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Calling Of The Bolt Chopping. (Read 35914 times)

T_B

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#200 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 10:00:05 am
I’m surprised no one has mentioned liability yet given these are homemade.

Also, why can’t Chris Parkin be named?

Talk about smoke and mirrors.

petejh

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#201 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 10:04:22 am
I didn't see what value it added.

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#202 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 10:16:16 am
Might be worth having a thread listing any people spot, and which category they fall into?
And now we've come full circle to exactly what Si Witcher was asking for a week ago  :yes:

danm

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#203 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 01:47:35 pm
To answer Andy's question:

We're assuming they are 316 but we don't know, because there is no traceability or QA we know of.

As a bolt design it isn't ideal because the resin can only mechanically key in one plane, rather in all directions which spreads the load nicely. I'd be keen to see some pull-out test results.

I also suspect they are tricky to rotate during installation to ensure good keying of the resin, but I could be wrong, a lot depends on the installer and how much they know about this stuff.

I also doubt they are polished and passivated like a good commercial stainless anchor which can really improve the corrosion properties especially on a sea cliff.

Andy B

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#204 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 01:51:49 pm
I was hanging off the Stand belay a few weeks ago and only noticed two bolts (and didn’t notice the glue until after I’d backed them up with a couple of wires). They were both placed in the same seam and looked quite different to the ones pictured up thread. They were connected by a shonky piece of blue 8 or 9mm tat, with three rap rings threaded.
Where is the third bolt?

petejh

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#205 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 02:10:18 pm
The ones placed in The Strand were the 'mark 1' versions which had a square head, and were either painted black or were left silver (bare stainless). The newer versions are essentially the same, but have a tapered head, have deeper more aggressive notches cut into the shaft for keying into the rein, and are often painted light orange as per the photos up thread.

I recall three were placed, maybe I'm wrong and it was two and one of the pegs remained. Or maybe one pulled out!

The cord on the Strand ones was deliberately made to look a little bit 'tatty' - including the way the tat was tied - so as to make trad climbers think they were abbing off a typical peg abseil point with typically slightly 'untidy' tat. Could have easily made the tat nice and tidy and vectored like you might see on a sport climbing lower-off, but the idea was to make it look 'traddy'. Not my idea!

This is the thinking behind these things - it's similar in other places such as the Pass etc. Make it look 'traddy' (i.e. a bit untidy) and people are OK with it. Make it look too much like what you find on sport routes and people might baulk. I think it's bonkers personally.
Interestingly in Ireland they seem to be happy to place 2 bolt abseil anchors in trad areas - Pigeon Rock, Gap of Dunloe, Glendalough. I found it a bit jarring when I first encountered it so goes to show there's something there in the 'make it look tatty and traddy' mindset. But I still think 2 bolts makes most sense.


Dan, he had them pull-tested by Jim from bolt products, at PyB in the early 2010's. I was there. They perform very well when glued properly in good rock - I recall 30kN but could be wrong as we were testing the 12mm twisted legs at the same time. It certainly wasn't a low figure and was typical of a 12mm resin bolt.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2022, 02:33:54 pm by petejh »

spidermonkey09

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#206 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 02:20:04 pm

Interestingly in Ireland they seem to be happy to place 2 bolt abseil anchors in trad areas - Pigeon Rock, Gap of Dunloe, Glendalough. I found it a bit jarring when I first encountered it

I remember finding bolted abseil anchors at Arapiles a bit jarring in a predominantly trad area too, when I was doing a lot of trad. Its an interesting response.

SA Chris

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#207 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 03:14:09 pm
I've found them as a standard in a lot of "trad" areas worldwide; Arapiles, Blue Mountains, around Wanaka NZ, Squamish, a few places in US, a few places in SA.

petejh

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#208 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 28, 2022, 06:09:38 pm
Yeah for sure they're all over the rest of the world's trad areas, I thought they were way overdone in Canada but my Canadian friends thought I was dumb to want to waste gear and time building belays on trad routes. I was just a little surprised to find them used on ab points around Ireland because, you know... Ireland.

mark20

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#209 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 09:25:04 am
The N.Wales 'bolts that look like pegs' are one step better, because they're stainless. But still founded in a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.

