DIY adjustable etrier design:

Firstly, there is no need to point out my penchant for reinventing the wheel. Humor me.

I've been interested in a set of adjustable aiders, but the designs on the market leave much to be desired. The ones with toothed Ancra buckles wear out the nylon extremely fast, and the Metolius and Petzl designs with sliding buckles do not adjust very smoothly (not to mention the ~$35/ea MSRP for a few pennies worth of nylon.) I toyed with the idea of machining my own buckles similar to the Petzl, but opted to make something out of existing gear first. I like how smoothly this works, but I'd love to get some feedback from other similarly deranged DIY'er aid climbers.

Ingredients:
-oval biner
-short dogbone runner
-two rap rings
-24" prusik loop
-short section of 6mm cord
-10' or 12' 3/4" webbing (mil.spec.)

Take a short dog bone runner and two rap rings. Tie some 6mm cord in a dogvine knot through both biner loops. Girth a prusik loop around the outer ring and pass the knot through the biner. Thread about 10' of 3/4" nylon webbing through the rings and tie a foot loop. (I added a length of 1/8" thick aluminum as a stiffener.)

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-I attached the rings in this way to restrict a bit of twisting that can make them fail to lock.
-It locks securely enough to bounce test, runs smoothly, and releases very smoothly with a tug on the prusik loop.
-Steel rings are probably necessary for the sake of wear.

Whaddayathink?
Got any improvements?

[mungeclimber at Bigwalls.com asked for a video demonstration: YouTube Link ]

-gg

Looks nice.
Maybe do some testing to see what it will slip at? That would be a little scary to have it sliding at the wrong time.

This could be accomplished with a car or some weight plates or a come-along - just enough to know that it significantly more than a bounce test.
Or you could send a test piece in to adatesman over at rockclimbing.com for pull testing.

I've sewn several pairs of my own aid ladders, and they work great! Way cheaper too.

I tried my adjustable aiders on an overhanging bolt ladder at the gym (I wanted to warm up on a .13- at least once in my life)
I decided the design needed an improvement. The sequence felt a little strange since I had to release the buckle and lengthen the aider by pushing down with my leg before clipping the next bolt. That sort of wasted motion is exactly why adjustable aiders aren't popular.

So I replaced the prusik release loop with a tied loop of shock cord to make a buckle that locks off automatically similar to a Gri-gri.
New sequence: transfer weight to the new piece, un-clip the old one, reach up for the new one as the webbing slides through the buckle, clip the new piece. If it does lock up, all you have to do is change your grip so that the thumb lightly pinches the upper ring.

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Now that's pretty nifty

Way to go, that is inventive and cool. I have made a lot of stuff for unusuall aspects of climbing, good to see others out there thinkning.

Just came across this and "Damn, that's what aiding's all about" bump

kevin deweese wrote:Just came across this and "Damn, that's what aiding's all about" bump

Thanks.
I never ended up actually using these on a wall. The adjustable daisy setup in this thread is far superior:
mountainproject.com/v/aid-r…

So when you add up the cost of the components in yer little invention there how does that end up being cheaper and or cleaner than just buying an adjustable daisy? If you really want to save yourself the bucks just pick up some tie down straps (with the buckle) and replace the webbing with what ever suites your fancy as needed. You can use high strength fishing line to sew yourself pretty much an exact replica of the Metolius adj. daisy for about half the cost of a new one.

Yarp wrote:... how does that end up being cheaper and or cleaner than just buying an adjustable daisy? ...

Aiming for cheaper wasn't my only goal. Designing the rap ring webbing lock was a fun mental exercise.
The CAMP ascender daisy setup ends up costing $90 for a set, so it definitely isn't cheaper, but it works really well. The Ancra buckles on tie-down straps are a pain and the Metolius buckles aren't all that smooth, either.
Old school aiders and daisies work fine. I'm too much of a tinkerer to let well enough alone, though.

Gregger Man wrote: The Ancra buckles on tie-down straps are a pain and the Metolius buckles aren't all that smooth, either.

Um, OK. The buckle on my home made one is EXACTLY the same as the one I bought from Metolius and I've never found either of them to be a pain to operate. Perhaps I just have above average dexterity.