Stainless perma-draws

Here ya go Matt. They are almost twice as expensive as  the other style captive eye US stainless makes FWIW. Breaking strength is less too, although a bit of a moot point.

Why all the talk about stainless ? CT mussys aren't stainless. Trango makes a pinned steel biner. Hanger, quicklink, biner..... Bam.

Or for a chain-draw... Hanger, quicklink, chain, biner on chain, pound in pin.... Bam.

For me, the clipping action of chain permadraws on very overhung sport routes is not awesome, and on less overhung routes the chain tends to abrade the rock in the wind. I have a route in mind where the crux is clipping a perma on a steep overhang after a bunch of low angle traversing so I was looking for options.

jbak xwrote:

Why all the talk about stainless ? CT mussys aren't stainless. Trango makes a pinned steel biner. Hanger, quicklink, biner..... Bam.

Or for a chain-draw... Hanger, quicklink, chain, biner on chain, pound in pin.... Bam.

Mid Atlantic environment is a different animal. Within a short period of time non-stainless looks like shit. 

When using SS, lighter chain is possible (6mm chain from team tough is perfect) . Then it is more a toss up whether you use cable or chain. Long intervals between maintenance is possible in wet areas with SS.

Sorry to necro (no other suitable newer threads) but still looking for answers in this eternal quest.

1) chain abraids rock in wind > rock abraids bones in wind (or during climbing/whips). Pick your poison. (Safety says chain in such cases.)

2) Non SS QL's - wind can swing permas day after day for years and slowly grind away the QL anyway (and the hanger.. though the hanger is SS which is slightly harder material?) - but certainly whips bite into QL's (esp on Fixe hangers which are not bevelled for some reason, Dracos and Climbtechs much nicer) - no major rust on plated QL's by the time even a 1/2" QL needs replace due to being chewed by hangers on whippy lines.

3) I use the US Stainless captives for anchors. I got the exact same models off Alibaba before US Stainless seems to have grabbed them all up and reformatted them for the boating set (thus 316 overkill vs 304), and they were $3.75 CAD at the time (~2011/12). Now they're like $8-9CAD and the gates stiffer (perhaps by request of the boating community). But after hanging them for 2-3 years on popular lines the gates soften nicely (but dont seem to get loose).

4) Prolink deals on mammut gear: galvanized steel keylock biners https://www.mammut.com/us/en/products/2040-00791/element-steel-key-lock for cheap. The galvanization feels very tough/armoury. Have had a few up 6 months in abrasive/abusive areas (biner gets kicked into rock by feet) and no rust showing yet. Prob last a decade at least before they look sketchy with rust spots.

The shape of the bent gate is way nicer than the Fixe Gym (captive bar) Biners (non SS) which show up on many permas - I find their galv gets sticky/rough after flow and their baskets very deep so the middle-finger-hold-draw/index-thumb-push-rope-over-nose clipping can get the rope stuck at the nose on desperate redpoints in humid weather due to friction/distance (even with my large hands).

These Mammuts are way nicer shape, more like a standard QD biner.

5) I've used some on chain where rock abrades bones. To keep the biner from flipping, we used a local resoler's donation of patches of shoe rubber with two holes poked thru. Biner goes thru rubber, then thru chain, then thru other side of rubber bent into a U. Rubber sticks to biner nicely and captures the chainlink, fixing biner orientation. Works great. (Dont have a picture..)

6) Prolink deals on mammut long bones (15, 30, 50cm) + some heatshrink tubing off Amazon gives a pretty good looking result with a standard 1/2" QL (to survive hanger biting longer). Havent deployed any yet with tubing to know UV resistance lifetime, but tubing easily replaceable, and the tubing doesnt really need shrink anyway); produces a nice protective sheath.

Thus total cost for this is approx $15 CAD (~$11 USD) with a sufficiently cheap bulk deal on 1/2" QLs.

 

Coating the dog one like that makes it super hard to inspect, impossible on the go.

Hownot2 sells lapas stainless permas.