The logical solution imo is a bolt that looks and works like a bolt.
I quite like the idea of the peg-bolts, where a crucial peg is generally considered crucial and worth replacing with a stainless bolt.
I'm not sure they're placed to be deliberately deceptive, but placed to be more in keeping with aesthetics of trad. Shiny 16mm glue ins, or worse, petzl expansions stand out like a sore thumb. Less likely to be able to see them from the ground etc.
Peg-bolts might need to be drilled, but if this gives the ability to place them in a seam, very close to the original peg placement, then I think this is a nice nod to the history of the route, and hopefully also stops any confusion as to why it was placed, ie it's to replace a historical peg, not a random bolt in a blank section of rock, which would be more likely to lead to more bolts as time goes on.
Where can I get some ?  :worms:


petejh

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#210 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 10:53:34 am
I can definitely see the merit in that view. These bolts do have a lower visual impact than a resin bolt made by one of the common bolt manufacturers, and their aesthetic does fit in on trad better than other bolts.

What I've tried to do is explain my view that these things should be acknowledged to be bolts, because that's what they are.  :shrug:
They aren't 'pegs'. I think trying to label them 'eco pegs' is bullshitting people. Even calling them 'peg bolts is only going halfway to accepting what they actually are. They're installed just like any other 12mm glue-in bolt.

If people accept that these things are bolts they then know what to base their opinions on instead of starting from a notion about them being replacement pegs.

You could contact the NWBF for some?

T_B

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#211 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 11:25:04 am
The N.Wales 'bolts that look like pegs' are one step better, because they're stainless. But still founded in a deception that makes climbers believe they're a peg.

The logical solution imo is a bolt that looks and works like a bolt.

Peg-bolts might need to be drilled, but if this gives the ability to place them in a seam, very close to the original peg placement, then I think this is a nice nod to the history of the route, and hopefully also stops any confusion as to why it was placed, ie it's to replace a historical peg, not a random bolt in a blank section of rock, which would be more likely to lead to more bolts as time goes on.
Where can I get some ?  :worms:

But it’s a lie Mark. You’d climb above that peg knowing it’s a bolt differently than you would if it were an actual peg. That’s why this is so dishonest and why I’m surprised by Neil’s on-sight comments up thread. I’ve never trusted a peg since I started climbing. In the US/Canada you just don’t get the same feel to routes as they’re either cracks, or there’s a bolt. Even on the super runout routes in eg Tuolumne you clip a bolt and breathe a massive sigh of relief. In the UK when you clip a peg you’re generally shitting yourself!

The fact that the bolt has been placed in a seam is aesthetics. The magic which, IMO, makes British trad so special will be lost, because you know it’s 100% bomber.

Fultonius

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#212 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 12:37:15 pm
The fact that the bolt has been placed in a seam is aesthetics. The magic which, IMO, makes British trad so special will be lost, because you know it’s 100% bomber.

I don't personally think there's any magic in a bit of untrustworthy fixed gear. I'd sooner see the route stripped back to nothing, but I realise this is a personal opinion and I guess that's part of the issue here - we all have different perspectives and I doubt we'll ever be able to agree on what the "true essence of British trad" really is.  For me, iffy pegs are not something I'd miss if they went - but I do see the merit in preserving the history on some routes.

andy moles

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#213 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 12:45:13 pm
"Pegs are shit, so we should keep them."

No status quo bias in that argument! Why not pre-rust your wires in a bucket of salty water too, to amplify the experience of doubt?  :P

It's not like the practice of placing pegs was deliberately calibrated to foster a wholesome uncertainty. It developed through people working with what they had to try to make things safer. But it was a rubbish solution in the long term.

I think if shitting yourself is your thing TB you shouldn't worry, there are plenty of bold routes without pegs, to which none of this applies!

mrjonathanr

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#214 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 12:46:55 pm
Hi Fultonius, I didn’t read what Tom was saying as ´pegs impart magic’; rather, ‘bolts remove it’. There’s no argument for retention of pegs, bar homage to FA’s ethics.


andy moles

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#215 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 01:47:57 pm
Hi Fultonius, I didn’t read what Tom was saying as ´pegs impart magic’; rather, ‘bolts remove it’. There’s no argument for retention of pegs, bar homage to FA’s ethics.

I think if you look at Tom's comments back on page 5 and 6 you'll find he is arguing for retention of pegs.

