oldfart
Participating member
- Location
- Asheville, NC
Guys, I’d like to throw this idea out into the wild for discussion or hoots, as the case may be …
As a device, the Wedgie is a silly looking thing. But as an idea, it’s potentially a game-changer. It could change how we think about friction savers for climbing and/or rigging. To see some vids about the Wedgie, they’re posted in the Rigging Forum under the Wedgie and under the X-Rings.
When I first joined the Buzz, Nick Araya, wrote me a post describing how universal and ubiquitous the ring/RING friction saver is in climbing and how, over the years, so much creativity has been applied to different implementations of the basic idea. He was so right. But because it is so universal, we can forget the very basic tyranny it imposes on our choice of hardware: You need a ball/knot bigger than the rope and the two (2) rings need to be certain, different sizes.
The Wedgie works a different principle. The Wedgie can change things for both climbing and rigging savers. It frees us to choose hardware very differently.
For example, let’s say you wanted to build a rigging saver using the new X-Rings and you wanted to run 7/8” bull rope. You’ve got a problem because the OD of the stable braid so nearly fills the 28mm ID of the X-Ring, it’s tough to attach a retrieval ball without it getting “scrubbed off” as it’s prussic tries to get though the ring. Further, you couldn’t use another X-Ring for the other end. You’d have to buy a huge 1” block to get the r/R geometry to work out.
But with the Wedgie, you could build around two (2) identical X-Rings, no retrieval ball and still have a retrievable system (you would have to be careful to only pull the Wedgie through ONE of the two rings).
If you start thinking about this for climbing too, the hardware choices you can make get very different than we normally think.
There must be a million ways to build a "Wedgie". It’s the idea I’m talking about. In some situations, it would just add complexity with no benefit. But in others, it could be an important enabler for new design.
Thanks for reading.
OF
As a device, the Wedgie is a silly looking thing. But as an idea, it’s potentially a game-changer. It could change how we think about friction savers for climbing and/or rigging. To see some vids about the Wedgie, they’re posted in the Rigging Forum under the Wedgie and under the X-Rings.
When I first joined the Buzz, Nick Araya, wrote me a post describing how universal and ubiquitous the ring/RING friction saver is in climbing and how, over the years, so much creativity has been applied to different implementations of the basic idea. He was so right. But because it is so universal, we can forget the very basic tyranny it imposes on our choice of hardware: You need a ball/knot bigger than the rope and the two (2) rings need to be certain, different sizes.
The Wedgie works a different principle. The Wedgie can change things for both climbing and rigging savers. It frees us to choose hardware very differently.
For example, let’s say you wanted to build a rigging saver using the new X-Rings and you wanted to run 7/8” bull rope. You’ve got a problem because the OD of the stable braid so nearly fills the 28mm ID of the X-Ring, it’s tough to attach a retrieval ball without it getting “scrubbed off” as it’s prussic tries to get though the ring. Further, you couldn’t use another X-Ring for the other end. You’d have to buy a huge 1” block to get the r/R geometry to work out.
But with the Wedgie, you could build around two (2) identical X-Rings, no retrieval ball and still have a retrievable system (you would have to be careful to only pull the Wedgie through ONE of the two rings).
If you start thinking about this for climbing too, the hardware choices you can make get very different than we normally think.
There must be a million ways to build a "Wedgie". It’s the idea I’m talking about. In some situations, it would just add complexity with no benefit. But in others, it could be an important enabler for new design.
Thanks for reading.
OF