Blake Mwrote:

Coating the dog one like that makes it super hard to inspect, impossible on the go.

Hownot2 sells lapas stainless permas.

Yeah I was thinking that (and it's not a coating, it's a sheath, unshrunk heatshrink tubing but it feels fairly thick, like 1-1.5mm). However damaging the bones internally WITHOUT damaging the far more fragile sheath seems very unlikely. Also, the sheath can be removed to inspect (which we intend to do anyway, as this is a new experiement, gathering data. Will check in 3, 6, 9 months etc on several different lines).

Cost is a sensitivity issue - affording more permas now is safer than soft sharpened abandoned project draws with wallsides notched by agressive fixe hangers connected by crunchy UV-cooked bones in the spots where we couldnt afford the ultimate $40-50cad long-term solution (at 2.5-5x the price)

https://hownot2.com/products/permadraw-ss-set is gorgeous but $60 CAD!

Ken Chasewrote:

Yeah I was thinking that (and it's not a coating, it's a sheath, unshrunk heatshrink tubing but it feels fairly thick, like 1-1.5mm). However damaging the bones internally WITHOUT damaging the far more fragile sheath seems very unlikely. Also, the sheath can be removed to inspect (which we intend to do anyway, as this is a new experiement, gathering data. Will check in 3, 6, 9 months etc on several different lines).

I would guess that mold and mildew could rot the sling inside the heatshrink.

These have went up in Austin recently during rebolting.  They are a new design from sportbolting and stainless.  They’re on a route that’s way above what I climb so haven’t seen them in person yet.  

Those are sexy - love the hand grip! What's it made of? Straight gate on the biner is a bit less ideal though.

As for mold and mildew - yes, that's possible. Will keep an eye on it. Will put it on some popular lines (that I and my bolting crew climb regularly as warmups) so they can easily be inspected and see a lot of eyeballs. (Hmm... zippered protector to make inspection easy? :P )

Ill put a couple in expressly seepy areas (which our limestone gets apr-may heavily sometimes) so a few of them get nice and wet!

We purchased a 100 of the sport bolting permadraws and have been putting them up on routes for the last couple of months, since the cable is crimped directly into the forged end stops there is no loop in the cable to abrade which is one of the more common ways permas get worn (we’ve had several complete failures from this), the rest of the cable is well protected within hard plastic. All parts (cable, end stops, quicklink) come in 304 or 316 except for the carabiner which is a nice wire-gate plated steel that is replaceable with a pin.

We might have more permadraws in the area than anywhere else in the country and have seen most of the wear issues one might experience. It seems using a SS quicklink significantly slows down the wear on the quicklink/hanger interface, the cable rubbing/corroding and flexing, especially if there’s no thimble is the next problem, where the individual cables breaks one at a time and at best poking you or at worse causing total failure. The sport bolting design should fix this.

The price is super reasonable, LCOS might ask about a slight discount for bulk orders.

It will take years before we have much data on how they hold up long term, but the design looks promising.

Regarding the cased QuickDraw, that mammut carabiner is not ideal, the gate is more than likely made from aluminum and the spring inside often corrodes and will break over time leaving a floppy or sticky gate. The shape of the carabiner is also likely to produce a sharp carabiner much quicker vs a round stock biner. Wiregates are much preferred for long term outdoor application. Despite the carabiner being made from plated steel, the wire is typically 304 SS. I wouldn’t go with a nylon dogbone for anything ‘permanent’ the heat shrink makes them look ‘homemade’ and I think you’d have folks weary about trusting them in many areas, a steel carabiner QuickDraw might be a good solution to put up on a project for a year, but isn’t a very good long term solution. Something like the Petzl Djinn Access is an option for a 1 year project draw. Or what you’ve already done and just leave the heat shrink off for easy dogbone replacement.

