Round stock/bent rod hangers alone for anchors?

So I recently saw on Team Tough's website that they sell rounded stock, welded hangers. I'm curious if two of these on their own (no quick links or rap rings) are sufficient for lowering or rapping off of at the end of a route? I understand that you would need a "clean" space below the hangers where the rope would run as you no longer have the benefit of a pivot and some extension off the rock face that the QL and ring setup offers, but is there some other benefit the QL and rings offer that I'm missing?

link needed

Are you talking about glue in anchors?

team-tough.com/product/38x8…

The problem with this is you put the wear on the permanent part of the anchor instead of a replaceable part like a quicklink or ring. That means you will have to replace the bolts literally decades sooner than if you simply slapped some rappel hardware on it. It almost entirely defeats the purpose of glue-in anchors and is not recommended.
Edit: I just saw you were talking about the hangers, not glue-ins. My bad. You could build a rap station off these hangers, but that does leave people boned when they wear down and need to be replaced. There is no additional area to work with like any other rap anchor. Once the hanger is worn, it is far more of a danger than other setups. If it’s a low traffic area I wouldn’t worry too much though. I’d use these for rap anchors in an isolated area that I’m sure will never be swarmed.

Brandon I might be confused, you do have a good point there, but couldn't you just replace the hanger? Assuming that it was an appropriately sized wedge bolt that had not corroded you could unscrew the nut pull the hanger off and pop a new one on.

Ian F wrote: Brandon I might be confused, you do have a good point there, but couldn't you just replace the hanger? Assuming that it was an appropriately sized wedge bolt that had not corroded you could unscrew the nut pull the hanger on and pop a new one on.

I edited my post. I had read your post incorrectly and thought you were talking about glue-ins. Apologies. :)

Yeah Brandon my thought was that these are ideal for steep routes (potentially with permas) where they dont see much traffic, and only a small percentage of that traffic are making it to the anchors.

Ian F wrote: I recently saw on Team Tough's website that they sell rounded stock, welded hangers. I'm curious if two of these on their own (no quick links or rap rings) are sufficient for lowering or rapping off of at the end of a route?

Good that you drew attention to this.
Seems like having this option is an advantage to selecting round-stock hangers.

Not sure why the Team-Tough website does not describe this advantage more pointedly.

Ken

Before you install an anchor on a sport route for folks to lower off of that consists of two round stock hangers spaced about a foot apart, try it with your own rope. Report back with your findings.

In all seriousness, if you run a weighted rope across two surfaces with distance between them, it’ll twist to holy hell. The old Metolius rap hangers were essentially this idea and they very specially said, only for use as rappel anchors, not for lowering. I will say that the Metolius rap hangers weren’t always awesome because you had to thread your rappel through the same thing that your anchor was clipped to and the space in the hanger tended to fill up quickly and result in ropes and carabiners pinching together. Especially at a hanging or semi-hanging stance it’s kinda a pain in the ass.

In addition to making anchor replacement easy, the reason why sport anchors typically have chain and/or a welded ring is so that your rope runs over a single surface and doesn’t twist at the anchor.

What you could plausibly do is install a high bolt with chain and ring and then place a low bolt with a rounded hanger such that it sits at the same level as the higher chain. But then you lose some of the ease of having both anchor points already closed together that’s commonly found in a vertical anchor configuration and instead need to have a different way to connect the two bolts when cleaning. Additionally with a ring the wear gets spread a bit more evenly as the ring naturally rotated a little bit each time. With a rounded hanger, every single iteration of lowering will wear out the same spot, so the hanger won’t last as long. Maybe that’s not an issue where you live, but for only a bit more money, you could make the anchor much more robust. 

Thank you for the insight Matt! I wasnt aware that this was even an issue. I've never encountered round stock or metolius rap hangers out climbing which is one of the reasons I asked, I figured never having seen them there must be a reason. Crowding within the hangers aside, have you experienced any issues rappelling off of either of these kinds of hangers?

I make the Team Tough hangers and for rap stations on Alpine/back country routes they are ideal, for sport routes I install something a bit more wear resistant, usually a pigtail. Install them offset vertically to prevent rope twisting. There is also a belay hanger available which is much larger to solve the problem of filling the hanger with biners on multi-pitch belays.

Jim Titt wrote: Install them offset vertically to prevent rope twisting.

