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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 8, 2015 - 03:51pm PT
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Thanks Matt! But please use the 1/2 x 2.75" bolts - which are stainless - for the lower gorge at Smith (basalt). Kent should have plenty of those, I recently sent him another large box for the lower gorge. Those 1/2" x 3.75" plated are only for the very porous soft tuff of the main areas. Your new bolts should still be fine for several decades in the lower gorge, and much stronger than those old bolts.
We do still supply a few plated 1/2" x 3.75" bolts to porous rock dry desert areas, where rust is minimal because water evaporates through the rock. The reason is that that length bolt is not made in stainless. The next length in stainless is 4.75", which requires an extra-long drill bit for the last 3/4" or so of the hole, and that length bolt tends to develop spinners in soft sandstone.
Glue-ins are preferred in any area with rock soft enough to need long 1/2" bolts, but for obvious reasons they are impractical in many applications such as desert towers where you immediately rap from the new bolts. Also many rebolters are not familiar with them, although the trend is definitely towards glue-in use in many areas.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Thanks for explaining, Greg.
I agree in the drier areas like Smith, there are many good options.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 8, 2015 - 04:29pm PT
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Also the 1/2 x 4.75" are super expensive, so we don't buy too many of them, there have been several times where they were on my planned order but got scratched off due to the high price.
We haven't purchased the plated 3.75" in a long time, we are still working off of some we bought years back. I'm not even sure if we have any left or not, I probably send some of those out only once every 2 or 3 years.
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
"OBcean" San Diego, CA
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For those who don't know just how sketchy those old generation SMC hangers are, look at Clint's post of a Steve Grossman photo (previous page) of the three SMC hangers. The center hanger has the all too common stress crack at the bolt hole. Often, the crack extends from the hole to the outer edge. I've even seen multiple cracks on a single hanger.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 8, 2015 - 05:05pm PT
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Yes, definitely listen to Juan. I've seen a lot more cracked & broken thin SMC hangers than Leepers! Unfortunately it can be hard to tell at a glance if the SMC hanger is the thin or the stainless, at least in areas that are really dry (in wet areas the thin SMCs are rusty).
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two-shoes
Trad climber
Auberry, CA
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Greg, if you have just a very small button magnet you should be able to tell rather easy if the SMC hanger is the carbon steel, or the Stainless Steel. SMC SS must have been worked cold because they are just very slightly magnetic, while the carbon steel should have a strong pull with the magnet.
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brian benedon
Trad climber
tucson
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This broken pin showed the different shades of rust as described when I found it. I am lucky that it broke off when I made the clip, at-least I knew the circumstances.
Nothing wrong with this 1/4" Button head, it was roughly 30+ years old when we replaced it.
Most of the 1/4" bolts have pulled out with some effort. I have yet to replace any 5/16 bolts, I figured they were good enough for now. We have many in S. AZ
I'm very sad to hear of this tragedy, I hope this is a wake up call to get these old bolts replaced.
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Screwmar
Trad climber
Compton (seriously)
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i think Roger Brown has a good point. a few years back after tying into a two bolt button-head anchor on calaveras dome one of the bolts just slid right out. This came as a surprise since leaning back pulled it out. This was a 3/8 hammer in split shaft. It was a cheap electroplated kind. The shaft had a similar flat fracture across the cross section of the bolt about mid depth and was also partly rusty on the fractured face. I have a hunch that a common issue with button heads is that when the hole is drilled a hair too short, the final hammering either causes a partial fracture or weakening when the bolt bottoms out. maybe frost freeze and corrosion does the rest and it just sits there waiting until it gets really loaded. we replaced the bolt the following week along with others. I really appreciate the efforts of Greg, and others who donate their time to replacing so many bolts over the years. It is hard work and very time consuming. It is such a roulette when you are pulling out bolts. some come out so easy, and others hang on to the bitter end.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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^^Did you add bolts?
Edit: nice edit to the MP thread - you must have.
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MattF
Trad climber
Bend, Or
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Apr 12, 2015 - 11:16am PT
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Greg and Clint - thanks for the info. Very informative. As a relativley new bolter/rebolter there's lots of good info to learn.
Greg - Yeah, Kent gave me 3.75" bolts for Child Abuse. That one in the pic is actually a 4.75", but I didn't place any like that on Child Abuse. He said those were for the tuff, and in particular for the lowest density sections of tuff, which makes sense. I got the bolts from him maybe a month back so maybe he hadn't gotten more of the 2.75" ones yet? Child Abuse is one of the two or three most whipped-on climbs in the lower gorge, so maybe its good that it has the 3.75" bolts in it... :-)
Clint - As for 5 piece, maybe I'm counting the number of pieces wrong. I was kinda assuming it was bolt, metal spacer, plastic spacter, expansion sheath, and cone. The old bolts don't have the metal spacer, so thats why I was thinking 4 piece, but maybe I'm counting the wrong things? Maybe its bolt, sheath, cone, hangar, and washer, or something like that?
We pulled the bolts on the anchor on the quite popular Quasar (10a) which is just a couple climbs over, and had similar SMC hangars to the Child Abuse ones, though I don't have them in front of me so I can't say if they were the same hangars or if there was a difference like SS vs cro-moly. I assumed all SMC hangars from that era were "thin" because they are thinner than modern hangars. Didn't realize there was actually a difference.
Anyway, the Quasar hangars had cut half-way through the bolts (although they were not 5-piece Rawls - they were the ones that are threaded out past the hangar with a nut, I think 5/16"). Maybe those hangars were the "thin" ones and the Child Abuse hangars were the "thick" SS ones. Or if the hangars were the same it could be a difference in bolts and there was galvanic corrosion on the Quasar anchors while there wasn't on the Child Abuse bolts? Or some other reason why the bolt/hangar combo was so much worse on Quasar than on Child Abuse.