Regarding wind abrasion in chain draws, I find it hard to believe this would be a problem with stainless chain, are people having problems with this who actually used SS chain and not plated? High quality SS 1/4” chain meets the strength requirements needed, and is easy to cover in heat shrink, which stiffens the draw for easy clipping. 5/16” chain would be better if overall rope drag weight isn’t a concern and less wind abrasion on the quicklink/hanger, and leaves quite a bit of safety factor for long term wear. 3/8” plated chain is what I see most commonly used, and is an eyesore with tons of added rope drag and Big globs of rust hanging. 

TLDR: the Sport Bolting draws are awesome, give them a try. Hopefully they will come out with a SS biner version for areas where the biner would corrode before getting worn out.

DrRockso RRGwrote:

Something like the Petzl Djinn Access is an option for a 1 year project draw. Or what you’ve already done and just leave the heat shrink off for easy dogbone replacement.

If anyone needs em, I've got 6 of those I'd let go.

DrRockso RRGwrote:

Regarding the cased QuickDraw, that mammut carabiner is not ideal, the gate is more than likely made from aluminum and the spring inside often corrodes and will break over time leaving a floppy or sticky gate. The shape of the carabiner is also likely to produce a sharp carabiner much quicker vs a round stock biner. Wiregates are much preferred for long term outdoor application. Despite the carabiner being made from plated steel, the wire is typically 304 SS. I wouldn’t go with a nylon dogbone for anything ‘permanent’ the heat shrink makes them look ‘homemade’ and I think you’d have folks weary about trusting them in many areas, a steel carabiner QuickDraw might be a good solution to put up on a project for a year, but isn’t a very good long term solution. Something like the Petzl Djinn Access is an option for a 1 year project draw. Or what you’ve already done and just leave the heat shrink off for easy dogbone replacement.

Regarding wind abrasion in chain draws, I find it hard to believe this would be a problem with stainless chain, are people having problems with this who actually used SS chain and not plated? High quality SS 1/4” chain meets the strength requirements needed, and is easy to cover in heat shrink, which stiffens the draw for easy clipping. 5/16” chain would be better if overall rope drag weight isn’t a concern and less wind abrasion on the quicklink/hanger, and leaves quite a bit of safety factor for long term wear. 3/8” plated chain is what I see most commonly used, and is an eyesore with tons of added rope drag and Big globs of rust hanging. 

Are these Djinn Axxess regular sport QD's or a perma solution? I've put up https://www.petzl.com/CA/en/Operators/Carabiners-And-Quickdraws/DJINN-STEEL-AXESS in a few places and they had to come down in a few years - mostly because the biner is painted not even galv or plated, and gets chipped and starts looking sketch. It's not actually sketch but people dont like to see rust spots. The bones are in good shape behind the plastic though, protected from UV (but the plastic yellows in UV and also looks like crap after 3 years). The rubber hand grip is nice for bailing, but thats a small consideration.

Yes, the gate and pin issue is a thing. Will keep an eye - and they're replaceable.

As for bones on permas, I was reading (or heard? on the Runout podcast?) that somewhere (rrg?) they decided on some sport routes that there's no way to permanently counter abuse from sending (esp with their sandy grit), so all permas are just consumables and replaced at intervals. If the replacement time/effort is low, then the cheapest option that's safe is viable - replace the bones every 2 years regardless (hidden UV damage) and the biners and QLs whenever they need.

Same with us - there's no way even a 1/2" SS QL would survive 5 years on one of our lines at 1st or crux or traverse bolts. Just too much chewing on hangers, even with dracos/climbtechs (instead of sharp Fixes). There's not even a single spot of rust on the plated QL's before we replace chewed 5/16"s, and most 3/8"s only have smalls hints due to a 2-3 year cycle. Doubt 1/2"s would last more than 5 years except on anchors (but anchors can use thinner SS stock like 5/16" though I wouldnt drop to 1/4" - though DJINN AXXESS STEEL comes with 1/4" QLs!)

This crag is specifically a project crag full of permas and project draws left by locals, there are a huge number of whips that take place, more than usual - people retrying cruxes 5-10 times on a single burn, x3-4 burns/session, x multiple climbers, etc. So this may be a high wear situation (but not sandstone, so there's worse - esp near ocean spray).

As the wear rate drops, say at beginner crags, Id go stainless -- but we also now recently have an actual funding model (in S. Ontario) to deploy nearly-permanent (20-50y lifetime) gear at the popular crags with less projecting and probably fewer whips overall (the ancient giant 9/16" plated anchor QLs used as loweroffs had a nice sheen of surface rust but were otherwise still solid after 25 years at the intermediate crag on a 10b til recently replaced with American Stainless captive eye biners).

I was referencing the steel djinns, yes the coating on them sucks, they're clearly meant for indoor use, but work pretty good as a project draw you're only going to leave up a season at a time. Maybe give them a quick coat of paint when you pull them down. They're really not a good long term solution because it's an I beam carabiner and can become sharp in a permanent use situation, in addition to them being a nylon dogbone. 

You might be referencing this article? eveningsends.com/blue-steel…

I do a lot of maintenance in the RRG, and yes I agree that nothing lasts forever, there's no "set schedule" or "organized maintenance team" that goes around checking or replacing stuff. Just a few volunteers and climbers who see something dangerous and take care of it. Having said that, we want to use the gear that last the longest possible, and stays in good working condition during that time. We've had ropes cut from sharp perma biners, cable dogbones wear and corrode until they broke, and countless solid gate carabiners become floppy. The biggest thing we figured out to avoid sharp carabiners is to always leave the first perma off on fully permadrawed routes. The angle between the belayer and the first draw makes them wear down especially fast, and it makes for easier stick clipping to put up your own draw. We don't use nylon permadraws at all, someone might put a set up on something for a season if the route isn't popular, but most routes that need them are already equipped with steel permas. We learned this the hard way years ago, when folks would leave their aluminum draws up and they would quickly become dangerously sharp, often times whoever put them up would neglect to take them down, becoming someone elses problem.  It's not common for folks to leave "project draws" on routes that don't necessitate permadraws for cleaning.  

For dogbones, we're mostly switching to using the sport bolting ones. The majority of the bolts they're going on are rounded glue-ins, so the only maintenance needed should just be swapping out carabiners, which will be much cheaper in the long run than switching out the entire perma every xx years. Managing what you're describing may be possible for a high use crag with a dozen or so permadrawed routes, but would be darn near impossible with the our resources to manage 100's of permadrawed routes, where much of the traffic comes from out of town visitors, not involved in maintenance. 

Regarding quicklinks getting chewed: you'd be surprised at how much longer the stainless quicklinks last vs plated quicklinks, I suspect the rust gets ground off a the small contact point on the edged hangers and a new layer forms with each use on the plated ones. If you're going through quicklinks every couple years, it's probably worth just swapping the bolts for glue-ins, or at least the hangers. There are 4-5 different versions of a fully rounded hanger on how not 2 currently . The Djinns don't use 1/4" quicklinks, at least when I've purchased them and as they advertise they're 8mm/slightly larger than 5/16". They might appear thinner because they're longer than the standard quicklinks.

We've found that much of the carabiner wear comes from when folks are lowering (the permas that initiate an angle change in the rope take all the wear) rather than from catching falls. But YMMV, we have lots of sandy ropes.

I'd consider when the lot you've already purchased wears out, that going with an option like the Sport Bolting one, will end up saving you/the org money in the long run, even without accounting for the extra time and gas spent to replace more frequently. Using SS quicklinks is worth it, if only for the fact that the threads don't seize up after they get sufficiently corroded. 

Can't say I've ever seen a 9/16" quicklink on a climbing route, that's a new one!

That was the article, yes. thanks! I was going to reply to his "if everyone just <used steel ropeside biners for project draws>" with a meme I saw: "Never in the history of man has 'everyone just' anythinged." Case closed. (Took 15 years to get people to use stick clips!)

As I mentioned, at this highly projected crag we dont get a chance to rust QL's because the hangers (even bevelled Dracos) will get chewed by project whips first (gluins would solve that issue a bunch). But glueins would help (see below).

