Reslinging cams
Skiroc
manufacturer.
Old camalots with exposed wires. Anyway to attach a sling safely? I
assume only option here is to continue using a carabiner.
Camalot jrs with plastic trigger guard.
Metolius 3 cam. Some say gemini or spectre cord is ok on small ones.
Even though diameter of trigger is small, the cord is still stronger than
the cam, cam is more likely to fail before cord would cut.
Any advise??
Steven W. Tregay
and then fit a camalot Jr thumb piece and then sling. This only works on 1 and
2's. This was in a quick clip in climbing some time this past spring.
Chris Harmston
This may have been in quick clips, but this is not recommended by Black
Diamond in any way. The following is a letter I sent to Climbing magazine
following another letter to them regarding slinging Camalots.
April 21 1995
In reference to the Quick Clips (#151) by John MacDonald regarding the
retrofitting of double stem Camalots with Camalot Jr. thumb loops and
slings I am writing to state that this practice is not endorsed by Black
Diamond Equipment. We feel that this situation described and depicted in
Quick Clips is potentially dangerous.
1) Cutting the Nylatron Thumb Bar down to make room for the Jr. Thumb
Loop may create two potential problems. First, if in cutting the
Nylatron Thumb Bar you are to damage the cable in any way, this could
affect the strength of the Cam. Second, the Thumb Bar and trigger
assembly are designed to each other. Cutting the Thumb Bar short may
cause the trigger to bottom out on the Thumb Bar and not enable full
retraction of the cams.
2) Sewing slings on the Jr. Thumb Loop requires overlapped webbing. A
single layer of webbing as depicted in the diagram is insufficient. When
testing these situations we have found that the Thumb Loop will break
near 1000 lbs. After that the webbing is in contact with the cable. For
the single webbing situation the webbing is cut by the cable at loads
between 1500 and 2000 lbs. These forces are relatively easy to achieve
in normal climbing situations. Therefore, it will be possible to see
sling failure and possible injury from this situation. Black Diamond now
sews its Camalot Jr's. with runners that have a double layer of webbing
around the cable and Thumb Bar. The Thumb Bar still breaks at about 1000
lbs, but the runners do not break until near 3000 lbs. In fact, about
half of the batch test samples fail at the cable and the other half fails
at the runner. We do not recommend that you put runners on old style
double stem Camalots. If you need a runner on you Camalot Jr. then send
them to Black Diamond for a retrofit.
3) A doubled or girth hitched sling on either Camalot is also not
recommended by Black Diamond. The reason for this is that the runner
still has no protection from the cable. For the Camalot Jr. sling the
inner webbing is not structural, it is there to protect the outer webbing
which is the structural component. The sling is sewn in such a manner to
prevent the structural outside webbing from ever contacting the cable.
The inner webbing is sewn to the outer and this keeps them both in place
(i.e., the inner against the cable and the outer away from it).
Chris Harmston (chr...@bdel.com)
Quality Assurance Manager
Materials Engineer BS, ME
Black Diamond Equipment Ltd.
2084 East 3900 South, SLC, UT 84124
phone: 801-278-5552
Lee Naish
In article <483ep6$7...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, ski...@aol.com (Skiroc) writes:
> Need advise on how best to resling cams, other than sending to
> manufacturer.
>
> Old camalots with exposed wires. Anyway to attach a sling safely? I
> assume only option here is to continue using a carabiner.
I initially used a sling directly on the wire until someone pointed out the potential of it being cut. I now have the sling going around the metal cross-piece (the one your thumb is likely to be on when your finger is in the trigger). Seems safe to me, and it means the cam doesn't hang so low off my harness. Comments?
lee