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Was climbing at Darlington Slabs last weekend when a weird thing occurred. The bolt plate and Draw I had placed on a Carrot came off! A little upward movement and off she popped. I tried to place a PFH plate first which did not fit. RP to the rescue I thought. The plate went on and came off even easier.
My question is this. Can anyone tell me which plate to use on which bolt? The amount of pissing around it took to get a bloody plate on only to have it fail wasted all my energy, pissed me off and left a bad feeling with me about the whole days climbing.
Is there a simple way of identifying which plates to use and when or is it further evidence that carrots are bloody useless pieces of protection?
Now before I get attacked about maybe I didn’t place it correctly, or the draw was too thin in diameter, let me assure you the gear was placed correctly and the draw was a Lucky Competition (Standard diameter Draw)
Can anyone advise?
Wicked
Hey Kris,
Sounds scary…
Where you using 90 or 45 degree plates ??
Luckily you checked.. I used to but havent lately.. certainly will now.
Cheers
only time i have seen that happen is when the plate was put on unside down using a skinny draw
Roo,
On this occasion they were 45’s
Kris,
Now I see why you don’t like glue in machine bolts without hangers (marg River positings)…OK, best hanger to use is the PFH 90degree. The hole is slightly larger than in the RP hanger, so it will fit on everything EXCEPT some brands of 10mm machine bolts. Anyone contemplating using 10mm glue ins should test these out with a hanger and if necessary grind down the corners (easy on a $30 rotary grinder). All 10mm bolts are not the same and the shaft diamaters and heads actually vary slightly. Gorget 45degree hangers, they are fiddly to place and fiddlier to clip.
Removing a hanger from bolt with carabiner clipped in: this is possible only with 3/8″ machine bolts which can have very small heads. They are loved by the carrot bolters as they are cheapest, less than $1 a piece, in fact 50c even if you buy many. That’s how cheap your life is, mate. So in this day and age this bolt should never be used for anything. Doing this with a 10mm bolt is impossible with a hanger of any sort, unless you have a very deformed hanger.
Hope it helps.
Ross,
Cheers for that. I’ll keep some of every kind of plate in my chalk bag from now on.
Wicked
Hey,
I have also seen this happen, at Mountain Quarry on a route (Grade 16?) to the right of playboy. The climber was at least 8 metres off the deck when it happended.
Oh and did I mention that carrots suck?
What I was trying to say is only keep 90deg PFH in your bag. If they dont go on, nothing else will either, so no point in selection. You can even file the hole to be like 0.5mm larger. A good backup option is to have one or 2 wires (nuts), like #1 size. Pull the wire through the nut so a little loop sticks out and carry this on a spare a carabiner. Then when faced with a bastard bolt that will take no hanger (few around), loop the wire over it and clinch with the nut tightly. Not ideal but waaay better than nothing. Not my invention this, fairly common practice.
Ross
