Gear mods

I put clear packing tape on screen surfaces (radios, phone, etc) this keeps the glass protected and just peel and stick on another when needed. 

I saw someone using this once~

mtndan wrote:

I saw someone using this once~

I remember those from way back. It wasn't a mod. This was commercially manufactured and sold in gear shops. Never used them but I'm pretty sure I saw them a long time ago (pre-internet) on a list of most useless climbing gear (or maybe it was most dangerous, or ill-conceived, etc.)

jktinst wrote:

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.

There's an interesting product idea there: why combine the harness and the hipbelt? It seems like a good frame pack could rest on your harness if the two were coupled properly. I'm not sure how it would work out in practice, though.

In the sytem I described, they are not combined. As I drew and wrote, the pack's webbing hipbelt is simply cinched tight around the harness (I guess I didn't specify that this uses a regular side-release buckle). I also use a couple of velcro tabs to ensure that the webbing belt doesn't slip off the harness belt while climbing.

But you could indeed have an integrated design for a more polished product. Off the top of my head, it seems that you could have a system where the bottom part of the pack's frame pokes out of the pack's back and is inserted inside a sleeve on the back of the pack's hipbelts (the regular wide and well-padded one and the pared-down, lightweight climbing one). Before starting the climb, you could remove and stow the climbing hipbelt and insert the frame bottom into a matching sleeve at the back of the harness. It should be pretty straightforward to pull the bottom of the frame out of, and guide it back into the sleeve by hand when taking the pack off at the belay stations and putting it back on for the next pitch (ie, without removing the harness). You could also have a zippered collapsible bottom compartment so the gear stored there for the approach could be extracted without having to empty out the whole pack.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

There's an interesting product idea there: why combine the harness and the hipbelt? It seems like a good frame pack could rest on your harness if the two were coupled properly. I'm not sure how it would work out in practice, though.

I once used threaded the waist part of a harness through a backpack.

It sucked because

1) couldn't cinch the harness tight enough to be load bearing

2) very slow to take backpack on and off

1) The harness belt shouldn't slip down and off your waist even with a bunch of gear clipped to it. So the issue here is mainly one of adjustment of backpack back length, hipbelt positioning & shoulder straps with respect to the position of the harness belt. This gets into the nitty-gritty of the specifications but in my system, I positioned the webbing belt about 1in. lower down on the pack than where the regular hipbelt sits, specifically to ensure correct weight transmission with the slightly lower harness belt.

2) Yes, I can imagine that any sort of threading of the two belts together would be a mess to undo. In my case, unclip the side-release and peel open two velcro tabs (that stay in place on the harness belt) and the pack come right off. Obviously, to be useful for 15-20 pitch routes, the system has to have a way of joining the two belts and separating them again that's quick and effective since the pack must come off at just about every belay station.

ANGUS WIESSNER wrote:

2017 Alpine Grigri gear mod with Petzl SMD carabiner 

Swap this out for the auto locking SMD and you've got a winning pair!

Patrick Mason wrote:

Swap this out for the auto locking SMD and you've got a winning pair!

I wouldn't be drilling holes through a biner.... 

The best way to make a "keeper cord" is not to use nylon, but to swage a cable. The same swaging setup to fix broken trigger wires can be used. 

All in all, about a $30 purchase from amazon: 

One Handed Swaging Tool (For 3/64" Oval Sleeves), BBTools, Inc.

Loos Cableware SL2-1.5 Plain Copper Duplex Oval Crimping Sleeve Set for 3/64" Diameter Wire Rope (50 Piece)

Loos Stainless Steel 302/304 Wire Rope, Military Specification, Lubricated, 7x7 Strand Core, 3/64" Bare OD, 25' Length, 270 lbs Breaking Strength

mpech wrote:

I wouldn't be drilling holes through a biner.... 

That biner comes with the hole in it. 

https://m.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Carabiners-and-quickdraws/Sm-D

mpech wrote:

I wouldn't be drilling holes through a biner.... 

The best way to make a "keeper cord" is not to use nylon, but to swage a cable. The same swaging setup to fix broken trigger wires can be used. 

All in all, about a $30 purchase from amazon: 

One Handed Swaging Tool (For 3/64" Oval Sleeves), BBTools, Inc.

Loos Cableware SL2-1.5 Plain Copper Duplex Oval Crimping Sleeve Set for 3/64" Diameter Wire Rope (50 Piece)

Loos Stainless Steel 302/304 Wire Rope, Military Specification, Lubricated, 7x7 Strand Core, 3/64" Bare OD, 25' Length, 270 lbs Breaking Strength

He didn't drill a hole, petzl hot forged a carabiner with a hole. Google Petzl Sm'd, petzl made it specifically for keeper cords on the tibloc and microtraxion

Patrick Mason wrote:

He didn't drill a hole, petzl hot forged a carabiner with a hole. Google Petzl Sm'd, petzl made it specifically for keeper cords on the tibloc and microtraxion

sorry, had no idea biners like this existed.

mpech wrote:

sorry, had no idea biners like this existed. 

They didn't till 2017 petzl has the SMD Carabiner in twist, auto, and non locking options I prefer twist.

Ill only take this mod with me on the diamond or long multi pitch routes otherwise I prefer the new Grigri + witch once I got used to I think is the superior device in climbing right now for any brand of belay device.  

Jake wander wrote:

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

You got pictures? I'm very interested in this idea.

Daniel McCormick wrote:

You got pictures? I'm very interested in this idea.

Troll-ception or gullybility?

#7

Not mine, but an awesome cam anyway! Apparently it actually works too!