Remedial draw hanging

Somehow I never picked this up when transitioning from trad to sport. Seems like most bolt hangers on trad lines are installed vertically. But on a lot of sport routes, the hanger sits at 45 degrees, like so:

(1) Why?

and

(2) Does the bolter intend these to be clipped from the non-bolt/nut side, with the gate under the nut? Or vice versa? Let's assume the route goes straight up after this clip.

I personally prefer to clip these the first way, like so:



I do this because the spine seems better aligned with the force this way, but I don't know if that's what the bolter intended. (It also seems to reduce the chance of a bad nut/biner interaction.)

1) Hangers are designed that way to keep the point of contact between the carabiner and the hanger directly centered below the bolt itself. Weighting the quickdraw (falling) will thus pull straight down on the bolt itself and will not introduce any torque to the bolt that might loosen or over tighten it.

2) Assuming your criteria that the route trends straight up from here, you can clip the hanger with the gate of your carabiner facing in either direction.

If a hanger is not aligned at that angle in the picture above, it is incorrectly installed. It is designed to be installed at that angle for a reason, and if a route developer actually knows what he is doing, it should be angled properly, which promotes a better force re-direction and easier clipping.

Hey Phil,

It's probably because a lot of bolts on trad lines have bunk ass SMC hangers like this beauty!

SMC hangers shouldn't be installed with the bent portion 100% vertical, but it looks closer to vertical, even when installed properly because the bend isn't made at a 45 degree angle like a modern hanger.

So glad to have modern bolts (and hangers) when shit gets serious!

I'll leave the x rated 11+ climbing to you hard men

Phil Esra wrote:(2) Does the bolter intend these to be clipped from the non-bolt/nut side, with the gate under the nut? Or vice versa? Let's assume the route goes straight up after this clip.

I do not hang the draw based on how the bolt hanger is aligned (with one exception which I'll go into more detail later), I hang it based on which side of the bolt I will be climbing on. I set up my draws with both biners facing the same way (like your picture), and I hang them so that the spine of the biner always faces the side I'll be climbing on. Even if the route goes straight up from the bolt, my body will usually be off to one side or the other. "Spine to the line" I heard someone say. I have been wrong when guessing the line when I'm onsighting, but I do take the time to change the direction of the draw once I figure out the correct line.

The exception I mentioned above is when the hanger is totally horizontal. This is pretty rare, but I have seen it from time to time. With a horizontal hanger, I always hang my draw with the gate facing out (away from the rock). The danger with a horizontal hanger is that the draw is free to flip from side to side. So even if you had the rope clipped properly, when the draw flips to the other side (easy if you traverse across the vertical line above the bolt), the rope becomes backclipped. I have started carrying one quickdraw with locking biner on the rope end for sketchy bolts like that.

Cool, thanks, yeah, I'm more used to your standard Josh hanger made out of scrap sheet metal, old pie plates, etcetera. Always brown, never shiny!

So, assuming there are no rock-quality limitations, do bolters tend to locate and orient the bolt+hanger with an expectation that you will prefer to clip it from one particular direction?

It seems to me like the biner would fail at a measurably lower force if the biner were clipped as in the pic below--the hanger would transmit the force further out toward the nose of the biner, where the top edge of the hole contacts the biner. No?

(arrows are not mine, but they seem to be talking about the same point...for the record, all of these pics are plucked from the internets)

p.

Phil Esra wrote:It seems to me like the biner would fail at a measurably lower force if the biner were clipped opposite of the picture above--the hanger would transmit the force further out toward the nose of the biner, where the top edge of the hole contacts the biner. No? p.

No. Biners are stronger than you think and your mental model of how a biner transmits force seems somewhat flawed. It appears like you're thinking of a biner as a hook whereas it really behaves like an oval - think link of chain - even if the shape isn't an exact oval.
If anyone wants to jump in here with numbers and equations and, you know, actual science and bail me out of a muddled explanation......

I visited the page I stole that pic from--turns out it was a supertaco thread about a broken quickdraw biner, and those red arrows were drawn by none other than Werner Braun (crusty hardman legend and head of YOSAR). He was speculating that the biner is weaker in that orientation. He ain't no engineer by a long stretch, but he *is* worshipped as a god in some parts of the world, and has probably literally written up more climber accident reports than any other person in the universe.

