Burned Biner

NickfromWI

NickfromWI

Participating member
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Okay, I've been working at a outdoor equipment store (climbing, camping, etc www.adventure16.com). A guy comes in the other day, asks if we have any more of these 'biners, and shows it to me. I give the "gadzooks" face and ask what happened. He described to me it great detail (upon hearing that I also do tree work) the following story.... (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here)

"Okay, So I cut all the branches out of the tree, only the trunk is left. I had a sling around the trunk and the chunk rope (I guess that's what he called the lowering line) goes up through this clip and around the piece I was lowering. It's about as tall as me, and this big around (he gesstures a piece big enough that you can't quite get your arms around it). I yell at the guy, make sure he's ready, then cut her free. There wasn't enough wraps around the tree, because the peice came down fast, and stopped JUST before hitting the sidewalk. I took the sling off the trunk, climbed down about 5 feet, and got ready to do it again. I got the sling on, had my pie cut, tied the rope on and made most of the through cut. I stopped for a second, made sure he had the rope, and this is when I noticed what had happened!"

At that point, he stopped, called for another 'biner (clip) and used them both for the rest of the tree.

He wouldn't give his name or his company. I brought him to the office, got online, and showed him the ISC rigging block, and pointed out that it almost costs LESS than the 'biners he was buying. He insisted he knew what he was doing and this is how his boss showed him and the boss had been doing it this way for ages. He didn't listen to my suggestions much, and walked away with 26 new 'biners.

Scary.

love
nick
 

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Here's a better pic, I just scanned the biner.

At the top of the biner (the good side) there is 11mm of aluminum. At the burned side, 5mm.

love
nick
 

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When I was in Minneapolis I hung out with the gang at Midwest Mountaineering, a great store with lots of experienced people. they had a company policy not to sell climbing gear to tree workers, if they knew they did tree work. Too often tree workers would do exactly what this guy did and MWM didn't want the potential liability.

Were you able to sell him steel biners or more aluminum?

WWYCD? What Would Yvon Chouinard Do?
 
[ QUOTE ]
When I was in Minneapolis I hung out with the gang at Midwest Mountaineering, a great store with lots of experienced people. they had a company policy not to sell climbing gear to tree workers, if they knew they did tree work. Too often tree workers would do exactly what this guy did and MWM didn't want the potential liability.



[/ QUOTE ]



Thats pretty lame Tom.


But they'd sell to ANY other Joe who walked in off the street and said he was gonna climb k2?
 
That's a good story.

Of course the boss is the expert with all those years of reinforced rhetoric, just another genius feeding on the money tree.

Funny how this is one of the worlds top ten or perhaps even number one most dangerous job, not rocket science to why.

And here's the irony, I bet the boss is insured for tree work just like you or I, the insurance company may need to know a little more about the wankers knowledge and skill.

Thanks for posting that Nick and personally, I cant believe that the guy settled for aluminium over steel even though he could see the wear.... then again, some guys eyes aren't attached to their brains!
 
My supervisor Is an old schooler, he doesn't use pullys or GRCS just natural crothces and wraps around the tree basically will get every job done. And he does do it with great skill the mans a god in my eyes. Well one day we were discussing setting up a speed line(a zip line setup for brush) He told me to take a couple beaners up with me. I ask why not use a pully it would be less heat. He didn't quite grasp the concept of me taking an extra figure eight up and actually lower ing the peice on a seperate line while it was attacked to the speed line till I showed him how. But he still wont do it, because this is the way he was taught.

You can teach an old dog new tricks, But you gotta really beat them till they do it.
 
Hey i resemble that reMark!

Never seen that before Nick!

i think steel will take 4x more heat generally, but aluminum dissipates it from the immediate area faster; is like a jealous metal that wants quickly what it's partner has(closer to copper; used in cooking for even heat). Not sure what ranges that steel is preferred to the aluminum for this heat, might depend on the amount of aluminum in device?

Titanium is da chit; even higher melting than steel, strong as steel, 1/4 steel weight and conducts heat like aluminum. The 'cold' side/ opposite heat in aluminum and titanium gear will burn ya much, much faster than steel!
 
Top wrote:

Thats pretty lame Tom.

It may be but that was a management decision after seeing knuckleheads over rigging gear and expecting refunds. Rock climbers and mountaineers tend to have a better idea of the performance expectations of the gear. Talk with Rob at Fresco about the gear that gets brought in. Pretty dang scary and lucky that more people aren't hurt.
 
