Hardware Store Quick Link

I was at Home Depot this afternoon to price some 304 or 316 stainless quick links to use at rap stations. All they carried were Everbilt "Stainless Inoxidable" and Zinc Plated. "Inoxidable" sounds promising, but I really have no idea wtf that means. Any incite? Anyone have an affordable source for stainless quick links?

Those would be fine.

Inoxidable is French for stainless. Those quicklinks are crap. I've used them before. The corrosion resistance of those is utter garbage. Those things started rusting only 72 hours after I hung them. By contrast, quality 316L links go 50x longer before showing any rust. I'll PM you a link you can get some quality quicklinks for less money.

I installed a pair of those things once. Never again! I've seen zinc plated links last longer. You can find Kong ss316 links for about the same price and those will last forever(ish) and they are rated for climbing use>

I order mine from here.

usrigging.com/quicklinks-ko…

Brandon.Phillips wrote:price some 304 or 316 stainless quick links to use at rap stations.

Whether those are a "good deal" likely depends on your goals and the rock+hardward context in which you intend to use them.

. . (for starters it's a safe bet they're not 316 stainless -- more likely some form of 304).

But maybe those have a higher price than you need to be paying for your goals and context . . .

goals:
Do you expect to visit those anchors with some frequency, and are you (or other persons in the local community) prepared to replace those quicklinks if they show bad signs of corrosion.
Or are you planning for them to last 50 years without maintenance?

context:
Do you know for sure what is the material of the underlying bolts? (plated versus stainless or what?) (wedge expansion or glue-ins?)
What about the hangers?
Is there any plan to replace the bolts in the next couple of years?

Key suggestion:
If you do not _know_ that the underlying bolts are Stainless (or even higher corrosion-resistance material), then better to use Plated Steel (galvanized, zinc-plated) for the external "convenience attachment") hardware. Otherwise the hardware you are adding might be accelerating the corrosion of the underlying bolt.
Big problem is that corrosion of the bolt is not detectable, and replacing the bolt is more difficult (unless there is a plan for upcoming replacement anyway).

While detecting corrosion in your added quick-link is readily detectable and it's easily replaced. (In which you still might save money by using cheap-quality quick-links and just replacing them more often -- Need to experiment with price versus lifespan in your rock/environement context).

So for a particular rock/environment/hardware context, it might be better to choose Plated Steel for your "convenience hardware" for your goals and context.

In which case you could save even more on price,
since Plated is usually much cheaper than Stainless.

Ken

I'll make an attempt to incite;) Personally, if it is not a situation that would cause galvanic corrosion or an otherwise extra corrosive environment, I would rather have a nice quality beefy 1/2"zink plated quicklink than some dinky 316 SS one. A little surface rust on them doesn't bother me and they are easily changed out. We used a ton of them at Rumney before the recent turn to SS glue-ins and Ramshorns and they held up very well. Only a few that ended up being located under frequent long term running water ended up with unacceptable rusting. Obviously reasonably priced 3/8" or bigger high grade SS would be better, but it is not always practical.

M Sprague wrote:I'll make an attempt to incite;) Personally, if it is not a situation that would cause galvanic corrosion or an otherwise extra corrosive environment, I would rather have a nice quality beefy 1/2"zink plated quicklink than some dinky 316 SS one. A little surface rust on them doesn't bother me and they are easily changed out. We used a ton of them at Rumney before the recent turn to SS glue-ins and Ramshorns and they held up very well. Only a few that ended up being located under frequent long term running water ended up with unacceptable rusting. Obviously reasonably priced 3/8" or bigger high grade SS would be better, but it is not always practical.

In most cases, I would agree with you. But for the southeast, especially coastal states like the OP's Alabama, quicklinks are probably going to get corroded faster than worn down unless they're in a super high traffic area. I've seen some fixed hardware in really bad condition from corrosion in the Chattanooga area, which is much further from the sea than Alabama.

If you're really going for longevity get one of Titans titanium lowering rings here . They won't get corroded and they don't get worn down. And at $15 it probably won't be a whole lot more than a stainless quicklink

Besides the quality question, it's not a deal. Home Depot links are way overpriced.

eli poss wrote: If you're really going for longevity get one of Titans titanium lowering rings here . They won't get corroded and they don't get worn down. And at $15 it probably won't be a whole lot more than a stainless quicklink

In most anchor situations wouldn't you need to use a quicklink with that ring? Seems to me you won't gain much with that approach...

