When do you retire a belay carabiner?
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So aside from dropping, missuse, etc. what are people's thoughts on when to retire a belay carabiner that has groves from repeated lowering/rappelling/belay duties? |
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i replaced mine not long after i noticed grooves in the biner from rappeling and stuff. the mere fact that i could tell there was less metal there than when I bought it was reason enough. plus (i think), the grooving increases the amount of surface area of the carabiner that the rope interacts with. more surface area = more drag, which i'm not into when using an auto-block device. |
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Here's a related question for you techie types. Obviously a 'biner with rope grooves in it is less strong than when it was new because there's less metal present. But what about the effects of heat? Does the repeated heating and cooling in that one spot have a greater (or any) effect on strength than the loss of the metal? |
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Richard, it'd have to be dramatic, so much so that you'd notice the physical damage. Same thing with strength, the minor grooving isn't a huge concern, nor is dropping a biner, all those other misnomers, etc; |
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Just as a matter of practice, I tend to retire it from belay biner duty every couple of years, or when the grooves get noticeably large. probably a little over cautious, but thats the one time you trust just one biner and ten bucks really isn't that much. |
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I have noticed that once you get grooves going, the rope will tend to snag more frequently when you are paying out slack for a lead belay. So lately I have been flipping the carabiner to use the smaller end. |
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This is my current belay biner - I should retire it soon. But this is a fat Jake locker, which is thicker than most lockers. And a few years ago I sent one that looked like this to Omega Pacific for testing, and it broke above the rated strength. Not advisable to let a thinner belay biner wear this much. |
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i wait until it fails. i usually have to replace my climbing partner at about the same time. |
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a while back, BD did a failure test of anchors that had rope grooves in them. |
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New Belay Biner $15 |
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Thanks for that link Josh- it is just what I was hoping for. It seems that even with a 25% reduction in metal, there is actually a gain in breaking strength- not that I am going to file down all my carabiners so they are stronger... It seems that the bigger issue here is when the groves create an edge that is sharp enough to cut/damage the sheath of the rope. The old Reversos seemed to get a very sharp edge from rope wear that I was always worried about. |
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Damn Greg, that biner has seen some use! |
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ccmski, |
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Petzl rates their biners to wear down to half of the original diameter for rappelling use before retirement. |
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What's a Petzl Attache cost these days? About 12 bucks??? |
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Rob Kepley wrote:What's a Petzl Attache cost these days? About 12 bucks???For what it's worth, I find the Atache biner to wear through very fast. I have several that have wear similiar to that Jake biner from a year's use. My BD pear biners seem to last much longer. I replace mine when my partner starts complaining. |
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I just replaced mine after it'd worn about 1/4 of the way through , i cant say that there are any sharp edges that im worried about it was more just how much it had worn through. I replaced it with a BD rock lock, those seem to take the wear and tear pretty well. |
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Crag Dweller wrote:i wait until it fails. i usually have to replace my climbing partner at about the same time.hilarious! |
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I was looking down at my atc during a dog session and noticed that the walls were very thin from rope wear. Like butter knifes holding my rope. |
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A side note to this discussion is that I've noticed BD biners whear considerably faster than Petzl. I get to replace my lockers for free from work most years and noticed I get about twice the life/use from the Petzl babies. It's not the amount or conditions of use as these are fairly consistant for me. |
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GEAR WEARS OUT?!?!? WTF?? :O) |