The X-Tender climbing hitch

treegongfu said:
May I suggest getting a bulldog bone, SAKA and swingdude chest harness.
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after doing some back reading and going over some vids on here I reckon my gut instinct leans towards that setup and I am going to invest in a treestuff order if I get through these next two removals pending and starting tuesday I will be out of town for the week.:D
Will prob' finalise a list after these rec climbs and a couple more imports from england just landed here and one lucky contestant gets to come work with me on these monster takedowns for his first job in Oz, what a lucky lucky fellow he is. :risas2:
 
Crimsonking said:
Tried it again today. I liked the top ring for pulling the hitch. It keeps you from getting burned on hot descents and allows you to get a grip to pull even when the wrench jammed on top of the hitch without adjusting the wrench.

The bottom ring kept falling out, so I let it stay under my hitch and stopped fixing it. It did well most of the time, but would sometimes get flipped, bending the rope and adding a lot of friction, almost completely jamming my ascent. I decided to let it do whatever it wanted to see what would happen, and it eventually worked its way up midway into the hitch, messing with the feel.

Maybe a bit of throwline anchoring it to the pulley will help.
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I don't know whether or not you use your Rope Wrench in the exact configuration shown in the two photos you posted or not. If you do, there's a guy who's opinion I respect that says using a second biner for your stiff tether is a mistake. Here's a link to a video in which he explains his reasoning much better than I ever could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nhQTBe2OPvQ

I mean no offense when I post this. Just trying to help keep people out of trouble, if possible.

Tim

P.S. With your style of stiff tether, a Pinto pulley might be more appropriate, because it allows the single loop of the stiff tether to go into the middle of the pinto, with the legs of the hitch cord sticking to the outside. They make stiff tethers with two loops at the bottom specifically for use with the triple attachment pulley.
 
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Stihlmadd said:
yep thats my first port of call couple of rec climbs,

I found a local srt guy who is kitted out so will be crossing over to the dark side soon but to be honest I have some kind of inbuilt trepidation towards parting with the two ropes in front of me down to one single line it is almost childish like squirming before having to drink the foul cough syrup, like squirming will make it any better - weird I know but I have been looking at that sight for sooo.. long now it feels weird.:confused:

Levi the inner bike tube works great (y) just the right amount of stretch and flex so the system flows.
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If you're working, and your downstrand is close, you can pull it to your and clip a biner from bridge to down strand. It helps when the down strand is close to the cutting, most frequently pulling it well clear of the cut.
 
Ok, guys, just wanting to add another piece of info to my previous post. I went to YouTube to try to find a particular video posted by Richard Mumford, if I'm getting the spelling right. AKA yoyoman.

Holy cow! Has he ever produced and posted a lot of videos! It probably took me 15 minutes of drilling down to finally get to the one that I wanted! He may be the most prolific content producer among all the climbers out there; lots of good stuff worth taking a look at.

Anyway, here's my attempt to post a link to the video in question, which relates to the setup on the Rope Wrench's stiff tether.


Tim
 
Stihlmadd said:

a modification to the VT hitch and hitch climber pulley with a couple of x-rings to create the X-Tender hitch.
employs a XXR 14x10 and a XXR 20 x14 X-ring with a DMM hitch climber pulley and a spliced eye to eye prussic with two rock exotica oval carabiners. on 11.7 mm samson vortex rope.

The idea was inspired by colemanjessenz use of the DMM pinto rigging pulley spacer at the top of the VT.
by putting a x-ring above the hitch climber pulley but just below the VT it removes the setback space of the VT to create a setback free VT allowing for one handed tending or midline tending to engage the VT with every move. Has been field tested for the last couple of months on samson blue moon, sterling tendril and samson vortex with 10mm beeline prussic eye to eye spliced by ABR.
all my climbing systems have been setup the same style and I personally really enjoy climbing on it.(y)
see what you think.
Ben.
:cool:
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Stihlmadd, AKA Ben ! Really great video, mate! Not trying to derail this thread with my previous posts, just thought I should comment on your original post in this thread.

