Gear4Rocks Plastic Nuts Review

It would be cool to see a review for aid, seems like these could be great. I have been so curious about these. Thanks Phil.

great review phil, thanks for putting this together for everybody. that being said, if i ever see you on the street i am going to avoid eye contact at all costs, as you are obviously one loco mofo :)

My friends and I have been wondering about these things for years, thanks so much for the thorough investigation.

My only question is, you wouldn't happen to have access to a pull test machine would you? It'd be interesting to see how those wires hold up.

All in all, pretty exciting stuff!

Before people get any ideas about my bravery I'd like to add there were definitely some tears before each jump. Dane, my belayer can attest to that.

I could probably use an instron machine, but I'd have to build a grip for it... And I'm feeling lazy.

Phil Lauffen wrote:I could probably use an instron machine, but I'd have to build a grip for it... And I'm feeling lazy.

As someone above says, plastic nuts aren't a new thing. In the mid 70s I had a couple blue single-cable plastic wedges that were made, I think, by Forrest. I also had a black cylindrical nut with tapered sides and a textured surface (like a plastic Peck Cracker?). That nut was a little sketchy. I remember a couple of times it wouldn't quite go into a crack, so I tapped it with my hammer (we carried hammers in those days) to get it to pop past a crystal. After doing that I wondered, if I could get it to squeeze past a crystal so easily, what's to keep it from coming out the same way?

Its true, Phil hardly cried at all during the test. And we were on Mr Natural rather than captain natural. Nice job on the review Phil.

Nice review Phil. You should consider submitting it on the companies website, even if only in text. They have a form for that below the product and it has no reviews.

I'm a little surprised of the speculation here on material property Vs temp and wear but nobody even asked what the polymer is.
The Gear4rocks site also doesn't say.
Phil, since you are in touch with them, would you consider asking?

My suspicion for type of failure would not be that I'd break one or pop it out, but rather that I'd shear a small amount of material in a margina placement whereas a small amount of material was in actual contact with the rock. Again, this could be something where knowing the material (and it's properties) could answer my question. If you shave off a small section of the plastic and give it to me, I can get FTIR and SEM/EDX on it and identify the polymer/co-polymer and it's filler if it has any. Curiosity is killing me. I guess I could go order my own, right?

I took a look at the site- Noted the basic cams were $30 each and the dual axle cams (like 1 down-level generation of camalot) were $40 each. No shipping no tax? Hmmm... well time will tell, but I suspect that this company will sell gear well enough across the pond. Maybe if their rep solidifies, they'll do well here too.

PS - Nice job on Kloof, clean or not, it's hard, isn't it!

Tony B wrote:Nice review Phil. You should consider submitting it on the companies website, even if only in text. They have a form for that below the product and it has no reviews. I'm a little surprised of the speculation here on material property Vs temp and wear but nobody even asked what the polymer is. The Gear4rocks site also doesn't say. Phil, since you are in touch with them, would you consider asking? My suspicion for type of failure would not be that I'd break one or pop it out, but rather that I'd shear a small amount of material in a margina placement whereas a small amount of material was in actual contact with the rock. Again, this could be something where knowing the material (and it's properties) could answer my question. If you shave off a small section of the plastic and give it to me, I can get FTIR and SEM/EDX on it and identify the polymer/co-polymer and it's filler if it has any. Curiosity is killing me. I guess I could go order my own, right? I took a look at the site- Noted the basic cams were $30 each and the dual axle cams (like 1 down-level generation of camalot) were $40 each. No shipping no tax? Hmmm... well time will tell, but I suspect that this company will sell gear well enough across the pond. Maybe if their rep solidifies, they'll do well here too.

Isn't there enough plastic crap laying around in the world? Now we will have plastic nuts stuck everywhere someone took a whipper or three?

Nice write up on the product though, scientist Phil.

Most likely a type of Nylon, no?

One thing I would be interested in is how more likely these pieces are to compress and squeeze out of a constriction. Though if you have a continuous constriction it will eventually catch despite how much it compresses, I am curious on how much it would slide down compared to a metal nut of similar size and placement. In other words would these have a higher possibility of compressing and slipping outside of constrictions that are not so long and continuous?

Well, if you know the modulus of the material you can answer that question...

Tony B wrote:Well, if you know the modulus of the material you can answer that question...

id imagine it is also influenced by the shape/curvature of the nut as well as the difference in side frictions between the two materials

DannyUncanny wrote: Not really. It is quite a bit more complex than a single number.

Great review! I would probably use these nuts based on what I've seen here so far. I was wondering if these little wonders would be ok in areas that have an ethical standard of knots, slung horns and threads? Not that I will be traveling to any place like that in the near future. Just curious.

CJ Coccia wrote: In other words would these have a higher possibility of compressing and slipping outside of constrictions that are not so long and continuous?

My guess is UHMW (Ultra High Molecular Weight) polyethylene.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra…