Which is worse: Loose bolts or possibly over tightened bolts?

Looking for a consensus on what’s worse, loose bolts in the rock or possible over tightening?  Looking at all perspectives, useful life of bolt, rock damage, safety.  

"Loose bolts in the rock" should not be confused with a loose nut on a wedge bolt or a hanger that "spins" or moves.

Many bolts are declared "loose/sketchy" by non-experts, when they are fine and can be tightened easily.

The key to not over torque is to use a small wrench with your fingers, not your full strength.

Hangers that spin are perhaps inconvenient, but if the bolt itself wiggles in the rock, that is bad.

For some old glue-in bolts, it is OK if they spin.  [Edit:  Ushba Tortuga]  They should not move up and down, though.

"Possible over tightening" is usually difficult to diagnose, even with a torque wrench.

Some bolt types are more at risk for this, such as Stainless Steel Rawlbolts.  The head can be sheared off by a strong person with a big torque wrench.

Non-SS Rawlbolts are stronger at the head and less at risk for this.  I would not recommend them over SS, though.

Just need to install the SS competently.

http://safeclimbing.org/

The dogma of an inexperienced person accidently overtightening a spinner is a strong, so if what you're getting at is that people should always just leave spinners alone and let the bolt fairies take care of it, I'd say that is a poor conclusion. In the US, most 3/8" wedge and 1/2" sleeve bolts (besides the new PB+ which takes 5/8") take a 9/16" wrench,  I recommend people carry a small 6-8" long wrench for these bolts,  use common sense and don't purposefully try to crank on them as hard as you can,  you would be hard pressed to damage either of these bolts with the amount of leverage offered by this size wrench.  Now for bolts with <9/16" heads, for example If you have 3/8" sleeve bolts with a 1/2" head, more caution needs to be exercised, though again you're unlikely to damage the bolt with such a small wrench, just get it snug and then a little more.

Be careful with adjustable Cresent wrenches as it is easy to damage the hex head with these types of wrenches.  

Clint, what type of glue ins are you talking about? 

I think you're statement may give people the wrong impression.  Glue in bolts should never spin. The only instance where it's okay that anything spins, is when a traditional hanger is affixed via a nut on a glued threaded rod, where the hanger spinning is similar to a spinner on a wedge/stud bolt, i.e. not inherently dangerous until the spinning action causes the hanger to wear a groove in the stud, or the nut becomes so loose that the nut pops off the threads. 

DrRockso RRG wrote:

Clint, what type of glue ins are you talking about? 

I think you're statement may give people the wrong impression.  Glue in bolts should never spin.

Pretty sure he's talking about Ushba Tortuga bolts that are popular on the California coast and occasionally seen inland. They're completely ok to spin according the manufacturer. Look at their thread pattern and you'll understand why.

History of them explained on SuperTopo

Austin Donisan wrote:

Pretty sure he's talking about Ushba Tortuga bolts that are popular on the California coast and occasionally seen inland. They're completely ok to spin according the manufacturer. Look at their thread pattern and you'll understand why.

History of them explained on SuperTopo

Thanks Austin. The Ushba bolts are meant to be recessed in the rock to deal with the spinning problem, if i recall correctly, similar to the fixe bolts and a number of other early glue ins.  I'm sure they're still plenty strong in the short term. I could envision a long term problem with the mortar grinding away,  especially if they're seeing a lot of sideways falls.  

DrRockso RRG wrote:

Thanks Austin. The Ushba bolts are meant to be recessed in the rock to deal the spinning problem, if i recall correctly, similar to the fixe bolts and a number of other early glue ins.  I'm sure they're still plenty strong in the short term. I could envision a long term problem with the mortar grinding away,  especially if they're seeing a lot of sideways falls.  

I don't think you can say they are "meant" to be recessed when the manufacture didn't say to do it. Of course that doesn't mean it wouldn't be better if they were (and it's definitely no fun when your rope gets pinched under one during a fall).

I once experimented with over-torqueing and snapping Hilti KB3 wedge bolts. With a torque wrench that went to 90 ft/lbs of torque I couldn't snap them, instead the rock broke.  Using a 6-8" box wrench, 20 ft/lbs of torque is about what I could apply firmly with one hand.   As long as your using a small wrench I don't think you can come close to over torqueing.   

For those who haven't already seen the hownot2 for 5 piece bolts: youtu.be/imGQlYgxocM

Jim Day wrote:

For those who haven't already seen the hownot2 for 5 piece bolts: https://youtu.be/imGQlYgxocM

Looks like they proved the prevailing knowledge that a good distance between bolts should be used between anchor bolts (coning effect), as well as the huge inconsistency in the strength of their concrete testing bed. 

Other takeaways: use a 6 sided socket to avoid marring the hex head,  (especially important when removing rusty 5 peice)  Or go ahead and stick with a 12 sided and you'll have a hard time shearing the bolt head off.. 

Hard to make any conclusions about the torque decreasing the holding power, as the correlation is likely not a causation given none of the bolts actually failed. More testing in soft stone might be nice to see if the outward pressure of the bolt on the rock at higher torque is more likely to cause coning at lower forces,  though it would be more relevant use 1/2" 5 peice for those tests, as well as spacing the holes out further to ensure one test isn't compromising the substrate for the next test.  

It should be reassuring for people to see that a 3/8" 5 peice or 1/4" internal bolt withstood 50 ft lbs without shearing.

I saw someone snap three 3/8" wedge bolts in one weekend while developing a new route.  Ever since then I've been kinda freaked out by the idea that a bolt could be almost snapped but still look normal.

I would be much, much less concerned with a bolt that is under tightened. 

