Hey, leave my momma outta this brownie or brownliephoto or whoever you are! I'll report you to the mods! What's next? A youtube video satire of my latest failures?!?!
Hahahaha..., Ed, thank you!! I was actually just kidding about getting you to do the calculation since I never expected you to even see this!! So a 220lb climber like myself would definitely want to avoid a leader fall on a single staple.
I believe this is a single pitch climb which would eliminate a leader fall ever occurring on said anchor unless someone decided to pitch off with slack or something.
Is there a top rope situation that could theoretically pull said staple? Maybe a beginner belayer with a ton of slack out, and a climber my weight?
Please sir, only if you have the time and interest.
Thanks again!
Edit sounds like even with a two staple anchor and a short fall factor two situation I could generate enough force to blow said anchor. Good enough reason for me. Kill all staples!!!
Edit2
What's next? A youtube video satire of my latest failures?!?!
The question is? Where did this 600lb figure come from?
I'm sure RBs anchors can deal with more than that, I remember someone telling me his passed brother was like an anchor engineer or something?
I wouldn't worry about it too much there boys- It's probably on top of some 10+ "classic featureless SB wasteland" anyways that only Kieran or Luke would climb:-) The route will probably get chopped, green or retroed in the next 2 yrs. maybe all 3. Nature has its own ways of dealing with RB routes. That said lets go tie a massive something to that thing with a chunk of static & throw it off! BTW Big Mike, often much more force in a slack TR fall than a soft leader fall so ur probably gonna die for sure TRn single staples but that's a debate for another thread! Have a good night!
Credit: RyanD
Edit- here's a link about RBs bro, would be weird if he had the nickname "anchorman" in the engineering world &his bro is up here putting in dangerous hardware??
A single anything for an anchor cannot be defined as "safe", we do it with trees all the time and yea they're pretty friggin bomber but I do remember a story about a tree blowing over on the smoke bluff connection. The twist was that the belayer and his partner were attached to a similar specimen. Now, I won't just go and stop using trees because of this story. I have confidence in my judgement of a satisfactory belay tree and i'm sure the aforementioned party had the same feel for what was a bomber anchor. The evidence to support this being the survival of the two climbers. It's a different story when some fresh-out-of-the-gym-weekend-warrior comes up and starts clipping bolts until he/she finds himself at this anchor. She/he may not have the experience to recognize the yergonnadie factor, potentially putting themselves in a theoretical situation in which they would have to call SAR who would then direct them to the local taxi business who could take them the 3 blocks to the hospital. In fact, I do believe this topic has already been chewed to a cud and all i've done is blow off some post-work steam by act of reiterating an age old ethics issue...
No worries Kieran, you're fighting the good fight. I just like to know the facts, like how do you know these staples break at 600lbs?? Did someone legitimately pull test one in the lab or is this just the word on the street from those that compete with RB for FAs of all the ledgy 10+ slabs left in the bluffs? I'm no staples advocate as they are ugly & unconventional & generally get put in stupid places between classic cracks & bleached 1 star routes but besides the obvious "you're different, we don't like you" factor, what proof do we have of their safety???
Thanks for posting the link to that website featuring Tony Barley. I'd heard bits and pieces over the years, often from Robin himself and he did indicate that his staple anchors did get some sort of thumbs up from his brother. Incidentally, Robin and Tony were a rope team for many years spanning a number of continents from africa to australia.
I don't think much of the staples either but mostly to do with the difficulty of chopping / replacing them, which I think all anchors should be considered capable of. I've seen a few hack jobs where some idiot pulled them out leaving horrible spalled craters. It seems the only way to do it properly is to cut flush ( rechargeable zip cutter?), hopefully punch in the remains and fill the hole. Good luck on that but whatever you do DON'T MAKE THINGS WORSE.
Its a shame that the system dosn't have some rigorously tested and documented data to support it ( or does it..?) so we could give it the thumbs up - or not.
Maybe some euro or other ST denizen has some knowledge of these thgings out there?
Just a thought - why not just place a regular bolt adjacent to the staple? You get your redundant anchor points and you dont risk botching the chop.
I do have to knuckle down to administration on occasion for building construction conclusions. I'm behind the curve.
Staples are what I use to hold papers together with. Grouting rebar into concrete is a practice that has been discredited for at least 25 years when it was involved in structural integrity concerning homes people live in.
Any connection involving steel and concrete is best practiced with the use of embedded rebar at the time of casting. Embedded plates that incorporate cast stud anchors to 3/4's depth of the wall or slab involved are standard practice for a point to weld to.
If a shear component is introduced after casting a wall or slab, it must be adhered to a drilled and thoroughly clean of drill dust, hole by use of appropriate concrete epoxies. In compression, the same rules apply. There is no excuse for drilling and gluing something that's function is in tension unless the application is way below the pull out rating of the anchor. Ultimately all of these methods are a weak "afterthought" way of doing things.
Just because everyone likes to play at being a builder on the weekend, there is a lot of technology and skill involved with doing it right that people would do well to take a course in.
Of course SS wedge bolts have proven great in granite in shear and compression. There aren't too many used for pro drilled straight up. This is good...
Most of the construction junk used on climbs has a dynamic reality during a fall the manufacturer never anticipated.
Ryan, I have no proof, I have always just known it wasn't standard practice.
This is good enough reason for me though.
Staples are what I use to hold papers together with. Grouting rebar into concrete is a practice that has been discredited for at least 25 years when it was involved in structural integrity concerning homes people live in.
Thanks for that Jim. I will happily take experienced construction advice over the unknown.
So about that tree belay. Story was in one of the Squamish threads Mighty Wanker deleted when he left ST in a huff.
He and I were climbing the Smoke Bluff Connection (Late 70s? Early 80s?). It was really windy, but otherwise a fine day for climbing. I led the first pitch (Mosquito), he led the second (Phlegmish Dance). When I got to his belay -- which was a small but solid-looking tree -- he was not entirely happy with life. He pointed to a similar tree, lying on the ground a few meters away, and said "It just blew over while I was sitting here."
a 600lb climber falling the same distance feels a 6.91 kN force, the anchor a 13.8 kN force, which is getting up there into equipment failure mode.
Ed, I don't think i've ever met a 600lb climber, post picks please.
Last week, climbed a few routes at JT where the crux was protected by a RURP and the chossy start was protected by Knife Blades, thoroughly enjoyable! Sometimes spice is nice. ;-)
Let us know!