Treeflex bow shackle

[Tom D]

As I mentioned in Rob's thread, I had one of the bow shackles open on my treeflex yesterday, ultimately this is my fault for not checking it properlt before climbing however the reason it opened is as follows. The shackles are supplied with a small plastic collar on the head of the pin/bolt, this is squeezed on closing into the eye of the bow, the surface of the pin is knurled at this point too provide grip. In the case of my harness I had opened the shackles when I bought it to attach extra gear, I locktited the threads when I had finished. This lasted for a long time untill recently when I opened them again. This time I did not use locktite, the harness was not supplied locktited so I figured the plastic grips would be sufficient.

The plastic grip on the shackle that had opened was gone, it had obviously broken up and fallen off leaving the pin free to turn.

 

Therefore I can only say that IMO the plastic collar is not a safe method of securing the pin and a thread locking compound should be used on these harnesses from new. It is worth noting that I was able to rotate the pin simply by moving the bridge up and down under load and it is therefore likely that had i not spotted it it would have opened later that day, and also possible that it was screwed fully in when I started the climb and came undone after I left the ground.

 

So if you climb on a treeflex, locktite the shackles because once loose they could come undone very quickly.

[Mesterh]

I'll second that.

 

Noticed that one of my shackles was on its last thread and ready to fall out, only after getting down from being 40foot over a greenhouse, concrete floor etc

 

To say I was displeased was an understatement, I had only had the harness a few months iirc and hadnt removed or adjusted the shackles at all, they still had the plastic collars on. Since then have well and truly loctited them in, still check the bleedin thing every day, which imo is not very good

 

The bridge/shackle is a poor design anyway imo the alloy ring that you clip into constantly rubs across the shackles which I thought was the reason why they came loose.

[josharb87]

3rd that, checked mine daily when i had it, i had a tree flex 2-3yr ago only used it for 7months, had one of the faulty bridge ones, where they haddnt used the correct stitching, and as there was a protective sheath, you couldnt notice it. there was a recall after a guy (abroard i think) had his fail. when i looked at mine, there was no way it was going to take shock-loading, or possibly another climb-there was a 10mm gap between the folds with the stitching 50% appart-scary stuff!

[Marc]

You've got to check your shackles on any harness that uses them, i think i'm right in saying some had an accident when a shackle came undone with a dragonfly a few years back.

A mate of mine climbs with a treeflex, working with him recently I was having a nose at his harness and noticed to bits of red on his shackles, looked at them closer only to find both had come undone, one was just on by its last thread!!!

 

I don't blame the harness design, you got to check these things!

[Mesterh]

I don't blame the harness design, you got to check these things!

 

Sorry mate but I do blame the design it shouldnt be enough to say you should just check it, not when it is something as critical as this. Surely it wouldnt have taken much more effort to come up with a fail safe design.

[Marc]

Sorry mate but I do blame the design it shouldnt be enough to say you should just check it, not when it is something as critical as this. Surely it wouldnt have taken much more effort to come up with a fail safe design.

 

The design is there to make the bridge a high wear component replacable, to make every part of our system failsafe is hard thing to manage, we should check all vital parts of our systems daily, are the karabiners functioning properly, are our knots still tied and set right, is our rope undamaged, are all parts of the harness in still good order no frayed stiching connecting hardwear in working order and set right etc etc.

its not hard to do and quick and easy, i guess thats what the red nylon is for to give you an early indication.

 

Shackles like that are not new with harness design.

[Mesterh]

The design is there to make the bridge a high wear component replacable, to make every part of our system failsafe is hard thing to manage, we should check all vital parts of our systems daily, are the karabiners functioning properly, are our knots still tied and set right, is our rope undamaged, are all parts of the harness in still good order no frayed stiching connecting hardwear in working order and set right etc etc.

its not hard to do and quick and easy, i guess thats what the red nylon is for to give you an early indication.

 

Shackles like that are not new with harness design.

 

I'm not saying that we shouldnt check our gear what I am saying is that no doubt a simple lock nut or something with a locking pin would stop them coming undone even if they became loose.

 

When does something fail? when its been sitting in a kit bag over night or when in use? Should I be checking every hour or so while climbing?

 

The wheels on my truck are designed to be removed so I can replace the tyres but they dont have a habit of coming undone #

 

BTW not having a go at you in case it comes across that way just my thoughts

[Marc]

I'm not saying that we shouldnt check our gear what I am saying is that no doubt a simple lock nut or something with a locking pin would stop them coming undone even if they became loose.

 

When does something fail? when its been sitting in a kit bag over night or when in use? Should I be checking every hour or so while climbing?

 

The wheels on my truck are designed to be removed so I can replace the tyres but they dont have a habit of coming undone #

 

BTW not having a go at you in case it comes across that way just my thoughts

 

I don't think there is a great chance of them coming undone in one climb, I reckon on my friends harness they had been coming loose for sometime.

 

From memory when this happend on the dragonfly/butterfly harness a reccomendation went out that locktight should be used.

 

I do see your point about a fail safe, i'd be intrested in what is in the user manual about them.

[Mesterh]

I do see your point about a fail safe, i'd be intrested in what is in the user manual about them.

 

I didnt get one with mine

[combined tree services]

i know with miller/ commet they are not using lock tight when manufactured and when you replace the bridge or attachment ring your told to use lock tight when doing the shackles up . (but no torque setting) lol