Photos of BEAUTIFUL HARDWARE pt2

I heated the middle wave on the grate of my backyard gas grill (not subject to the direct flame- flame shield was installed below grate) at 500 degrees F for 60 minutes and the following photos show the result. Easy.

Dwayne La Roca wrote:

I heated the middle wave on the grate of my backyard gas grill (not subject to the direct flame- flame shield was installed below grate) at 500 degrees F for 60 minutes and the following photos show the result. Easy.

FYI, you can get the wave bolts in Matte finish now directly from wave bolt.   wavebolt.com/ols/products/w…

That would change the heat treatment and grain structure of the metal. Probably still super good enough, but something to take note of. Important if you’ll be doing that not to quench in water; better to anneal it, if you must heat treat it, than to potentially introduce stress cracks by rapid quenching. Anyway; that’s the end of my thread drift, sorry. 

Sam Jones wrote:

Thanks! Im not worried about the glue mixing with water but the rock quality itself. Greg from the ASCA recommended refraining from rebolting sandstone after a rain just like you would avoid climbing after recent precip. I supposed the same weakening of the sandstone would occur from introducing water into the hole while removing a bolt. Let me know if you know something different, bc using water would make it easier, but I currently don't. As for the flame treated glue ins, what does your process look like? Id love to see an example. 

I cannot imagine that the water used for spinning or core drilling would cause any lasting problem if you are using an adhesive that is intended for damp media. 

You certainly could make note of when you do the work and allow for the moisture to dry before use.

Climbing Weasel wrote:

That would change the heat treatment and grain structure of the metal. Probably still super good enough, but something to take note of. Important if you’ll be doing that not to quench in water; better to anneal it, if you must heat treat it, than to potentially introduce stress cracks by rapid quenching. Anyway; that’s the end of my thread drift, sorry. 

Maybe you should read the comments from Jim Titt on this topic?

He is quite knowledgeable about this! 

timothy fisher wrote:

Maybe you should read the comments from Jim Titt on this topic?

He is quite knowledgeable about this! 

I would love to! Can’t find them though. Perhaps you have a link or summary? 

316 stainless is actually annealed by keeping at over 2000°F for a number of hours then quenching in cold water, heating for an hour or two will have other effects which I'm not going to look up, in the welding world cooling the work afterwards with distilled water is much discussed! Just blast them with a gas burner and let them air-cool.

Found this one in situation.

Little bit o’ rust; bomber nonetheless.

Perfect orientation. Clean. One of my favorite setups. 

Thoughts on this anchor set up for steeper sport climbs? I do like how simple and dare I say… elegant it is. But worried it could be a tad confusing for those unfamiliar with ramshorns. Quicklink is 150mm (also have 200mm) by Lappas from hownot2, and glue ins are 4 inch Team Tough Crossovers.10mm Ramshorn from bolt products. 

Nathan P wrote:

Thoughts on this anchor set up for steeper sport climbs? I do like how simple and dare I say… elegant it is. But worried it could be a tad confusing for those unfamiliar with ramshorns. Quicklink is 150mm (also have 200mm) by Lappas from hownot2, and glue ins are 4 inch Team Tough Crossovers.10mm Ramshorn from bolt products. 

I like it and would be happy to use it. 

I have had problems with the acceptance of any non stands anchor (2 horizontal bolts).  Locals just don't seem to understand anything else.  I continue to put in a variety of anchors hoping they will eventually learn and be able to deal if they ever travel to go climbing.

Nathan P wrote:

Thoughts on this anchor set up for steeper sport climbs? I do like how simple and dare I say… elegant it is. But worried it could be a tad confusing for those unfamiliar with ramshorns. Quicklink is 150mm (also have 200mm) by Lappas from hownot2, and glue ins are 4 inch Team Tough Crossovers.10mm Ramshorn from bolt products. 

I’ve done something very similar, and I like the elegance as well.

Personally, I moved back to two mussies that align either via a similar vertical offset or via a more traditional horizontal separation that is brought together with chain. I choose between vertical/horizontal on a situation by situation basis. As for ramshorns, they are very nice but make a lot of climbers uncomfortable, and I do like the burly nature of two climbtech mussies.

As someone who has never run into a ramshorn in the wild, are they pretty easy to drop a rope into? Like if I'm pumped at the anchor can I get it in desperately like I can with a mussy? Because if not, my only concern with your solution Nathan is there's not a lot of real estate to throw one of my own draws into to clip into, assuming the giant quick link isn't too far off of the wall. Mike's photo with chain/links gives quite a bit more real estate for quickly throwing a quickdraw into to clip to.

Tal M wrote:

As someone who has never run into a ramshorn in the wild, are they pretty easy to drop a rope into? Like if I'm pumped at the anchor can I get it in desperately like I can with a mussy? Because if not, my only concern with your solution Nathan is there's not a lot of real estate to throw one of my own draws into to clip into, assuming the giant quick link isn't too far off of the wall. Mike's photo with chain/links gives quite a bit more real estate for quickly throwing a quickdraw into to clip to.

You can clip a draw to the ramshorn directly. And they are easy enough to clip the rope straight into it one handed but more fiddly by a bit for sure. 

Nathan P wrote:

Thoughts on this anchor set up for steeper sport climbs? I do like how simple and dare I say… elegant it is. But worried it could be a tad confusing for those unfamiliar with ramshorns. Quicklink is 150mm (also have 200mm) by Lappas from hownot2, and glue ins are 4 inch Team Tough Crossovers.10mm Ramshorn from bolt products. 