Xam wrote: In most anchor situations wouldn't you need to use a quicklink with that ring? Seems to me you won't gain much with that approach...

Yes one would need to use a quicklink with it but that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial. If you need the corrosion resistance you can also get titanium quicklinks, but they would wear out more quickly than the ring because they aren't as beefy and because the wear is concentrated to a single space.

I could see these or the titanium ramshorns replacing mussy hooks in many high wear areas such, such as the owens river gorge because, even after decades of use on high traffic sport routes the titanium doesn't show any wear.

eli poss wrote: Yes one would need to use a quicklink with it but that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial. If you need the corrosion resistance you can also get titanium quicklinks, but they would wear out more quickly than the ring because they aren't as beefy and because the wear is concentrated to a single space. I could see these or the titanium ramshorns replacing mussy hooks in many high wear areas such, such as the owens river gorge because, even after decades of use on high traffic sport routes the titanium doesn't show any wear.

You do know titanium wears much faster than stainless?

I use the cheapest 3/8 links I can find. Honestly, you asking them to hold a max of 200 pounds each when someone is lowering off a sport climb. They're rated to a WLL of over fifteen times that.

Yea, they'll get some surface corrosion, but who gives a crap? the rope will wear that stuff off where it runs, and they're not going to eat through to the point of breaking for a long damn time in most environments. That being said, be smart about where you use them. Obviously sea side cliffs are a no go, but for most anywhere in the US, they're fine.

e-rigging.com/links

I have placed many a 3/8th QLs and noticed that the weight load printed on all of them varies. 2100 lbs. - 2800+ lb.s. So even though it probably matters little, I pick the ones with the higher rating. They are not often bought at Hm. Depot. Better hardware stores tend to have better QLs.

Thanks for the input, especially the links to cheaper stainless links on the rigging sites. I'm equipping some new routes in sandstone in the middle of nowhere Southeast. Unfortunately that also limits my options to quality hardware stores - people around here seem to only like cheap shit!

As for hardware, I'm using all stainless, and recently bought some glue ins to play with.

I'm not expecting these to get a lot of traffic, but figured I would go ahead and set them up to last. Maybe I'll stumble onto something good and it will blow up, who knows...

eli poss wrote: Yes one would need to use a quicklink with it but that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial. If you need the corrosion resistance you can also get titanium quicklinks, but they would wear out more quickly than the ring because they aren't as beefy and because the wear is concentrated to a single space. I could see these or the titanium ramshorns replacing mussy hooks in many high wear areas such, such as the owens river gorge because, even after decades of use on high traffic sport routes the titanium doesn't show any wear.

Maybe so but my point is that

eli poss wrote: And at $15 it probably won't be a whole lot more than a stainless quicklink

makes no sense since you have to buy the quicklink anyway...so it is basically $15 more than the quicklink.

Xam wrote: Maybe so but my point is that makes no sense since you have to buy the quicklink anyway...so it is basically $15 more than the quicklink.

You're right, in hindsight what I said didn't make a lot of sense. However, if it's going to see a lot of wear and tear from sandy ropes and high traffic lowering, then the titanium ring will be cheaper in the long run because it distributes the wear evenly throughout the entire ring instead of being concentrated in one spot.

Or you could save some hassle and use these...

rapbolting.com/stainless-st…

Just a general piece of info that I think is commonly missed is 304 is not entry level stainless steel. You should not assume if something is called stainless that it is 304.

To call a steel "stainless steel" you simply need to have over 10.5% Chromium. 304 steel (also refereed to as 18/8 steel) has 18% chromium but also 8% Nickel. So not only does 304 SS have significantly more chromium than "entry level" stainless steel, it also has a significant amount of nickel. Both of these improve corrosion resistance.

In my line of business there is a large amount of 13% Chromium steel used so there is plenty of stainless steel out there that is of lower quality than 304.

In my experience if a steel is actually 304 the company will advertise that, or at least bury in the packaging text or tech sheet on their website. 304 is a SAE specification and contains the extra chromium and nickel so they would want to be able to charge more for that.

Brandon.Phillips wrote: Any incite?

Yeah its MP you probably incited rage in someone : P