Need identifier tips for bad Aliens

Hey guys,
I have an old 3/4 Alien,never used since I heard there were issues. How do you tell these apart?
John

tiny.cc/7yiqw

john pruett wrote:Hey guys, I have an old 3/4 Alien,never used since I heard there were issues. How do you tell these apart? John

Like was said, there is no way of knowing. There have been enough failures of aliens that were not part of any recall but have failed to discount anything that CCH says is fine.

Similar topic went through Gunks last week....

Long story short, there's what CCH says in their Recall, then there's what they say in their Extended Recall, and then there's the fact that defective ones have been found outside of either recall period, including ones that had the Tensile Tested mark and no Dimple of Death.

If you're in the mood for some reading: Link

Long story short, I pull tested several dozen new and used Aliens and then proceeded to cross section the heads to examine the braze and found no way to tell good from bad. Only way to know for sure is to have it proof tested to some load you're comfortable with, but at the moment I don't know anyone doing such a thing (I stopped after publishing the report). Bear in mind, given the softness of the lobes there's a good chance a proof test to any significant load will squash the lobes and render the piece unusable. I also had quite a few axles go U-shaped, but never got around to hardness testing them to see if there was a problem with the heat treatment (a smaller V-anvil for my hardness tester is ~$400, so not something I was/am inclined to pony up for personally). Pics of all of the test samples are in the PDF linked on the page linked above.

Of course, some think I have/had some sort of axe to grind WRT CCH, so feel free to ignore any and all of the above.

-a.

If you find the markings that say Alien, it may fail for no good reason.

If it blows up when you fall on it, it's probably one of the bad ones.

Yeah, it's hard to tell. First they're all like "we come in peace", then they break out those probes and, oh... those aliens... nevermind.

I am an alien from downunder... never take us on face value... dimple of death or not, we may eat your babies!

Aric Datesman wrote:Similar topic went through Gunks last week.... Long story short, there's what CCH says in their Recall, then there's what they say in their Extended Recall, and then there's the fact that defective ones have been found outside of either recall period, including ones that had the Tensile Tested mark and no Dimple of Death. If you're in the mood for some reading: Link Long story short, I pull tested several dozen new and used Aliens and then proceeded to cross section the heads to examine the braze and found no way to tell good from bad. Only way to know for sure is to have it proof tested to some load you're comfortable with, but at the moment I don't know anyone doing such a thing (I stopped after publishing the report). Bear in mind, given the softness of the lobes there's a good chance a proof test to any significant load will squash the lobes and render the piece unusable. I also had quite a few axles go U-shaped, but never got around to hardness testing them to see if there was a problem with the heat treatment (a smaller V-anvil for my hardness tester is ~$400, so not something I was/am inclined to pony up for personally). Pics of all of the test samples are in the PDF linked on the page linked above. Of course, some think I have/had some sort of axe to grind WRT CCH, so feel free to ignore any and all of the above. -a.

Aric, nice to see you around, I'm just curious as to when I can create an account on theclimbinglab.com. Keep up the good work and let me know when I can get an account.

Hahaha...so we've come full cirlce huh???

• First - Fear and loathing. Aliens fail, everyone cries out they are the worst thing ever....
• Next - Everyone forgets quickly, Dave W. dies and the fear of not having the cams that everyone just hated skyrockets the prices of USED cams to $75-100.
• Later - Cams are selling for a reasonalbe price within a month, but are still going for $50 used.
• Now - The "aliens are bad, they fail" conversation comes up.

Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy? Are we climbers or is this US Weekly? Scuze me...I have to take a call from Lindsay Lohan...

my hybrids haven't failed yet...

just destroy it and buy Metolius!!!!

With all the problems this company has, I'm amazed that they are still in business.

Anyway, I'm in need of a new rope; so I'm heading to Ace Hardware to buy one of those ones off their shelf. You know, those 3/8" jobbies people use for yard work, etc....

Anyone up for some climbing this afternoon so we can "break" in my new rope?

It's about the same thing as using aliens..... Why would you want to take that risk?

my .02$

Juan

Scott McMahon wrote:Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy?

Nope.

kennoyce wrote: Aric, nice to see you around, I'm just curious as to when I can create an account on theclimbinglab.com. Keep up the good work and let me know when I can get an account.

Yup, I'm still around; just not on RC anymore. And given that I mainly lurk on all of the other sites it's not surprising you haven't seen me.

Anyway, no idea yet when we're going to open up TheClimbingLab as we're still working out some bugs in the software and putting the advisory committee together. So maybe sometime in November?

-a.

Aric Datesman wrote: Yup, I'm still around; just not on RC anymore. And given that I mainly lurk on all of the other sites it's not surprising you haven't seen me. Anyway, no idea yet when we're going to open up TheClimbingLab as we're still working out some bugs in the software and putting the advisory committee together. So maybe sometime in November? -a.

cool, I can't wait.

Not to stir the pot....

Reading the Alien report by Aric, it's worth nothing the kN at failure. Yeah, most of them failed below their rating but MANY of them still got to a respectable #. Not that I'm saying it's a good thing or bad thing BUT failing at 9kN isn't the same as 3kN.

Just food for thought.

I've moved on (for the most part) to master cams...

Very true, Matt, and I think I recall there being a section in the document that discusses the possibility of CCH simply being overly optimistic with their ratings. Failing where they did wouldn't bother me one bit if they were rated below that point. Of course this is ignoring the whole brazing issue and the fact that you can't tell a good one from a bad one by simple external examination...

Anyway, it amazes me that the CCH thing keeps coming up... Either word didn't get out as well as I thought it had or people have short memories.

JSH wrote:Anyway, it may be worth your while to make an FAQ page that people can just link to, so you don't have to be the singular response every time.

Already in process... Gear Issues and Recalls @ TheClimbingLab

:-)

Good idea, and now added.