Broken biners, etc...

[dylan_taylor]

So who has broken gear in the past? Either by falling on it, or discovering a little crack in it?

 

What types? What brands?

 

I know I have found at least four biners with hairline cracks in them. In all four, the crack either propagated from the steel pin at the notch, or the steel pin at the gate axel. Two were old coon-yard ovals, one was an old BD quicksilver, and one was a euro bentgate POS. Three of these biners were on other peoples racks, and I found them while killing time at a hanging belay!

 

Any other broken gear stories? Broken cam shafts on rigid friends? Cam axels? slings? micro nuts?

[thelawgoddess]

yikes. never found anything broken. yet.

[EWolfe]

So who has broken gear in the past? Either by falling on it, or discovering a little crack in it?

 

What types? What brands?

 

Any other broken gear stories? Broken cam shafts on rigid friends? Cam axels? slings? micro nuts?

 

[Peter_Puget]

RP/HB Brass nuts - Broken cable strands.

RP/HB Brass Nuts – Deformed wedge from fall

Wired Nuts Various Brands – Kinked/broken cables

Old Style TCU – Blew up in fall

Forged Friend – Cam deformed (flattened curve) in fall

Various Carabiners - hairline cracks

Various Carabiners – Loose pins

Tricam – hairline fracture.

[miller]

what up dylan?

 

what is that one move wonder "10d" at smoke bluffs to the right of penny lane? climb and punishment? anyway, some guy clipped the pin at the crux (the wrong way), took a very short fall, and his biner snapped - it was a lucky. snapped right where the curved bit that usually catches the rope (i.e. where the pin SHOULD have been in this case) meets the spine because the nose got loaded. cant say that one was cause for alarm though - he shouldve clipped the pin correctly. but he didnt seem too worried about it because he had backed it up with a cam a foot or two below.

 

but two weeks ago a friend broke a brand new BD enduro biner that was clipped to a bolt on a sport climb. broke in the same place as the lucky in the above story. dont know what the hell happened there!!! - it didnt seem to get torqued and the fall wasnt that big...

[sobo]

About 8 years ago or so, right when the (then) new BD "Fin" biner was about to come out, I was climbing with Carlos Beuhler who was demo-ing them for BD. I took a whipper on a bolted sport route about 5 or 6 feet above the bolt and broke the thing right in two!

 

Carlos sent it back to Chris Harmston, who did some testing stuff to it and said, "...it was wierd that it would do that, on just a 10'+/- fall." I guess they got it fixed, because they came out with them later. Carlos went off to K2's North Ridge and summitted with a bunch of Poles.

[MATT_B]

I've broken my ego a couple of times. Aid climbing can be hard on gear. Broken mystery metal, mystery webbing, funkness biners, heads, small stoppers. Nothing too exciting.

[catbirdseat]

So who has broken gear in the past? Either by falling on it, or discovering a little crack in it?

 

What types? What brands?

 

I know I have found at least four biners with hairline cracks in them. In all four, the crack either propagated from the steel pin at the notch, or the steel pin at the gate axel.

This would make a lot of sense. Stainless steel is much more "noble" in the electromotive series than aluminum. If salt from sweat builds up over time on the pin, it can create a galvanic cell which will cause corrosion of the aluminum. The oxide causes a compressive force which eventually causes a crack to release the strain. The solution is to dunk your biners in pure water every once and a while to dissolve any salt that may have accumulated. They may fail eventually anyway, so it's smart to eyeball all your biners from time to time.

[Wallstein]

Yesterday I went through my small nuts and found half (10+) of them to have broken cables. The worst I have found is my yellow alien with broken wires where it attaches to the head of the cam. Last year I broke the head of a green alien right off. It was 10 years old though. I have probably broken around 5 biners using them for various things. I saw a brand new BD wiregate break in half while hauling loads on el cap. I have broken numerous BD light d's while funking out pins. I started using Kong keylocks with really stiff gate action and I haven't been able to break anymore. I dropped a heavy load onto a rock exotica wall hauler during a minor epic and fucted it up pretty good, it didn't fail but cut the rope a little bit. I had to beat on the thing with a hammer to get it to work again. I inverted the cam on a petzl basic while hauling. Once again a little hammering and I got it working again. It was retired after the wall. I have never broken anyting thing in a fall though. (I am knocking on my desk right now.)

[miller]

This would make a lot of sense. Stainless steel is much more "noble" in the electromotive series than aluminum. If salt from sweat builds up over time on the pin, it can create a galvanic cell which will cause corrosion of the aluminum. The oxide causes a compressive force which eventually causes a crack to release the strain. The solution is to dunk your biners in pure water every once and a while to dissolve any salt that may have accumulated. They may fail eventually anyway, so it's smart to eyeball all your biners from time to time.

 

catbirdseat,

 

could you please explain this a little better? - it sounds interesting but i obviously dont have the scientific background that you do. what is a galvanic cell? does it form on the steel pin, and if so, how would this cause corrosion of the aluminum?

[Bronco]

Don't encourage him! He's probably writing his thesis for you to review right now!

 

I feel like I'm in geek hell when I read some of this stuff!

