A Method of Testing the Strength of Heavy Duty Caving Belts The aim of this was to establish a method to test the strength of heavy duty caving belts that did not rely on having access to a load cell. I hoped to produce a simple system that needed very little equipment and that would …
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Category:Testing
Worn Connectors – Pull Testing 11-6-2017
Over the last few months I’ve been collecting a few bits of retired equipment from stores checks and ‘isolation’ bins with a view to looking at loss of strength due to wear. Nothing here constitutes a scientific test and this is purely for my own satisfaction, but I’m writing it up anyway. I used my …
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Removing Sleeve Anchors (SPITS etc…)
I guess this post is a bit of a continuation from the blog post I did about pull testing SPIT type anchors in 2015. Sorry it has taken me so long to get round to doing this! The original post can be seen here: http://www.peakinstruction.com/blog/pulling-spit-anchors-back-garden-test/. One of the points of that testing was to ascertain …
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More force testing on 5:1 systems
This post follows up on some initial testing done on 5:1 mechanical advantage systems used to tension tyrolean crossings done a few months ago. I suggest anyone who has not read that report catch up with it here before reading on as I don’t explain everything again here. For this batch of testing I used …
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Loads on a 5:1 Tensioning System
Tyroleans have been a bit of hot topic with me recently. I’ve developed some sites to use in my woodland near Whaley Bridge and been involved in some testing with BCA Trainer Assessors for the LCMLA scheme. We’ve measured the actual forces held by the anchors in a number of tyroleans but a really interesting …
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Woodland Tyrolean Development
Recently I headed out to our private woodland site to have a play with my new Rock Exotica Enforcer. We have recently developed a tyrolean crossing here along with calculations of anticipated loads and safety factors. Using the Enforcer on this tyrolean would give a real world check of my calculated figures as well as giving me …
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Pulling SPIT anchors – Back garden test
This week I thought I’d embark on a little back garden test of some brand new SPIT self driving anchors and some SPIT Grip 10mm sleeve anchors. Both take a normal M8 bolt and hanger and can be found in caves and mines across the UK. The Grip sleeves are placed with a drill and only …
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Pull Testing Ground Anchor Pins
It is quite common that where you need to anchor ropes to things, there are no natural things there to anchor to (like boulders). Climbers and cavers get round this by installing bolts and/or ground anchors. A ground anchor is a (hopefully) long length of angle, pole or bar that is driven in deep and …
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Can you cut rope with a household jet washer?
After the last blog post where I tried to compare washing a caving rope in a washing machine to jet washing I thought I’d try to see how much damage I could do to a rope with a jet washer. This photo was from the previous test where I exposed the rope to a full …
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Thoughts on jet washing caving ropes
I thought I’d ponder a little bit about the ‘myth’ of jet washers and caving ropes. I say myth because it appears that there is no real test data out there in the caving community. Recent caving forum discussions about jet washing happened to coincide with an associate company requesting we don’t use jet washers …
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