging my own heads and rivet hangers

Nathan · · Tel Aviv · Joined Mar 2015 · Points: 107
Patrick Mason wrote:

If you buy a petzl SMD it has a hole in the hinge side of the biner for putting a keeper leash on it. It's actually pretty sweet with this mod.

That's awesome. 

jktinst · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Apr 2012 · Points: 55

The diagram illustrates a mod I did of a 60L backpack to make it compatible with a harness and adapted to long-ish alpine rock climbs. I took advantage of the fact that the pack's original hipbelt was removable and made a webbing hipbelt that could be held tight against the harness belt. The rest of the mods aimed to allow completely collapsing the bottom 2/3 of the pack by rotating  the bottom and cinching it flat against the back, which avoids having it cover the back gear loops. I haven't done a whole lot of alpine rock routes but I quite like this modded pack. With enough food and water for a long day, minimal emergency gear and other miscellaneous essentials, I appreciate the fact that the LW pack frame and belt effectively transmit the weight to the harness belt and hips without interfering with the gear loops instead of having that weight on the shoulders all day.

In the category of things made from scratch, it bugged me to wear double lower leg layers when wearing both WB gaiters and WB pants so I added an inner flap to the gaiters to ensure their complete waterproofness and made a pair of Gtex "knickers" to go with them, based on the classic mountaineering knicker design. Quite liked them too. I would wear them rolled up as shorts under the harness; then roll them down, cinching them over the tops of the gaiters when I needed the full protection. Unfortunately, they got cut to shreds on the occasion of an unintended visit to the Calgary Foothills Hospital Emergency (along with my Gtex jacket and every other piece of clothing I was wearing that day). I gave up ice climbing after that so I haven't had the incentive to make a new pair but if I did make one, I would probably go for a zip-off leg design using water-resistant zips. This way I'd be able to just wear the shorts under the harness all day long and add the 2/3-length leg extensions with full separating side-zips only when needed and without having to remove the crampons.

MP · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2013 · Points: 2

The #1 gear mod of all time-- write your name and your phone number on your gear. Then, when you lose it, it actually has a way of coming back to you... 

Kevin DeWeese · · @failfalling - Oakland, Ca · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 981
mpech wrote:

The #1 gear mod of all time-- write your name and your phone number on your gear. Then, when you lose it, it actually has a way of coming back to you... 

On every piece of gear? That's not a mod, that's a hassle. 

Though it does remind me of the time that I went climbing with a bro who was known for "accidentally" keeping your gear if you didn't demand a full gear sort at the end of the day. I made a rack of my found, close to broken, and retired gear. Went climbing knowing we'd use his rack mostly (or rather, "his" rack) and at the end of the day, didn't demand a gear sort and lo and behold, some of the pieces were missing. Works for me. Never climbed with him again. 

DavisMeschke Guillotine · · Pinedale, WY · Joined Oct 2013 · Points: 225

I really like cutting out all those god damn tags and superfluous hang tags that companies seems to stitch all over gear nowadays. Honestly just cutting useless shit off gear in general is a lot of fun.

Kevin DeWeese · · @failfalling - Oakland, Ca · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 981
DavisMeschke Guillotine wrote:

I really like cutting out all those god damn tags and superfluous hang tags that companies seems to stitch all over gear nowadays. Honestly just cutting useless shit off gear in general is a lot of fun.

First thing I do with all new puffys is to cut out the elastic pull cords in the hood that I don't know anyone who uses and always are sticking directly into my neck at all times.

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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