Homemade driver for self drilling bolts??

Petzl makes a short 12mm self drilling bolt that is apparently popular with cavers for some reason. Years ago there was an article in one of the climbing rags about rigging up a small driver that you could use to place one of these in an emergency. It must have been an 8mm bolt with a collection of nuts and some sort of wrench handle. Does anyone know what in the hell i'm talking about and have some detail on its construction? More curious than anything. Thanks.

There is an attachment you need called the ROCPEC ADP which connects to the ROCPEC hand drill. You still need a hammer though I believe to drill the hole with the bolt, and you will need a wrench to tighten the bolt, although if it's a single rap in an emergency I supposed finger tight would probably work.

I am not sure of another device that can be used though. This is probably the reason why the bolt is not suitable for climbing: youtube.com/watch?v=t7so7Kd…

Yes, they were popular before cordless hammer drills got super portable. But now? I gave mine away and I doubt it is seeing a lot of action. They were super finicky to drill correctly as the hole depth is critical for the cone piece to expand the bolt. I did a six bolt ladder with one in a cave once and it must have taken five hours. If hand drilling now, I'd prefer the SDS bit type.

I threw my self drive set up years ago. Using them in any kind of hard-ish rock was a multi bit saga.

Whenever we pull one from Penitente type rock ,I get scared

john strand wrote:I threw my self drive set up years ago. Using them in any kind of hard-ish rock was a multi bit saga. Whenever we pull one from Penitente type rock ,I get scared

So they were used down there? Shudder. The bit itself is only about on and 3/4 inches long and is meant to be flush with the rock surface. I forgot, but yeah, even in limestone you are breaking off the cutting teeth from time to time. It's not a bad option for cave exploration where you want to check out a pit and probably not go back, but otherwise you may as well drill a deeper hole and put a good bolt in.