[Led_Hed]

A friend of mine had an experience similar to the pin clipping failure described above. He fell at the crux of the 10b crack climb just to the left of mosquito crack at Squamish and the biner on the pro-end (connected to a mid-sized nut) on his draw exploded at the end of the spine nearest to the open end of the biners' gate (same place as the aforementioned biner). There happened to be a rescue equipment quality control expert over near "flying circus" who looked at the biner for us and quickly diagnosed the cause of its failure. He said that the gate flutter and slapping that takes place on the upper biner of a draw during a fall (as rope feeds down through it and then back up through it) is enough to jostle it around enough to lodge the cable of the nut in the gate's notch so as to load the 'biner in a way in which it was not built to withstand. Luckily my buddy had another piece of pro between him and the ground which safely held his fall.

[sobo]

catbirdseat,

 

could you please explain this a little better? - it sounds interesting but i obviously dont have the scientific background that you do. what is a galvanic cell? does it form on the steel pin, and if so, how would this cause corrosion of the aluminum?

 

I believe the phenomenon to which CBS alludes is called stress corrosion cracking. It has been responsoble for many deaths in tragic "accidents" over the years (Liberty ships, Delta Comets, link pins in suspension bridges, etc.).

[catbirdseat]

Hey Bronco! I know about this stuff because of my involvement with sailing. Mast fittings on sailboats are typically attached using stainless steel fasteners. Unless one is meticulous about washing the salt from your spars, the fittings eventually pull out. Alex could tell you all about it.

[ketch]

This would make a lot of sense. Stainless steel is much more "noble" in the electromotive series than aluminum.

 

catbirdseat,

 

could you please explain this a little better? - it sounds interesting but i obviously dont have the scientific background that you do. what is a galvanic cell?

 

Miller, now it's my turn to do the "post like CBS"

A galvanic cell is a battery. Anytime you put two differant metals connected electrically in a conductive fluid you make a little battery (you ever see one of those clocks that runs when you stick two differant pins in a potato?). The more noble metal stays good while the less noble corrodes. That sets up a place for cracks and failure. In a biner you have two metals connected and then you add sweat, Bingo little battery that slowly eats your gear while it runs itself dead.

Fresh water is non conductive, either wash your gear once in a while or just climb in the rain and you prevent the conditions.

[catbirdseat]

Geek alert!

 

A battery is technically any number of cells connected in series. The voltage is the sum of the individual cells. A 9Volt battery is a true battery. It is composed of 8 cells, each at 1.2 V. GregW's personal favorite, the D-cell, is just that, a single cell. Your car battery has six 2-volt cells.

 

BTW, the color of the sock does not affect either the mass or the total voltage of the cells contained therein.

 

With enough cells in your sock you can commit battery.

Edited April 8, 2004 by catbirdseat

[dylan_taylor]

Thanks for describing the broken stuff. I think it's important for us to know the limitations of our gear. I guess the good thing about most of these accidents, is that the gear that failed was either old and fatigues, or was used improperly, or was manipulated into a failure-prone position by vibration, etc... With diligence, gear failure in all but the most extreme situations shouldn't happen.

 

Catbirdseat:

the cracks in the biners I have looked at are suprisingly large (maybe 0.05 - 0.2mm wide?).I feel like I can almost get my fingernail in there. Although the salt-caused stress corrosion cracking seems a plausible explanation, do you think the force exerted by the crystallization of salt is sufficient enough to crack the aluminum that wide? I had been under the impression that when the steel notch and gate pins are driven into the pre-drilled holes in a carabiner, they would have to be driven in under a lot of pressure. The pressure exerted by the more competent steel onto the surrounding aluminum over years and years may be enough to cause cracks? 3 out of 4 of the cracked biners I saw were probably at least 20 years old (big fat coon-yards, like I said). This was just a speculation of mine. Perhaps it's way off base? Perhaps the salt crystallization initiates a crack into already stressed aluminum, and the crack keeps growing? I dunno. Thanks for the input. I gotta go. I'll be back at a computer in a month.

[MisterMo]

Oh-Oh

I have a whole boatload of old(30 years or so)biners that I trust my hide to. SMC's, REI's, Alpine Hut, Bedayn, Chouinard & some odds & ends. Can't magnaflux them, of course. Does anyone here have an inkling if dye penetrant would be an appropriate check?

[dylan_taylor]

I suppose it might work. Otherwise, put a good flick on the TV, sit comfortably on the couch, gather yur biners, and look closely at the metal around the pin while .

I just remembered, I've seen a crack in a Bedayn and an REI too.

[MisterMo]

No TV. No, that doesn't interfere with my drinking.

More to the point NDT methods cause flaws invisible to the eye to leap right out. Probably not worth it for a biner unless one has free access to the stuff.

Come to think of it we have a 10K dyno. Maybe I'll bust a few of my antiques and learn a bit about the toll of age and abuse.

[dylan_taylor]

Please do! And do tell!

 

I've only seen the dye penetrent used once - on a steel 6 cylinder continental for a cessna 185. Showed a crack streaking out from the spark-plug hole beautifully. Indeed, it would be a tedious task on biners.