Yet another advantage of vertically offset anchor bolts -- Thanks.

Presumably for that configuration it helps to "aim" the hole of the hanger on the lower bolt roughly vertically, to allow the widest path for the rope strand coming down from the higher hanger (hole aimed in the normal way roughly horizontally).

To me the point of this is not that round-stock hangers on vertically-offset bolts are being installed by the original route-creator as the "right" long-term configuration. Rather it's a convenient first stage of a possible migration path. Next step could be to link the two bolts with 8 mm cord, and hang a quick-link on the lower hanger (after turning it so its hole is aimed "normally" horizontally). Further steps could be to replace the cord with chain. Or to replace the quick-link with a rams horn (pigs tail).

Jim Titt wrote:
> "There is also a belay hanger available which is much larger
> to solve the problem of filling the hanger with biners on multi-pitch belays."

? Not on the Team-Tough.com website ?

Kenr, by "aiming" the hanger hole do you mean tightening it at such an angle that the rope of someone lowering would not contact the lower hanger at all? I understand this would mitigate the twisting effect, but that would even further concentrate wear on the top hanger. As for the rest of your comment I have to disagree, as someone just beginning route developing (3 routes under my belt, many more in mind) I am doing my best to make the "right" decisions for safety and longevity of hardware the first time. This is both a matter of convenience/time cost (not having to return and get up the route again to change hardware configurations) and safety of others (what if a bunch of people spot the new route and are projecting it before I have time to return and adjust things).

For sake of being transparent there are two distinct areas that I've been considering these round stock hangers for. One is entirely untouched climbing terrain with fairly consistent characteristics of short (30ft) walls capped by 15-30ft roofs. This area could well be considered backcountry by some and would be unlikely to see high traffic anytime in the next several decades due to steep long approaches and lack of proximity to any major population hubs. The other area is similar in the type of terrain, however it is part of a well established and actively being developed climbing area, although far less trafficked than other spots within the area.

I install them normally, the rope runs ok.
Dave Quinn decides what to import, not me but if people ask for them he'd stock them, he's over here next week or so and I can give him some to try.

Jim Titt wrote: I make the Team Tough hangers and for rap stations on Alpine/back country routes they are ideal, for sport routes I install something a bit more wear resistant, usually a pigtail. Install them offset vertically to prevent rope twisting. There is also a belay hanger available which is much larger to solve the problem of filling the hanger with biners on multi-pitch belays.

Jim. I’ve been showing this to an “old school” climber and he expressed some concerns about “flip and unclip” risks. I assuming you’ve tested this etc. can you add some other images or video of why the round isn’t any different than normal ones (or even better)?

These are ideal for rap stations and I think they do about just as well as the standard ring anchors that are very common here in the northeast.

I have installed them in a vertical/slightly offset configuration where the top bolt is a round stock team tough hanger and the bottom is a standard bolt hanger with a quick link and a wire gate on it. The bottom bolt just serves to back up the top one. These are not high traffic areas and solve the problem of twisting while lowering in a fairly economical, safe way. I have also considered doing both hangers as team tough rod stocks but I think the quicklink and wire gate option ads some play into the system, preventing the rope getting stuck or twisted.

In a perfect world I would place a standard hanger with a chain and rap ring above the team tough rod stock hanger so the ring and rod stock hanger are at the same level and right next to each other, but this is expensive and my current setup seems to work fine.

mattm wrote:

Jim. I’ve been showing this to an “old school” climber and he expressed some concerns about “flip and unclip” risks. I assuming you’ve tested this etc. can you add some other images or video of why the round isn’t any different than normal ones (or even better)?

At a belay?

Jim Titt wrote:

At a belay?

I think his concern was lead bolts.  I can't imagine it being an issue at a belay where you're right there watching it all.  You discuss it on your info page re: eye shape but not re: the welded hangers.

Ha, thread drift without telling me!!!
A quick comparison with a selection of hangers shows the slope on the top of the hangers is mostly about the same as the welded ones so no better and no worse for the karabiner staying lodged up the top.

Jim Titt wrote: Ha, thread drift without telling me!!!
A quick comparison with a selection of hangers shows the slope on the top of the hangers is mostly about the same as the welded ones so no better and no worse for the karabiner staying lodged up the top.

Thanks Jim