Team-Tough Crossover Bolt

Anyone have experience with these yet? I'm mainly curious if the mechanical advantage is enough to weight the bolt before the adhesive cures in a top-down anchor situation or aiding through a roof. Or is it just a glue-in with extra steps?

Great bolts for a good price and customer service is top notch. Ive placed ~50 of them or so. I find the mechanical advantage "interference fit" less noticeable than a wave bolt. I personally wouldn't aid on them before they cure on a roof. They are good enough that you don't need duct tape or anything to keep the bolts in place on steep rock though.

I have not placed as many as Rob, but have placed several. To get the expansion, I have found i need to hammer them really hard. They can be placed without expansion, but then don’t sit flush in a perpendicular hole. My preference is still the twist bolt for general use. If you hammer the crossover enough to get the expansion, they are pretty solid, And I would use them for direct aid, but probably not in a roof. 

Peter Thomas wrote: They can be placed without expansion, but then don’t sit flush in a perpendicular hole.

Hey Peter, 

I was actually thinking about this. So they do straighten (wall side of bolt) out a bit with hammering? I got a few but haven’t placed them yet and noted the walls side is fairly angled so the nose sticks out. If you are just placing them without expansion have you attempted to drill at an upward angle so they sit flush? Hopefully that makes sense.

Dave, the owner, messaged me last year that he is planning to release a larger Crossover bolt that would have a higher mechanical pullout and be more reusable. 

Jake R wrote:

Hey Peter, 

I was actually thinking about this. So they do straighten (wall side of bolt) out a bit with hammering? I got a few but haven’t placed them yet and noted the walls side is fairly angled so the nose sticks out. If you are just placing them without expansion have you attempted to drill at an upward angle so they sit flush? Hopefully that makes sense.

I haven’t tried that, but I’m sure that would work. Almost all of my use is bolt replacement, so don’t have a lot of room to change the angle of the hole. The nose sticking out is just aesthetic, and not a concern. A very slight notch would likely also resolve that.
The expansion feature is clever and effective, and does make the hanger portion sit flush. In hard rock it just means hammering a little harder than I like. 

Alec Baker wrote:

Dave, the owner, messaged me last year that he is planning to release a larger Crossover bolt that would have a higher mechanical pullout and be more reusable. 

That's so sick!

I've placed 40 of them. Didn't set any of them. I tried hammering one and after seeing how hard you have to hit them, I gave up on that idea.

I love the generous amount of space in the eye. I like that the part that goes in the notch is slightly diagonal instead of fully vertical, that way I can get most of it in the notch but leave the bottom curve of the eye sticking out a bit, so that if someone ever wants to bail out with the rope running through the eye, the rope will not get forced against the wall.

I found that the 4 3/4" length that claims to be installable with a 6" drill bit occasionally is a tiny bit too long. Also, the 1/2" x 6" drill bit sold by Milwaukee at Home Depot has changed in length over the years, as you can see in this photo of one I bought a few months ago vs a used one a friend gifted me last year:

I've recently placed a few Crossover Bolts.

In a 1/2 inch hole in hard granite, I haven't been able to get them to set, even with forceful hammering. As others have mentioned, their best application (in my experience) involves placing them unset with a shallow and tapered notch to accommodate the slightly protruding eyelet.

I imagine they're easier to set if the hole is reamed out beyond the standard width of the 1/2 inch hole.

It is recommended to place Wave Bolts with the Wave Tool to avoid creating concavities in the steel which could in theory become a point of weakness. The amount of force required to set a Crossover bolt with a steel hammer would certainly make small dents in the eyelet. Perhaps they'd fit into the Wave Tool, but then it'd be difficult to direct the hammer blow in the direction needed to set the bolt. 

Had a chance to use some of the newer crossover bolts, and the slight modifications really make a difference for the better. The things I didn’t love upthread were all addressed, and I’ll likely start moving over to using these instead of the wave/twist. It seems like the bend radius for the eye is slightly tighter, so they rest flush even when not “set”. Getting them to set was much easier, and required one good blow with a stainless hammer. Dave recommended not using a worn bit, but I did anyway and still found them pretty easy to set. A couple had a very slight interference fit about 2/3 in (with the worn bit) but it could be overcome by hand without a hammer so they could still be dry fit. I also like that the new 4” are marked so it will be easy to tell what bolt was used down the road. I used four of them in very hard granite while replacing anchors.

Is there a way to tell the “newer” from the older harder to set bolts apart? Looking to get some to try out probably buying from the How Not 2 Store 

Diego B wrote:

Is there a way to tell the “newer” from the older harder to set bolts apart? Looking to get some to try out probably buying from the How Not 2 Store 

https://www.team-tough.com/12x4100mm-team-tough-crossover-bolt

Dave, the video is great ! Most impressive that you never smashed your finger !

The new design is brilliant, I see they are made from 316 ss. I have never placed in a roof at this time, but I am sure the time will come when this is required.

During the Pandemic, I set up and manufactured twist bolts here in my shop for my own use. I think you were having supply chain issues.

Anyway, I made them from 316 ss rather than 304 ss. (316 has much better properties and more corrosion resistant.) 

Wondering why the original twist bolts are made from 304?

I haven't made a bolt from 304 for 12 years as demand dropped and the price difference between the two grades reduced. 304 was the go-to material earlier, in fact nobody sold a 316 bolt back when I started and we were one if not the first to offer the choice. I still retain the 304 option on my website as a way of observing the market, if a lot of customers inquired then I would consider making them again but as it is at the moment there isn't the demand. 316 is better but not substantially so but as a manufacturer we react to customer demand.

The main reason for the move to 316 as I said above was material price, previously 316 was a speciality steel grade for parts of the food, chemical and to a lesser extent the marine industry so relatively little was produced and the price extremely high, changes in the European construction codes (they increased the lifespan of external fastemers amongst other changes related to food hygiene) meant the market changed and so did the supply, my customers seem happy to pay the extra.

I’ve placed ~50-100 crossover bolts now. They’re a great design, and I can comment on some specific use cases.

• I was able to set them (with the older tip design I think) using this cheap plastic mallet, though a heavier hammer would work a lot better. 
• I’ve placed a few in horizontal roofs. They set well with a few strikes. I still don’t think I would ever aid on them as they’re curing, for fear of compromising the strength of the glue somehow. Curious to hear people’s thoughts on this. 
• I had some success using the new 3 1/4 inch without glue as a bodyweight aid/directional piece while bolting caves. My go-to for this is normally concrete screws(3/8 to whip on, or 1/4 for positioning), but in hard rock (granite, basalt, quartzite) the screw threads will typically break/strip, and it’s nice to have tools besides expensive and flimsy RBs, or the unsustainable 1/4 inch wedge strategy. Unglued Crossovers are reasonably easy to remove using a file or another longer bolt for leverage in the eye, and if set gently there doesn’t seem to be much deformation. One way to think about it: maybe stronger than a drilled angle and 1/3 the price. Very interested in the higher gauge “developer” bolt, both for this purpose, and for less flex in high traffic + high fall factor bolts in soft rock. 
• The 6 inch bolts are very inspiring in bad rock. FYI they can’t be “hand-placed” unset without a hammer, in my experience. 
• I’ve had fewer problems with trapped air bubbles, especially compared to wave bolts, sometimes doing a 180 degree turn putting the bolt in. The finish is also a nice matte grey, similar to twist bolts. Have never felt the need to spray paint the eye for visual impact, but I often do with super shiny Raumer or Lappas leg bolts.

Happy to have a quality bolt made domestically.

[[]]Sorry for taking so long Dave! It’s been so hot it’s been hard to get motivated to go develop. I used the bolts on a 5.7 sport multipitch.  The climb is slabby but I did have to set one of the anchors with a mallet. I had no issues setting it with a 2 lb rubber mallet.   I think these use slightly more glue than the twist bolts of similar size (anyone else noticing this?) but are great bolts for a great price! Thanks again for the bolts Dave! 

Since my last post I bought some more crossovers and do really like them. Used a few more today rebolting. Some can be a little bouncy when trying to set them, but when held in place while hitting it they set pretty easily.
They do use a little more glue than twist bolts, but about the same or a little less than waves. looking at the volume of metal that gets embedded it makes sense that they need a little more glue than the twist bolts. 

 

I’m loving them as well! Compared to a wave bolt it’s way easier to install and I’m loving the “set” feature of them. They are fairly low profile and I like the matte finish on them over the polish finish like the wave bolt.

 Thanks to Peter and the YABR I’ve been able to start rebolting here at Horseshoe Canyon hole-for-hole. 

I finally got around to placing a few of these sent to me by DQ. I was really looking forward to using these on an overhanging climb and had one bolt placement in particular in a roof that would have really benefitted from the set feature. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any of the 3 I placed to set using the same hammer as JD Merritt above. The first was a bit difficult to reach from a tenuous hook. The second was right in front of me from a stance with a temp bolt keeping me stable. The third, in the roof, I tried my normal "cleaning" hammer, a framing hammer, for some extra weight. No matter how much I whaled on them, none of them set, including when I could hold the bolt in place. 

I was really hopeful about these bolts, and I do like the large eye but at this point, I'll probably just keep buying the twist bolts from TT. I would love to be told I was doing something wrong and have a couple more to try if anyone has any suggestions.

Dan W wrote:

Unfortunately, I was unable to get any of the 3 I placed to set using the same hammer as JD Merritt above. 

If it helps, I'm hitting them hard, like really wailing on them. And I'm bolting in soft rock, ryolitic tuff, softer than most concrete, so once they start to set it's pretty clear that they've expanded inside. I think in general a heavier hammer would make it easier.

That's good to know. I'm also bolting in soft rock, limestone, and noticed I was crushing the outer patina couple times. Bringing another heavy tool to the construction site just doesn't seem worth it to me. Especially since you just have to choose the twist bolt with the right interference fit for your hole. I also use AC100, which is viscous enough to hold the bolt in a horizontal placement.