The first company that I worked for my boss always had me use steel biners in place of a block. I just thought that was how you did it. After some independant research I realized there was a better way. I asked him over and over again to buy a block. No no no no. Then one day I was removing a large oak and the biner bent, almost completely staightend it out. The piece fell crashing to the ground. We were very lucky no injuries or any property damage. It almost did some serious damage to the bucket truck, but not a scratch. After that incedent he bought a couple of blocks and did not question me so much when I asked for new rigging equipment.
 
[ QUOTE ]
i'll bet his ropes look just as good! thanks for the post nick. [/quote

The first thing karina asked was how a rope could cause that much damage. I think the "great" condition of his rope surely contributed (and was possibly mostly responsible for) the problem.

Poor guy.

love
nick
 
Nick,

Cool picture and scary story...resistance to change and reluctance to try to find a better/safer way can help cleanse the gene pool...but it is ultimately sad for somebody.

Thanks for sharing.
 
[ QUOTE ]
When I was in Minneapolis I hung out with the gang at Midwest Mountaineering, a great store with lots of experienced people. they had a company policy not to sell climbing gear to tree workers, if they knew they did tree work. Too often tree workers would do exactly what this guy did and MWM didn't want the potential liability.

Were you able to sell him steel biners or more aluminum?

[/ QUOTE ]
There are some ironies here, IMHO. (And ditto to the remark rockclimbing stupidities.)
Firstly, I think "burned" is less apropos than "abraded" re the 'biner. It's fairly well
understood in the climbing (and I should hope in caving & SAR) community that lowering
and general usage will wear down aluminum 'biners, over time. Dropping big loads such
as tree chunks requires less time to go over! There is considerable friction between
nylon/polyester and aluminum, w/some less for anodized aluminum; though HMPE (Spectra, e.g.)
has a much lower melting point, it might fare better (ironicly) because of its much lower
coefficient of friction w/steel: I recall one Marlow (I think) test of sheaths of HMPE vs. polyester
where after some 9,000(?) repetitions of pretty heavily (50% tensile?) rope back'n'forth
over a pin a polyester rope broke; yet after 30k rep.s a Spectra one was not much worse
for wear, the test aborted(!!).
(It's of interest here to note one case of a climber testing the back'n'forth abrasion
of (old) climbing rope across a nylon (1" tubular) sling: the rope wore through!
And the sling was damaged too, but intact at rope failure. --not what you'd think!)


So, Nick rec's as conventional wisdom the arborist pulley, which surely greatly reduces friction
at the bend point. But how and WHAT does this help?
--no more wearing out of 'biners
--less wear on bull rope
--MORE load on:
1) rope belay
2) pulley anchor & support

Rule of thumb for load distribution over a 'biner is 8-to-5, the falling object side of course
having the big half.
Were that rope tied off to the 'biner, one would have the load of the accelerated object
(less some slight shock absorption from the low-elongation rope)
taken by the anchor.
But with a low-friction pulley, one has that force multiplied nearly 2-to-1, but less
whatever belay slippage is given to absorb the shock.

So-called, de facto industry standards in various fields aren't always so well grounded
in hard data. There was recently a lonnnnnnnnnnnng thread about the standard "cordelette"
rockclimbing anchor, in which its main advocate/instigator had only lately come around
to actually TEST, and found the supposed equalization of it (tyically three legs) to be
much less than believed! Yet it was accepted w/o this basis and prominently promoted
as the smart way to go.

*knudeNoggin*
 
I had the same results with aluminum figure 8's. I would come out of a tree on a figure 8 and burn a groove like that in it on one decent. I have the biner here somewhere to post later.
 
^ interesting! i've put many hours of long, fast rappels on my Russ Andersdon SMC tactical figure 8 with ears, and have YET to even wear thru the anodizing . And yet another figure 8 i own, (from a rock climbing store) is smooth and shiny after just 10 rappels on it....

some brands seem to be better than others....
 
I'm pretty sure there's a reason for purchasing "tree" equipment from "tree equipment" suppliers. (Eg.) Has anyone put a rock climbing harness next to a tree climbing one? They are just plain built stronger. How about we use the propper gear for our trade, and let "weekend warriors" smash themselves into extinction!!!
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hmmm.. i'm not seeing much difference between my Russ Anderson SMC Fig8 with ears that was bought at a treeclimbing/arborist store, VS the Russ Anderson SMC Fig8 with ears that was bought at a rescue supply house.

Nor am i seeing a difference between the fig8 bought at a climbing store, and the same brand/model of figure 8 that the treeclimbing/arborist store sells.

The purchase point is irrelevant. HOW they are used is relevant.





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