Ask Rumney NH people about it. A significant number of routes there have rams horns at the top. I like them, but first time was a bit interesting. Only thing to be mindful of is if it's a hanging clip that's going to move around a lot as if people mess up how they run the rope through it could be an issue. 

This is another reason the captive eye biner on a lower bolt of an offset anchor and the horns up top is useful. You get to the anchor and get the biner clipped. Everyone knows how to clip a biner, especially if pumping out....then you can just take or now relax and thread the horns without the pressure of falling to your last pro. Also installer doesn't have to get the spacing to land where that giant QL works. Allows you to better put the bolts where the rock dictates, not where the hardware does. With that set up you're locked into a certain circumference of placement, or ya gotta start adding chain or more links if ya need to put it beyond that range.
Another thing I notice is if you do use glue ins for the bolts, replacing the big ass QL will be impossible without chopping something in the system and you'll never get the same QL on again... not that you should have to replace that thing, but it really makes that a PITA if ya gotta. Just in total, less serviceable than other options.

 
I would also note if the climb can be topped out above the anchor or you can continue on climbing past the anchor, horns can un thread / come undone if your wangin' the rope around above it... so an anchor with two pieces of hardware being threaded offers a bit more security for that kind of scenario.
All that being said as personal preference, I would not be upset to have this as my top anchor on any climb, but I'm confident in threading horns and understand certain safety caveats.

I think it's important to point out the long quicklink won't work well ith twist bolts which ought to be twisted in the epoxy rather than shoved straight in.  The quicklink has to be installed prior to putting in the bolts. It also severely limits option for bolt placements vs using a chain.  

Hey guys, just upfront I’m a climber but not a route developer. I also have no professional metallurgy background but a good deal of experience as a backyard blacksmith. And please forgive me if this has all be sorted in other discussions… ok enough qualifiers…

Please be careful “heat treating” bolts to achieve visual color changes. I wish I knew enough to explain how to do it and keep it safe but I don’t. What I do know is that I’ve had multiple projects fail because the steel became brittle. That’s unfortunate in blacksmithing, but potentially fatal in climbing anchors.

This is a complicated science, with plenty of nuances. I hope someone with more knowledge than me chimes in.

Until then the one piece of advice I feel comfortable putting out there is if you are going to heat steel, do not quench it ( meaning do not rapidly cool it in water or any other way). Quenching hot steel generally makes it brittle.

Forgive me if I’m overstepping here, and thank you to all the route developers who put in the hard work so us climbers can have a place to play.

TThurman wrote:

Hey guys, just upfront I’m a climber but not a route developer. I also have no professional metallurgy background but a good deal of experience as a backyard blacksmith. And please forgive me if this has all be sorted in other discussions… ok enough qualifiers…

Please be careful “heat treating” bolts to achieve visual color changes. I wish I knew enough to explain how to do it and keep it safe but I don’t. What I do know is that I’ve had multiple projects fail because the steel became brittle. That’s unfortunate in blacksmithing, but potentially fatal in climbing anchors.

This is a complicated science, with plenty of nuances. I hope someone with more knowledge than me chimes in.

Until then the one piece of advice I feel comfortable putting out there is if you are going to heat steel, do not quench it ( meaning do not rapidly cool it in water or any other way). Quenching hot steel generally makes it brittle.

Forgive me if I’m overstepping here, and thank you to all the route developers who put in the hard work so us climbers can have a place to play.

Also climber/smith here- we should chat sometime mate! Seconded- don’t mess with the heat treat of anything life support critical

TThurman wrote:

Hey guys, just upfront I’m a climber but not a route developer. I also have no professional metallurgy background but a good deal of experience as a backyard blacksmith. And please forgive me if this has all be sorted in other discussions… ok enough qualifiers…

Please be careful “heat treating” bolts to achieve visual color changes. I wish I knew enough to explain how to do it and keep it safe but I don’t. What I do know is that I’ve had multiple projects fail because the steel became brittle. That’s unfortunate in blacksmithing, but potentially fatal in climbing anchors.

This is a complicated science, with plenty of nuances. I hope someone with more knowledge than me chimes in.

Until then the one piece of advice I feel comfortable putting out there is if you are going to heat steel, do not quench it ( meaning do not rapidly cool it in water or any other way). Quenching hot steel generally makes it brittle.

Forgive me if I’m overstepping here, and thank you to all the route developers who put in the hard work so us climbers can have a place to play.

You cannot harden austenitic stainless steel by heat treatment. It does not become brittle if you quench it, as stated earlier this is how it is annealed.

DrRockso RRG wrote:

I think it's important to point out the long quicklink won't work well ith twist bolts which ought to be twisted in the epoxy rather than shoved straight in.  The quicklink has to be installed prior to putting in the bolts. It also severely limits option for bolt placements vs using a chain.  

I agree that the precise way this is layed out is not ideal. To me it makes more sense to execute with the pigtail threaded through the bottom bolt and the quick link. That could be done by turning the top bolt sideways. Then easilly servicable.

We have experimented with these long quicklinks. They have some quirks. Probably best suited to a multi pitch anchor with a single ring wear point.  I prefer stainless chain.

I think it is hard to beat the Bolt-Products example shown by Mr Bond for single pitch anchor.