Smooth climbing

[Arbutus 510]

what is the difference with the spider jack 1 and the spider jack 2, I have climbed on one for about 3 years now, the SJ2 is certainly a lot cheeper than what i paid for the SJ1.

[RobArb]

Welcome Joe.

 

Is that some kind of self-coiling pack for your lanyard on the back of your harness? I'm well interested in that!

 

Not having 3m of lanyard coiling round my legs may make my life a little easier at times!

 

 

[joe into trees]

That is indeed a retractable lanyard. I've been meaning to put the plans online for ages now... but you know how it is with time in this industry. It'll happen one day!

 

Basically, the retraction system and reel are ripped out of a vacuum cleaner. Took a lot of visits to skips, council tips and vacuum cleaner shops to find just the right one! The case is made from two pvc pipe-ends joined by a strip of alloy sheet with screws put through it. The cord is 10mm Spectra Speed, and the system retracts up to about 5m of it fairly smoothly. More than that and it starts to bind from time to time. You can use 7m of 8mm line but it's hard on the hands when you have to pull yourself in. It attaches to the back of the harness with broad bands of velcro, which wrap inside the harness back-pad.

 

The system is called 'The Tree Tentacle' and is a joint production with Scott Sharpe, who as many of you would know was tragically killed last year. We had talked about sourcing decent springs and making this thing commercially (hence the plans) but I'm too busy now to do anything with it so if anyone wants to develop it then help yourselves! It's bloody marvelous... even if I do say so myself... no more lanyard on stubs, around feet, on chainsaw, etc.

 

"is there some sort of basic guide to using different ascenders/descenders any where?"

 

Hi Danny Boy. Rupe is probably right that the next step from a prussik loop is adding a micropulley to tend slack. There are lots of guides around, but a (fairly) comprehensive guide to ascenders, along with some other stuff, can be found on the VTIO site.

 

Lastly, there is no major difference between the SJ1 and SJ2 - in fact a lot of the parts are interchangeable - they have just improved the body design to reduce the number of bolts and facilitate easier changing of the cam etc.

 

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck with the retractable lanyards - had a lot of fun making mine and starting to see more and more climbers with them down here. Maybe someone will take the idea and run with it and we can all stop hanging around the skips and just buy a decent one!

[john p]

sounds wicked,any chance of a couple of close up photos please?

[Mark Bolam]

Thanks Joe.

 

I hope Reg is reading this!

[RobArb]

haha how naive am i:blushing:

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/climbers-talk/26563-new-inventions.html

[atree]

im gonna design or copy what ive seen of the retracting lanyard and distribute under the name.. ..????? wait for it yeeesss STEIN

 

Hahaha yeh so true.

 

Once again great video and climbing,Expensive thing to get here if you dont get on with it.

[Ross Smith]

i saw kia martin using one in NZ and yes they look very effective but a little bulky.

[Danny Boy]

Start with a pulley under your prussik and see how you get on with that to start with.

 

What does the pulley do Rupe?

 

Is it connected to the harness to keep the tail end of the rope straight?

[Rupe]

No, it advances the prussik up your rope for you, one handed, or if not fully one handed it still help you to climb like in the video, its the first step at least to moving away from body thrusting with a prussik or blakes, but to get the full effect you will need a better hitch, then low friction at your anchor point, so a ropeguide or similar required there. It goes on and on and gets expensive.