That hitch and ring combination does look silky smooth. Great camera angles in this video, which I know took a bunch of work to acquire. The shot looking down from above as you dropped down quickly on your hitch/ring combo was really great. That one required you to climb all the way back up in order to retrieve the camera, correct?

The other shot I really liked was the one looking up as you pulled down on the ring, and hearing the whine of the hitch against the rope. I was wondering where you had the camera mounted in order to get such a stable shot; one of those GoPro chest harnesses,with camera mounting plate included, perhaps?

Great music for the soundtrack, too. I just really liked this vid.

Forgive the newbe question I'm about to ask. With regard to doing fast descents on a hitch like you did in this video, do you worry at all about glazing your hitch, or even worse, your climbing line?

I've only been climbing for two years or so, and getting my hitch dialed in so that it will run so freely without binding up on me is a hit and miss thing for me sometimes. When it does run freely but reliably, the tendency is to want to do a fast rappel, to save time, just for fun, and to ease the discomfort of hanging in the saddle.

I was having some success doing fast rappels on my Rope Wrench for awhile, and one day as I started to descend, I found my hitch was slipping. I was climbing on two ropes at the time, so no safety problem. When I got to the ground and examined my 10mm Beeline, I found that it had been glazed during previous days' climbing.

I got to thinking that if the glazing had happened to my rope instead of my hitch cord, I would have been out a lot of money. So the question is, how do you personally govern the speed of your descents in order to prevent damage to rope and hitch cord, if you do it at all.

In a situation where people are making a ton of money, they may just let it rip and consider it a cost of doing business, in exchange for the speed and efficiency of doing fast rappels. I guess I'm hoping that it is somehow possible to both do fast rappels, and avoid the glazing of the rope.

I hope my writing is clear enough. Thanks for posting your video, and thanks for any answer you choose to give about glazing.

Tim
 
Stihlmadd said:
I will be away at the country church job all this week at won't be back here on the buzz till next weekend if all goes to plan.
:hola:
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Have a great week, Ben, if you manage to see this before you leave.

By the way, you are one of the few people on the Buzz who actually has more "Likes" than posts. A testament to your level of contribution to this forum.

I look forward to seeing your posts when you get back. Work safely.

Tim
 
MikePowers321 said:
Gonna try out the x ring on the top of the hitch sometime soon. Looks like it might work nicely. Keeps the hands cool and gloves tear free
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I'd like to ponder the question of something similar, that is also midline attachable. It would possibly save a lot of time when you've just acquired a new, higher tie-in point, and need to swap the whole system over to the other leg of the rope.

I'll need to think about this a bit. I have some really beautiful stainless steel spring-loaded shackles. I might try to find out what the smallest size is that's available.
 
TimBr said:
I'd like to ponder the question of something similar, that is also midline attachable. It would possibly save a lot of time when you've just acquired a new, higher tie-in point, and need to swap the whole system over to the other leg of the rope.

I'll need to think about this a bit. I have some really beautiful stainless steel spring-loaded shackles. I might try to find out what the smallest size is that's available.
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I had thought the same thing, but I was thinking of an ABS plastic ball with a 13mm hole drilled out, but it clips together (essentially splits the ball in half and then clips together on a plastic hinge of sorts)
 
TimBr said:
I don't know whether or not you use your Rope Wrench in the exact configuration shown in the two photos you posted or not. If you do, there's a guy who's opinion I respect that says using a second biner for your stiff tether is a mistake. Here's a link to a video in which he explains his reasoning much better than I ever could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nhQTBe2OPvQ

I mean no offense when I post this. Just trying to help keep people out of trouble, if possible.

Tim

P.S. With your style of stiff tether, a Pinto pulley might be more appropriate, because it allows the single loop of the stiff tether to go into the middle of the pinto, with the legs of the hitch cord sticking to the outside. They make stiff tethers with two loops at the bottom specifically for use with the triple attachment pulley.
Click to expand...

Thanks for looking out, TimBr. The tubing on the biner takes a lot of the slop out, so I don't have quite the problem others might. And though the two-eyed tethers are good, I like the quick disconnect option without undoing my system. Maybe a variation of Yoyoman's tether connection is in my future.
 
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