You are absolutely right that it functions more like a link and less like a hook *when the gate is closed.* Biners typically break with the gate open, though, for the exact reasons you are talking about.

supertopo.com/climbers-foru…

Werner: "Clint [Cummins], the biner in this photo looks like it could be getting a dangerous leverage type load if the bolt hanger was angled such as this photo's demonstration?"

Bonus random pic of Werner Braun soloing Astroman with boom box 40(?) years ago:

To piggyback the discussion here... why aren't the inside edges of the hanger's hole chamfered (rounded)?

And I'd love to know the answer to the OP's question: does the route-setter intend for a hanger to be clipped with the biner's gate oriented in a specific direction? Yes, I know the rope-end of the draw should have the spine face the line. But what about the biner that clips to the hanger?

FourT6and2 wrote:To piggyback the discussion here... why aren't the inside edges of the hanger's hole chamfered (rounded)? And I'd love to know the answer to the OP's question: does the route-setter intend for a hanger to be clipped with the biner's gate oriented in a specific direction? Yes, I know the rope-end of the draw should have the spine face the line. But what about the biner that clips to the hanger?

Well they aren´t radiused because it´s expensive to do and would achieve very little in reality.
The installer (route setters are in the gym) just orientates the hanger as it will be when the climber falls, there are only left-handed hangers available so there´s not a lot of choice which way round they are unless you´ve got some of the old Salewa ones which were straight. They are left-handed because it is more convenient for right-handed people to do the bolt up.
All the hangers I´ve tested move to align vertically in a fall before the karabiner should break anyway, about 6kN is enough to move a correctly torqued bolt/hanger set-up.

Phil Esra wrote: Bonus random pic of Werner Braun soloing Astroman with boom box 40(?) years ago:

Werner is on Reeds Direct in the photo you posted, not Astroman.

Marc801 wrote: It appears like you're thinking of a biner as a hook whereas it really behaves like an oval - think link of chain - even if the shape isn't an exact oval. If anyone wants to jump in here with numbers and equations and, you know, actual science and bail me out of a muddled explanation......

You're right in that it behaves like on oval, but the gate side is inherently weaker than the spine. One of the benefits to a D carabiner over an oval is that it transfers more of the weight to the spine and off the gate thus making it stronger. In the pic posted above that loading would weaken the biner by placing more load on the gate and also creating more stress at the top bend in the biner. The question is does it weaken the biner enough to be concerned about it-probably not and I'm too lazy to do the calculations.

Phil Esra wrote:Cool, thanks, yeah, I'm more used to your standard Josh hanger made out of scrap sheet metal, old pie plates, etcetera. Always brown, never shiny! So, assuming there are no rock-quality limitations, do bolters tend to locate and orient the bolt+hanger with an expectation that you will prefer to clip it from one particular direction? It seems to me like the biner would fail at a measurably lower force if the biner were clipped as in the pic below--the hanger would transmit the force further out toward the nose of the biner, where the top edge of the hole contacts the biner. No? (arrows are not mine, but they seem to be talking about the same point...for the record, all of these pics are plucked from the internets) p.

I don't clip my draw like that due to crossloading on the biner. Until I see some research or evidence to the contrary, that biner is being put in a bad loading position.

FourT6and2 wrote:Yes, I know the rope-end of the draw should have the spine face the line. But what about the biner that clips to the hanger?

Unlike the rope-end biner, there is a bit of disagreement on which way the bolt-end biner should face. I subscribe to "spine to the line" for the bolt-end biner as well, that's why I set up my draws with both biners facing the same way. If the gate on the bolt-end biner faces the direction of climb, with some rope tension you can easily get the gate of the biner in contact with the hanger. Watch the below video for a demo:

youtube.com/watch?v=e7DLIJT…

Now in the video the bolt-end biner is fixed, and he's holding the dogbone, which means he can directly manipulate the bolt-end biner. But even with this consideration, it's disquieting to see how easily he can unclip the bolt-end biner. In my mind, unclipping a biner is much more likely than breaking a biner by loading it a few millimeter toward the nose. A few years ago, one of my friend took a lead fall high up on a route and his last draw detached itself from the bolt. He ended up 5 feet off the ground when he finished screaming. His draw was hanging on his end of the rope, both biners were intact.

