Copper Vs aluminum heads

Ive been  devolving my aid skills and I recently started getting into head placements and I was wondering what was the ethics of fixed heads being aluminum vs copper and what’s the real difference in actually placing them and should I really leave all of the my fixed heads in or just the really bomber ones?

Copper is harder so there will be more hammering, more so when the head gets bigger. Not sure about the ethics, in Sweden it leans towards that you should clean everything. If you are going to clean it, its best done using a butter knife or something similar. 

Leave all your bashies if you want the rock to last, you can clean them if you’d like everyone to fully understand how badass you really were that one day 10 years ago. 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

The ethics are to find a balance between damaging the rock and not damaging your body as you move up a route. There are very very few true head placements you'll encounter until you're climbing A3+ or higher. (this doesn't mean you won't find an shit ton of heads on routes easier than A3+, just that those heads were either placed long before beaks were a thing and haven't been cleaned yet  or that they were placed by cowards lacking skill) 

As you are "devolving" your skills, just play with both types of heads in junk boulders that are made of the same rock type that you'll be climbing on and see for yourself the difference in holding power and force needed to deform the head into a placement. Bounce test the heads, funk the heads, clean the heads with a butterknife. Place heads with just the hammer and then place heads with a punch and then never place heads with just the hammer again. After you've cleaned the head, take out your hooks and your beaks and micronuts and see if they can be used in the same placement. If they can, you fucked up. If they can't, then upskill and try again later. If they still can't then congratulations you've either found a true head placement or you need to upskill some more. You'll figure out rather quickly the difference between the two and where the damage to the rock actually comes from. 

Heads in true head placements should be left behind because their removal causes damage to the marginal placement. Heads that are placed in a non-head placement should usually be left behind unless you have a butterknife since a head in a non-head placement will usually be strong enough that cleaning it with a funkness device will rip the cables out of the head before it rips the head out of the placement. 

Heads are the tool of absolute last resort and only should be considered after trying every other tool in your arsenal (except for a drill, that's a tool of no resort that you only use if you're bailing or putting up an FA)

Thank you for this response

first I just want to double check that peckers tommahawks and beaks are the same or whats difference besides the obvious ones (asking more slang)

For most of my aid climbing besides know practices areas has been FAs in some questionable at best rock so far. So for heads i would still want to just kept them as a last case before a rivet I’m assuming, Ive been rebolting a bunch of old sport rivet routes which is always fun so I know the safety of those things. What I’ve gather it’s go for least invasive method to rock even on an fa but for some safety maybe but a good piece in, 

For Peckers (I know them as) I’ve gone by place by hand first then try to not hammer as much as possible is That true?

Use copper which is harder and stronger for #1 head placements, and #0 if you dare.

Use aluminum which is softer and stickier for #2 and #3 head placements. It is rare to need anything bigger.  

Donny Goetz makes far and away the best heads I've ever used, plus lots of other great aid trinkets like hangers. 

Always nail a pecker when you can, instead of placing a head, because it's less invasive to the rock.  There are, however, any number of aid pitches and placements where nothing but a head will work.  Unless you're the first person climbing the pitch, there will be fixed heads for you to use - if you dare - and heads with broken cables or no cable - so called "deadheads". In this instance, the best course of action is to remove the old head with a butterknife tool, and place a new head in the existing placement.  You might have to re-shape the placement with your chisel if it's blown out. It's an ethical dilemma, for sure.  The harder and less travelled your route is, the more likely you will be to have to place your own heads. 

Don't clean your heads!  Do a proper job, and leave them in situ.  

Somewhere in this forum, I wrote an exhaustive post on how to place heads, with photos and stuff. I'm finishing up a caving trip in Mexico right now with crappy internet access, and furthermore I don't know how to do a search on this forum - sheesh.  If someone could please post the link, that would be great. Or just read it and reply to it to bump it to the top of the forum.

Cheers, eh?
PtPP aka Dr. Piton 

See yous all at the El Cap Bridge at the end of May and in June. We are planning a HUGE bash for Steve "Shipoopi" Schneider's birthday the evening of May 31st, and we are trying to make it even better than my birthday last September 11th.  That night, the rangers came by and told us we were so loud, we were keeping the climbers awake on El Cap.  Message me for details. 

