Rope Wrench feedback

[Cary Gibson]

yep, dbl fishermans, IMO, they run better with the wrench, the splice is too bulky to give it good grab

[softbankhawks]

Best I came up with was 30" armor prus eye2eye tied into michocan...5 wraps if memory serves. Quite different from yours. I climb on poison hivy.

God damn it. Annoying yet interesting!

[Ian Flatters]

I'll help if you need any!

 

Yes Please Just need this weather to clear off a bit,

[Ian Flatters]

a quick little vid I shot in my yard to show how fast the switch-over is from ascending to descent/working mode. I never climb DRT anymore, this is just so damn easy!

 

(ps, figured out how to upload in HD now, just had to change the MOV file to a MP4 file, so watch it in HD!)

 

Nice video Cary, nice smooth climb too

[Cary Gibson]

Thanks man, if that had of been a pruning job, I could have literally been working in less than 5 minutes, awesome, awesome tool this thing is

[kevin bingham]

The wrench taking half of the load...where did you get this statistic?

 

 

This is a tricky thing to put a number on precisely. The things that determine friction. Bushing diameter, angle, length of wrench. It is hard to find a good balance because when climbing around the tree, going out horizontally, you dont want the wrench to drag you down, especially us lighter guys. But then for going down the tree, mid air descents, you don't want too little friction at the wrench or it binds. I have heard that hitches bind more on heavier climbers. I am thinking of disigning a sub 170 lb wrench and a 200lb+ wrench that has a little more friction. I have found that the adjustment bushing does not have as much influence on friction as I originally thought. My method of friction measurement is as follows

 

I have 175lbs of weights in 5 pound, 2.5 lb, 25, lbs and 45 lb plates. I install a wrench on the rope, so far, only Poison Ivy has been tested. Work positioning with static lines in trees is not allowed by ANSI I believe. I personally find them problematic anyway. so I have not tested Static lines such as globe or escalator.

 

On the wrench I have a rope bag that I can place weights into. If I hang 10 lbs on the tail of the rope, i place plates in the bag until the point that the rope wrench begins to slide. I mark that point and then tie more weight onto the tail.

 

the results are interesting and more variable than I expcted. I found the wrench will slide sooner when it is warm as opposed to cold . this is true for the rope too. It is not something that is exactly quantified.

 

this is rounded off version of my results for a wrench in mid position on poison Ivy.

 

with 5 lb I needed 45 lb to slid

10- 50

15 65

20 80

30 110

35 115

40 125

 

these results do not follow a clean curve but they folloow more or less a trend. I seem to be getting somewhat lower numbers with the QRP but not much less.

 

I take the results to mean that as a 170 lb climber, I must hold more or less 40 lbs on my hand/hitch and transfer 130 lbs onto the wrench and I will slowly begin to descend, the more I transfer weight onto the wrench the faster I will descend. Its not so much what percentage of the weight does the wrench take, its more how much weight must be kept on the tail.

 

 

I want to conduct these tests with figure eights, atc's and racks as well. Its quite fun and I will keep you all posted if I get the system down enough to really give hard numbers and coefficients of friction etc.

 

Lots of variables including rope size, even humidity and temperature have effects on the rope wrench. I recommend going with a bigger rope if you are not getting enough friction.

 

Tests have been done with the wrench in a couple of places and it really comes down to your hitch. IT is very easy to tie a not good hitch that will take you to the ground if your not careful. The danger is more so than in ddrt because there is less rope that goes through the hitch and thus less chance to catch. Well tied hitches perform superbly in the drop tests while poorly tied hitches, especially hitches tied with stiffer cords can definitely take you for a ride. So many variables in play there as well.

[Cary Gibson]

see? I knew the Jedi-master would be here, it is like in the movie, field of dreams, "if you post it, he will come"

[Old Mill Tree Care]

SRT redirecting is sooooo easy. On lapsed pollards it takes a slightly different approach though.

Being wary that stems on a lime may pop due to the compression and ridiculous climber induced stresses down the stems I found that using a 'brace' like redirect worked just lovely.

To set your redirect...judge how much sideways movement your over extended stem may take and tie an alpine butterfly with guesstimated amount of slack in the rope. Clip butterfly into redirect point and continue climb.

When you begin to pull over second stem the first one will act as anchor without compressing.

 

Good post. I had been thinking about the compression issue. I had not thought about the alpine butterfly use though. That's a good idea. Thanks.

[Ian Flatters]

Arborholic reminded me to post these up. Follow the link for some pictures of us 2 on the RW/LJ setup Rope Wrench Testing climb | Facebook

[Paulfreebury]

what hitch are you using? remember, the RW will take half of the load, so your hitch should grab right away, but it doesn't have to be a monster-hitch

 

I've tried vt and distel on op and Ap, both hitches grab straight away, it's a weight thing I'm sure I weigh 220lb and I just not sure it's for the bigger climber. However ive not tried it on the bigger rope yet so I might be eating my words.