Limpingcrab DJ wrote:

I saw someone snap three 3/8" wedge bolts in one weekend while developing a new route.  Ever since then I've been kinda freaked out by the idea that a bolt could be almost snapped but still look normal.

I would be much, much less concerned with a bolt that is under tightened. 

Shit homie were they using a breaker bar or a 2+ft torque wrench? I have also done the experiment mentioned upthread tightening a 3/8" wedge bolt as much as I could with an 8" socket wrench, really wailing on it, and tested it with the torque wrench at 22ftlb if I remember correctly. Unless the lever arm was huge I have trouble believing that story.

I F wrote:

Shit homie were they using a breaker bar or a 2+ft torque wrench? I have also done the experiment mentioned upthread tightening a 3/8" wedge bolt as much as I could with an 8" socket wrench, really wailing on it, and tested it with the torque wrench at 22ftlb if I remember correctly. Unless the lever arm was huge I have trouble believing that story.

Probably just swole AF

likely using an impact driver or very large wrench.  

Austin Donisan wrote:

Pretty sure he's talking about Ushba Tortuga bolts that are popular on the California coast and occasionally seen inland. They're completely ok to spin according the manufacturer. Look at their thread pattern and you'll understand why.

History of them explained on SuperTopo

Thanks Austin, the information in that link above pretty much covers it.   

For the record, the bolts were not designed to be recessed.  Not having any data on corrosion of Ti in rock, the decision was made to avoid creating crevices and any potential crevice corrosion.  

It's not accurate to say the bolts "spin", but they can rotate a degree or two.  That's it.  And that's not because of the bolt design, but the fact that Hilti C-100 is a binding mortar, not a glue, and does not adhere to the bolt.   Using an epoxy as most people do today, which bonds to the metal, eliminates the rotation.

Back in 2001, after several people freaked out over the 2 degree rotation, I did a test to see if there was a problem.  I glued two bolts into the cliff with C-100 and let them set overnight.  Then I put a crowbar through the eye and cranked until the bolt actually rotated 360 degrees in the hole.  I turned it over and over until I could spin the bolt easily with one finger.   Then I put the claw of the bar in the eye with a spacer to give me more leverage, and tried to pull them out; bouncing my body-weight (180lbs) on the bar.   After many tries the eye deformed and finally broke but the shaft never moved longitudinally.   This correlated with our lab pull-out tests on "un-spun" bolts.   I never worried about them after that.

DrRockso RRG wrote:

Looks like they proved the prevailing knowledge that a good distance between bolts should be used between anchor bolts (coning effect), as well as the huge inconsistency in the strength of their concrete testing bed. 

Other takeaways: use a 6 sided socket to avoid marring the hex head,  (especially important when removing rusty 5 peice)  Or go ahead and stick with a 12 sided and you'll have a hard time shearing the bolt head off.. 

Hard to make any conclusions about the torque decreasing the holding power, as the correlation is likely not a causation given none of the bolts actually failed. More testing in soft stone might be nice to see if the outward pressure of the bolt on the rock at higher torque is more likely to cause coning at lower forces,  though it would be more relevant use 1/2" 5 peice for those tests, as well as spacing the holes out further to ensure one test isn't compromising the substrate for the next test.  

It should be reassuring for people to see that a 3/8" 5 peice or 1/4" internal bolt withstood 50 ft lbs without shearing.

Your comments forced me to get of my ass and do a test. I have seen claims that SS 3/8 5 piece would  break easilly. 

I put a 2 1/4 stainless in a quartzite block i have at the house. 

I started at 10 foot-lb and increased torque in 5 ft-lb increments.

Going from 30 to 35 ft-lb i could feel the bolt begin to stretch as it was taking more turns instead of less to reach the click. 

The bolt snapped going from 40 to 45 ft-lb. I will do this for 2 more bolts to confirm repeatability. Of course even 35 ft-lb is way too much torque for a  304 ss 5/16 bolt. 

My torque wrench is of a bit higher quality than the one the bolt busters used.

timothy fisher wrote:

I will do this for 2 more bolts to confirm repeatability.

Awesome!  Post those results when you can...great data!

Brian in SLC wrote:

Awesome!  Post those results when you can...great data!

Standby, my block is so full of holes i need to get a new one. 

I did the same thing with a plated bolt after reading this. At 35 the blue spacer started to crush, at 40 the bolt started to yield and broke between 40/45. You can see that the threads stretched quite a bit before it broke. 

I’ve had similar results in the past with 3/8 sleeve bolts and with cheap 3/8 wedge bolts. I don’t think it’s that hard to torque a bolt to where the metal starts to yield, especially if using cheap hardware.

Upthread dr rockso mentioned 1/4” internal bolts. Those are just on the new PS PB+. (3/8 power bolts are 5/16 internal bolt). I broke one of those last weekend trying to remove/replace it. it snapped at way less than 25ft-lbs while loosening, and showed no corrosion where it broke. I’ve seen a number of those recently, and they should really not be used for climbing. 

All bolts have torque ratings, use ‘em!

Just to be clear, the torque spec for for this size bolt in ss is 11 ft-lb. (The bolt itself not Dewalts)

They are not breaking at some low value like some people have claimed. 

Tradiban wrote:

All bolts have torque ratings, use ‘em!

Wrong.  Not all bolts have torque ratings.  

Tradiban, you suddenly start posting in the Fixed Hardware Forum, positioning yourself as some sort of authority. Have you ever bolted a route? Rebolted a route? Where? Have you even placed a bolt? What kind?

The  FHF is perhaps the only forum on MP where bullshit and trolls shouldn't be allowed. Looking back at your posts here, you have contributed nothing of value. You have only supported ideas and methods that have been out of favor for decades in an attempt to promote discord and argument. So please go back to the General Climbing Forum and advise some clueless newbies on how they mark the middle of their rope.