Ryan Mwrote:

Ive been  devolving my aid skills and I recently started getting into head placements and I was wondering what was the ethics of fixed heads being aluminum vs copper and what’s the real difference in actually placing them and should I really leave all of the my fixed heads in or just the really bomber ones?

Hi everyone! I would like to add that in Spain we use lead heads. Where I use to aid climb the rock is not that solid as in US. We use to climb on limstone and is not bomber like the granit that you have! Lead is way much softer than copper or aluminium and to place it is not that destructive! 

A year ago i was in yosemite for aid climb and the few times that we had to place a head we placed a lead head instead of one of yours jeje

And at my point of view it looks well! There's nothing compared! It is much faster and less hard to stick the lead on the granit! By the other hand, feels easy to remove it! 

I'm not telling that is better than copper or alu heads but i think that you should try it!!! 

Just wanna show the way we see it and we do it! Anyways we also use wood for progress on aid climbing so maybe we are just doing it on the wrong way

PtPP Heading Tips: mountainproject.com/forum/t…

Has anyone hammered aluminum nuts, not aluminum heads before?

If so, what was the difference you experienced in the hammering, I assume the aluminum was harder but softer than copper heads.  Thanks.

donald perrywrote:

Has anyone hammered aluminum nuts, not aluminum heads before?

If so, what was the difference you experienced in the hammering, I assume the aluminum was harder but softer than copper heads.  Thanks.

I have hit a nut. There is not much to it, you hit it and it gets a bit stuck.

My question is can you use a aluminum nut the same way you would use a copper head.  Does it act the same or different. 

donald perrywrote:

My question is can you use a aluminum nut the same way you would use a copper head.  Does it act the same or different. 

It think it would be very difficult to hammer a normal nut into some kind of flared placement where one would use a head. 

Well, I guess I should try it. 

donald perrywrote:

Well, I guess I should try it. 

I’d be interested in seeing pictures. Alternatively if you go up ten days after, pitch 2 of the prow has all sorts of hammered junk, including a small hex and the circle head traverse has a hammered pink tricam. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures when I was on it. Maybe someone has cleaned P2 of the prow since then tho. These placements were bomber and definitely didn’t need these thinks smashed into them so this may be a little different than what you are talking about.

donald perrywrote:

You wanted to talk about a picture.  Here you go.  Everything is on the left, the fall, the belay, the finish.

Looks like it was placed, fixed, and then beaten on with a nut tool, not actually “mashed” into the placement, certainly not with a head kit.

Yes, that looks more like a normal, but bad nut placement that someone has hammered. I do not expect in to be possible to use a nut for a head placement.

Yea, I hit it with my nut tool and large cam.  I could use a hammer, but then it will never come out ... I would suppose ... which I suppose is my question.  Would a copper head or aluminum head do the same or be worse or better do you think?

I would trust that hammered nut way more than a real head.

This is a copper head I have used.

I don’t know if anyone has since cleaned it up, but the bottom of the NA Wall used to be a virtual museum of ancient bash nuts.  Some had outlasted their cables. They were hideous, even more so than the relatively tiny heads.  Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 

Rob Dillonwrote:

I don’t know if anyone has since cleaned it up, but the bottom of the NA Wall used to be a virtual museum of ancient bash nuts.  Some had outlasted their cables. They were hideous, even more so than the relatively tiny heads.  Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 

During one of the Facelifts years ago, Max and I went up on the first three pitches of the Mescalito and removed 75 heads and deadheads.

In one spot Max removed three heads that were on top of two heads that all hid one head.
After removing that whole mess, he was able to make a really good gray/purple offset Metolius master cam placement!
All in all, heads were a very unfortunate invention in climbing

donald perrywrote:

Yea, I hit it with my nut tool and large cam.  I could use a hammer, but then it will never come out ... I would suppose ... which I suppose is my question.  Would a copper head or aluminum head do the same or be worse or better do you think?

I bet a copper head properly placed would hold more force, but it wouldn’t be bomber. I personally would rather fall on a head in that placement then a nut, better contact of metal on rock and potentially stronger then that nut depending on what head style you choose. Everything comes out with a butter knife and a hammer, and you don’t need to remove it, but that rock looks like the Delaware water gap or maybe something in the gunks area. Some of the hardest rock out there so you shouldn’t damage the placement unless you’re trying. If this is for a project and you do end up taking the whip, make sure to post with pictures of the piece, failed or holding!