Yes leaving the first perma off happens but people often just clip the second anyway. Could leave two off, but literally slows down burns at the crag which can get very crowded. Technically no permas need ever be installed anywhere, you just trade time on the route in exchange for permas. Cant hang draws on redpoint? Take more time to get stronger! Use up a burn to just hang draws! etc. (Limits after-work projecting due to daylight however.) We've opted for permas to speed things up.

We've also put the first bolt pretty high, 1) to necessitate using stick clips (we actually have a bunch of long ones permanently at the crag) 2) because of the big overhang, people step way back making the deflection angle on low first bolts large and causing wear and drag. We reduced that problem a bit, and as a heavier climber (195lbs) I often clip the 2nd anyway to not land on my belayers.

You are right that size of the crag is important. We have about 50 routes total across two main walls that are 2 min apart, and a fairly active and closely knit communicative group of locals (with a lively facebook chat exposing the average age :P ). I would imagine with more international and widely-sourced climbers projecting, varying habits will be expressed that can be tricky to manage. We're fairly uniform in our habits and bring new climbers into the fold pretty quickly. We dont fool ourselves into thinking that we're any kind of destination, just the only convenient hard climbing within an hour of Toronto.

Yes maybe the Djinns were thicker, they are long so seem thin. And yes, as I say glueins would help long term, they're a much better overall result, but the first 20 lines went in during covid lockdown at the new wall in a hurry before any real planning took place (I arrived late to bolt the 13th line) - a lot of fiat bolting. The other wall is 30+ years old and had some gluework done replacing ancient mank, but more than half the replacements are bolts. Replacing hangers with Dracos or Climbtechs (or cheaper equivalents) would save QL's too. We're just in the 5th season of it becoming a popular destination so just starting to see long term trends (and identifying a core crew of permanently local folks who want to manage, ie me et al - 30-35 year olds get jobs/spouses/kids and tend to disappear - its the 45+ year olds who seem to become the superintendents lol).

Next iteration will be better planned - retroing to gluins and hanging SS304 would be ideal, but a pretty big and $$ effort (we also get the Canada tax which adds 25% onto the base price :( ) Some 1990s mank needs replacement at the old wall, perhaps Ill start there in the spring.

Wonder if your first bolts squeegee the sand off at the first draw causing the most wear. We dont seem to have more wear at 1st rather than crux, seems even-ish. Perhaps we're blessed by our soft shitty chossy limestone. :P

As for the 9/16" yeah they were massive and the only ones I've ever seen in 25 years. I've seen more self-welded coldshuts as anchors.

Thanks for your advice and experience.

I think it's mostly just the angle, the sand tends to stick pretty good, especially to damp ropes. You're right that a lot of people just clip the second but by that time the angle isn't as bad. Still one to keep an eye on for sure. Check out some of those hangers available on hownot2, several of them are actually equivalent to a glue-in where the quicklink contacts the hanger. Here's a couple examples, in full disclosure I haven't used any of those models, as I'm using 90% glue-ins these days, and not generally using permas when placing mechanicals. https://hownot2.com/products/anchor-plate-all-316?_pos=28&_sid=8f96a6a8f&_ss=r hownot2.com/products/emeral…;_sid=8f96a6a8f&_ss=r

Oh wow, thats genius. Look at dem curves! Looks like someone welded a gluein to a hanger (cuz they basically did :) ). Thanks will deffo incorporate some of this stuff into next iteration.

Your second link minorly mangled, here's the link: https://hownot2.com/products/emerald?_pos=29&amp_sid=8f96a6a8f&_ss=r
Sexier looking thing, cleaner, but less material, how do they wear?

Nope, MP is mangling all the versions of that 2nd link because of the & -- ok secret sauce, changed it to &amp;amp instead. :P Works now.
(Dont even ask how I wrote &amp;amp in a post here (i did it by doing & a m p; amp if you take out the spaces... oy.)