Compact Bulldog Bone

oceans said:
10mm is the upper limit. I will have to try it on 9mm. That might be great, depending on the rope's construction. I'll give it a shot as soon as I can and let you know. What cordage were you thinking of using?
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Nothing in mind but as a rec climber, I like to travel light.
 
Wow, thanks Gordon. I finally got to try out my bone today, and it is awesome. I ascended with a pantin and Haas-like ascender with a neck tether attached to the bone. It worked like a dream. I set up a 3 to1 for limbwalking with a thimble and a revolver, also perfect. I ran my HH after, just for comparison, and while the HH had made climbing some much fun and introduced me to SRT, I don't see myself using it much more. Everything the HH could do, felt better on the bone. I always hated how fiddly the HH was to set up, so I just left it on my rope all the time. The bone makes it so easy. On and off the rope in seconds, no dropped pieces, no setback.

Thanks to everybody here who has posted their thoughts, videos, and experiences on climbing in general. I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for all of you I would still be happy with a Blake's. I always thought there was a better way, and you all showed it to me. I hope someday to add something new, but until then I can only say thanks for what you've given me.
 
Worthaug said:
You don't have to use the thimble.... A ring will function the same. Ultra tech or beeline is easy to splice a ring to.
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That being said, does anybody see the advantage of a thimble over a ring in any scenario? Does the fact that the thimble can move infinitely around the loop become an advantage?
 
oceans said:
I am realizing now that perhaps I shouldn't have snubbed off the lower arms on my Bone. When collapsing the uppers, they used to push down on the lowers to help it all release. Now they don't touch the same, and it makes for trickier movement of the Bone along the line when relocating to another union, especially when advancing to a higher union. Say you pass your rope over the higher union, and it's within reach to slide the Bone up and over and reconnect to your bridge...that sliding process is much more finicky now. I think I want to go back to the original spec. Anyone with a double snub want to chime in on that?...Mike, Tyler?
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The snub nose has been working real well for me, Eric. If you are talking about either reaching up to grab the bone when it is above you when setting a redirect (un-weighted line) or even giving yourself slack from above the Bone, I have encountered a little friction here and there, but only when the upper arms are leaning too far forward. This stopped happening when I shortened the upper arms (the rubber bumpers sit right on the lower friction links and keep it from collapsing forward too much).

So as a quick fix I just grabbed the Bone with my whole hand, thumb on the back of the spine with a light squeeze, and it seems to line everything up perfect with minimal friction.

Personally, I have no complaints. Hopefully I didn't misinterpret your question, but I like the snub nose a lot.
 
Worthaug said:
That being said, does anybody see the advantage of a thimble over a ring in any scenario? Does the fact that the thimble can move infinitely around the loop become an advantage?
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Nah, only thing I can think of is that the thimble has the prusik threaded through its exterior channel where the ring would either need to be spliced, knotted, or girthed. That could take away a little bit of your usable area. Other than that I like the cheaper alternatives when they work well.
 
Worthaug said:
That being said, does anybody see the advantage of a thimble over a ring in any scenario? Does the fact that the thimble can move infinitely around the loop become an advantage?
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If you want, can't you just take the ring and thimble right out of the equation and just use the loop? Use the carabiner from the sling to catch the prussic loop for the semi-static redirect (like in Eric's video).

Or when your making a transfer using your lanyard in a tight spot (like in Eric's video), you can do the same with just the carabiner on the prussic loop. I guess the thimble tidies things up a bit on your saddle and is easier to tie and untie on the rope?

Regardless, the thimble loop is still in my wish cart :loco:
 
I think the length is dialed right in on the thimble loop for a super clean package when it's installed, and the thimble can't move as freely as a ring on two eyes, which helps a lot during installation. The thimble is always oriented just right to make another wrap, where a ring can fold back requiring you to reorient it for passing a wrap.

That is surely a technique that could be worked on and may be worth the few bucks saved on a gear purchase. I use these things so much that they are worth the purchase price for me, and they are a clean, tidy piece of kit.

$0.02
Cha-Ching. :)
 
CutHighnLetFly said:
one could always use some hitchcord which is no doubt just sitting somewhere since you bought a bone, and just clip a biner or some other sort of link to the eyes on the cord. i do this from time to time, and it works fine.
that being said i only do it when my thimble is in use. its compact-ness just makes it preferable.
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You guys are lucky because you don't live in a place where it's difficult to buy arborist gear...Today i bought two thimbles in a hardware store...let's see what I can do...
 
Hey guys, had a slight moment with the bone today and thought I should share it - I was at my anchor point, lanyarded in, fiddling about with a pull line, with the bone sitting down by my waist not doing anything. I went to descend and noticed something felt odd - the little accessory bina I keep on the top tending point for clipping to my chest harness had somehow clipped itself on to my bridge, effectively locking the bone in its collapsed (freefall) position...So I'll be switching the clip to a solid ring or something - dunno if anyone else has a snapgate clip on the top tending point (maybe just me being stupid?! :rayos: ), but thought it was worth mentioning just in case.

In this situation, there was no bad outcome - I noticed, thought 'huh, weird. that would've sucked', unclipped it and carried on, but if I hadn't noticed and had gone for a heroic swing or something, then I would've met the ground pretty rapidly.

Still loving the bone though!

Mike

bone lcip.webp
 
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