The full motivation to replace the Child Abuse bolts was 1) 30 years old and some visible rust on hangars/bolt heads. 2) old SMC hangars that were similar if not the same to hangars that were very dangerous a couple climbs over. 3) All except 2 were spinners. 4) I got permission from the FAists to move the bolts and make it safe/reasonable to hang draws on lead. The bolts were pretty much all too high to clip from decent stances, so everyone hangs draws on lower after doing the climb next to it. The second bolt in particular was dangerously high unless you had a double-draw pre-hung on it. Now all the bolts are in really nice spots and the climb leads much better. So even though the old bolts probably had a few more years in them, its still a vast improvement to one of the ultraclassic and most climbed on routes in the gorge. Yay!
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Jay Wood
Trad climber
Land of God-less fools
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Apr 12, 2015 - 07:32pm PT
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Two Shoes:
I cringe when reading of your claw hammer tuning fork technique
of striking one hammer face with another,
but apparently you have escaped injury from this so far.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 13, 2015 - 09:00am PT
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Matt,
As for 5 piece, maybe I'm counting the number of pieces wrong. I was kinda assuming it was bolt, metal spacer, plastic spacter, expansion sheath, and cone. Right, I never liked the term "5 piece", because the number of pieces varies (the metal spacer is only for the longer bolts).
Also I think the plastic spacer is missing in the shortest version.
Other pieces are the washer, and the plastic plug in the cone.
I wouldn't count the hanger.
The manufacturer's name for them is (Rawl or Powers) Power-Bolt.
There are more pieces than a wedge bolt (which has bolt, ring, nut and washer).
And the pieces tend to fall apart if they are hanging on a biner instead of in a bag!
I know what you mean about the SMC stainless hanger being thinner than the 4mm Fixe hanger. However I think the Petzl Coeur or original Metolius SS hangers are similar thickness to the SMC stainless.
We generally try to replace bolts in the original holes.
So for the Powerbolt, this means extra techniques for separating the
cone and sheath, and pulling them out.
Since you were moving the locations a bit with advice from the FA party,
that sounds good.
The permission is key, though. Otherwise there is a risk of turning it into a "revision" project instead of "replacement". That's outside the ASCA mission - more into the "Sloan zone"....
"Spinner" - I was discussing this with Bruce on Thursday.
A spinning hanger is a pain when you are trying to clip it at the limit of your reach!
But a spinner is not generally weak. In fact it puts less stress on the hanger, so in the case of the very thin version of the Leeper, it prevents cracking due to stress.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 13, 2015 - 09:03am PT
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What does the blue plastic spacer really do?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 13, 2015 - 09:10am PT
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The Power-Bolt is also designed to draw the fixture into full bearing against the base material
through the action of its flexible compression ring. As the anchor is being tightened, the
compression ring will crush if necessary to tightly secure the fixture against the face of the
base material. http://www.powers.com/pdfs/mechanical/06914.pdf
So apparently the blue ring helps correct the problem if the bolt is not driven far enough into the hole.
Of course the application Powers has in mind is fastening machinery to a concrete floor.
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA/Boulder, CO
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Apr 13, 2015 - 10:52am PT
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The Powers Power-Bolt, AKA 5-piece, has a differing number of pieces depending on the style and length. Here are some examples in the SS version.
-2.25" 'shorty' has a 1) bolt 2) gray plastic washer 3) SS washer 4) sleeve 5) cone 6) blue plastic cap on cone
-2.25" 'regular' has a 1) bolt 2) gray plastic washer 3) SS washer 4) blue plastic collar 5) sleeve 6) cone 7) blue plastic cap on cone
-3.5" 'regular' has a 1) bolt 2) gray plastic washer 3) SS washer 4) sleeve 5) blue plastic collar 6) sleeve (which is the same sleeve piece as the 2.25") 7) cone 8) blue plastic cap on cone
BTW - the small gray washer between the bolt head and the SS washer is to indicate when the bolt is properly torqued. When the plastic starts 'squishing out' between the bolt head and the washer you have applied the proper torque to the bolt.
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two-shoes
Trad climber
Auberry, CA
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Apr 13, 2015 - 11:30am PT
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Hi Jay Wood,
Wearing eye protection is always a good idea. I'm good about keeping the tool dressed well and keeping all of the metal burrs ground down. I make a small strike area on the edge of the strike area for the leverage blows that are delivered straight down on the tool. I've always thought that this tool would crack from all of the abuse at some point but it just keeps on ticking. I guess Stanley makes a respectable tool.
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Jay Wood
Trad climber
Land of God-less fools
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Apr 13, 2015 - 09:08pm PT
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Yeah, flying chips from hardened face striking hardened face.
Hammers these days are softer & more beveled, so maybe it's less of an issue, but I've seen hammer faces with nasty looking pieces missing.
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onyourleft
climber
Smog Angeles
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Apr 18, 2015 - 05:35pm PT
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Please forgive me if this has already been suggested as a stubborn bolt removal tool.
This is found over on Geir Hundal's Southern Arizona website:
http://www.geir.com/hurley.html
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Ed H
Trad climber
Santa Rosa, CA
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May 27, 2015 - 10:58pm PT
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Did a warm up climb and found some 5/16 button heads with thin (?) SMC spinning hangers on Paper Tiger (5.6 PG13), Queens Throne, Shuteye Ridge. Topo says FA was 1989, along with most of the routes there. PG13 felt like full R to us - too early in the season for long runout slab - phew.
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