T_B

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#216 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 03:22:10 pm
My feeling is sea cliffs should be treated separately. Remove fixed gear.

Elsewhere, where you can replace like for like do so, or leave it unless you can protect with modern gear (eg Hell’s Wall, Castellan).

Leader placed gear keeps improving as someone said earlier. With small, narrow cams it’s not just that they go in where previously you couldn’t get anything in, you’re whacking them in more quickly than you can place a wire.

It’s not like I don’t understand the argument for these bolts and have sympathy for the concept, I just think the evidence already is it’s the TEOTW.

Fiend

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#217 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
October 29, 2022, 04:48:14 pm
That's an interesting point (in a thread that keeps having interesting points!) from M20 about the merit of having similar aesthetics.

On the one hand it's important to make it clear that these are bolts in terms of the ethics of them being drilled and glued and nearer 100% reliable.

On the other hand it could be important to not make it too clear that these are bolts and - so far - have been used strictly as peg replacements in similar, if drilled, seams, to discourage their use from being extrapolated too far.

Maybe there is merit in fooling people a bit so that they look at these bolts and think "they're quite peggy and have only been used next to the pegs they're replacing" , rather than something more blatant like the ethically equivalent expansion bolts where people might think "they're quite bolty and although they've only been used to replace pegs so far on this route, maybe some more could be shoved in because that's just what you do with bolty bolts" .  :-\ :shrug:

Not so much "peg-bolts" as "peg-replacement-bolts"...

(This is a slightly separate question to whether they are justified at all, and if so on which routes. And of course entirely separate from them being added to routes instead of strictly as peg replacements only).

andy moles

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#218 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 16, 2022, 09:16:19 am
When I had a couple of hours to kill the other day I started a NW pegbolt catalogue spreadsheet, aiming to list all the instances of these, along with whether they replace an old peg and whether they make a big difference to the boldness of the route.

I quickly realised it was quite a lot of work, especially given the gaps in my knowledge (I can't remember how many PBs are in some routes I've climbed this year, never mind whether they are a direct replacement for a peg).

So putting it to the floor, would it be a valuable and worthwhile thing having this information laid out in an easily digestible format to inform this debate in future?

Fiend

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#219 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 16, 2022, 09:53:20 am
Good effort starting. That is exactly what Si Witcher was asking for at the NW Area Meet, so, yes it would be welcome!!

petejh

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#220 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 16, 2022, 10:58:13 am
I think it would be useful to have. But I think they should be called 'bolts, replacing pegs'. Not pegbolts.

andy moles

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#221 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 16, 2022, 11:15:22 am
I think it would be useful to have. But I think they should be called 'bolts, replacing pegs'. Not pegbolts.

Except that some of them aren't replacing pegs... Let's call them 'P bolts', since that is precisely their shape!

I checked my claim about the Manhattan ones btw, it's got 3 'P bolts' and one conventional expansion bolt. The first one is a direct replacement of a peg, but I couldn't tell with the other two. There is gear of sorts close to all three of them, though none of it looks great. The third one is totally pointless, as the second is at your feet when you clip it and the expansion bolt (which protects the run-out crux of Katie's) is only a metre above.

petejh

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#222 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 16, 2022, 12:37:30 pm
Fair.. P bolts at least sounds more like a bolt than a peg!

I remember thinking similar about the bolts on Katie's - one was pointless as it was close to another, two had average gear nearby but the gear was fiddly, and the 4th (expansion) before the crux was welcome. Although the crux can also be protected by a fiddly cam just before you start it, but would be scary having that as the only piece. I think it'd be a stern and somewhat bold E8 (and definitely dirtier) without any of the bolts. Personally I'd have got rid of 2 bolts and kept the 2nd and 4th.

andy moles

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#223 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 17, 2022, 09:13:21 am
This is the start I made, just using Craig y Forwyn as an example:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjkz6TIMXeLIAJoCCzLRJMKhYx3Gn1hykb8AmT9L028/edit?usp=sharing

Feedback or suggestions (or more data) welcome before I put more time into fleshing it out.

steveri

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#224 Re: Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.
November 17, 2022, 09:35:08 am
'Best estimate of age' and 'Material' columns?
Large lawyer's disclaimer and anonymity :)

 

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