Phil Esra wrote:I visited the page I stole that pic from--turns out it was a supertaco thread about a broken quickdraw biner, and those red arrows were drawn by none other than Werner Braun (crusty hardman legend and head of YOSAR). He was speculating that the biner is weaker in that orientation. He ain't no engineer by a long stretch, but he *is* worshipped as a god in some parts of the world, and has probably literally written up more climber accident reports than any other person in the universe. You are absolutely right that it functions more like a link and less like a hook *when the gate is closed.* Biners typically break with the gate open, though, for the exact reasons you are talking about. supertopo.com/climbers-foru… Werner: "Clint [Cummins], the biner in this photo looks like it could be getting a dangerous leverage type load if the bolt hanger was angled such as this photo's demonstration?" Bonus random pic of Werner Braun soloing Astroman with boom box 40(?) years ago:

The broken biner on that page looks like a nose hook break

dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/c…

http://blackdiamondequipment.com/en/qc-lab-weakness-of-nosehooked-carabiners.html

;)

Thanks for the discussion, all. And noted about Reed's, not Astroman--my bad. (Easier to get a boom box up Reed's, I would guess...)

It had not actually occurred to me that there is only one 45* orientation possible for the hanger--"right-handed" as someone called it--and that angling it the other way would put it "upside down" or above the stud.

That was the crux of my misunderstanding--I thought the bolter was making a choice about which way the hanger was angled, and that I should take that into consideration somehow. If there is only one correct installation, I don't have to worry about it any more. Agreed that avoiding unclipping is more important than biner strength. And I am willing to believe that facing the spine toward direction of travel trumps any concern about specific biner-to-bolt interactions.

I can't picture my local gym--do setters rotate the bottom biner on permadraws based on where their route goes?

Edit: I was curious how much subjective force it would take to break an open gate biner, so I put one in a bench vise and put a 2-foot pipe over the nose end. It took a "medium" amount of force to snap it in the expected spot--the amount of effort required was mildly reassuring. I was afraid it would feel extremely easy.

Phil Esra wrote:I was curious how much subjective force it would take to break an open gate biner, so I put one in a bench vise and put a 2-foot pipe over the nose end. It took a "medium" amount of force to snap it in the expected spot--the amount of effort required was mildly reassuring. I was afraid it would feel extremely easy.

So that means you did this test without the gate being closed?

Yep--a casual approximation of a nose-hooked biner. According to this BD page, a nose-hooked biner can fail at less than 2kn, or 500 lb-f.

blackdiamondequipment.com/e…

Based on the fact that a 21" Snap-On torque wrench maxes out at 250 lb-f, I'd guess that I was applying measurably less than 500 lb-f when it failed (but more than 250). What I wanted to know was what the amount of force required to break a nose-hooked biner "felt like." It would have been really spooky if it felt effortless.

Phil Esra wrote:Yep--a casual approximation of a nose-hooked biner. According to this BD page, a nose-hooked biner can fail at less than 2kn, or 500 lb-f. blackdiamondequipment.com/e… Based on the fact that a 21" Snap-On torque wrench maxes out at 250 lb-f, I'd guess that I was applying measurably less than 500 lb-f when it failed (but more than 250). What I wanted to know was what the amount of force required to break a nose-hooked biner "felt like." It would have been really spooky if it felt effortless.

If you get a long enough pipe you can make it feel effortless!

Jim Titt wrote: Well they aren´t radiused because it´s expensive to do and would achieve very little in reality. The installer (route setters are in the gym) just orientates the hanger as it will be when the climber falls, there are only left-handed hangers available so there´s not a lot of choice which way round they are unless you´ve got some of the old Salewa ones which were straight. They are left-handed because it is more convenient for right-handed people to do the bolt up. All the hangers I´ve tested move to align vertically in a fall before the karabiner should break anyway, about 6kN is enough to move a correctly torqued bolt/hanger set-up.

I think you misread my question. I didn't ask about installing the bolt in various orientations. I asked if it matters which way the bolt-end biner is oriented (i.e. the biner on your draw that you clip to the bolt). Should you clip it from the right or from the left. From the right, the gate is facing left. From the left, the gate is facing right. This is a separate issue from the rope-end biner, which should have the "spine to the line."

But another poster answered my question :)

aikibujin wrote: Unlike the rope-end biner, there is a bit of disagreement on which way the bolt-end biner should face. I subscribe to "spine to the line" for the bolt-end biner as well, that's why I set up my draws with both biners facing the same way. If the gate on the bolt-end biner faces the direction of climb, with some rope tension you can easily get the gate of the biner in contact with the hanger. Watch the below video for a demo.

Thanks!