I've been a gym climber for a long time now. I'm starting to transition to climbing outside a lot more and these videos have really helped me understand my gear better. Thank you for all the work you guys do!
You should give the draws a would/would not whip rating before you break them, then see how safe your inspection processes are. It'd also be cool to chart the failure rate by age of the draw.
A lot of those draws would have been in the "would not whip" section for me. All of the draws that failed had significant signs of wear and were old at the same time. Dogbones are pretty cheap. I would use them for more than 10 years, but when they start bleaching and fraying it's time to retire.
Pro-tip for the dirtbag climber. Buy 3 new dogbones each year. Always use those for the first 3 bolts. Then use the oldest draws closest to the ankers.
Okay, so the majority of these 10+ year old draws broke with a safety factor of at least 2. No reason to buy 3 a year. Just replace when looking worn/ severely aged. Probably somewhere between 5-7 years for dyneema and 7-10 for nylon
Another good tip: put a steel carabiner on the rope end of your first quick draw. When lowering a climber, if the belayer is standing away from the wall, the angle on the rope entering and leaving the first draw tends to wear it much more than all the other draws except for the highest one. If you do this, you will avoid sharpening your carabiners as quickly.
i just bought 16 dog bones to replace old ones between 7-15 years old total cost was under 100$ replacing your dog bones every 5 years works out to less than 20$ A YEAR any climber should be able to afford that.
@@skier523 Yes! Dogbones are extremely cheap, you can get them for 4€ each in Europe, and sometimes even less. Replace them when they start to look suspicious and you're good to go!
I'm glad you did a test with a heavy guy. Because I am a climber around 240. And because of your videos I am not wondering if my equipment will hold. Most climbers are in between 100 lbs and 180 on the high side. Yes there are heavy climbers out there lol. Thanks for what you do.
The concise "buying guide" you included was very helpful. I don't live within 100+ miles of a store that sells and displays climbing gear and had never seen dog bones sold separate from whole quick draws (except for slings used that way). Now I'll look for replacement 'bones on line and re-sling some older quick draws. Very informative braking tests -- thanks again.
I think the reason anchor building became such a point of focus is because it's always a foundation of getting started climbing, guiding, rappelling, etc.. A way to get the habit built in to try and back up and over build for that worst case scenario. When things go bad the last thing you want to worry about is "is this strong enough?" You want your attention focused on the problem. Rescue with 2 or even 3 people on an anchor system and all the gear. It is a good base to start, but you should always be troubleshooting and playing what if games so you can come across scenarios like this one.. Thanks for taking the time to show us this Ryan
Main reason why anchor is so much more important than anything else is because the consequences of failing are the worse that one can have while climbing, much worse than a quickdraw fail. If one quick draw fails, even if it is the first one, you will deck but from a not so many meters (normally 2-5 m) and I would expect at a reduced force as the fall force would first be way diminished by the force absorbed in the breaking of the quickdraw, the friction of the rope in the carabinner,... so not as decking directly from the height where you would start the fall. While, if the anchor fail, you will fall at least the whole length of the pitch (40 to 50m) if it is just the first anchor or maybe even many folds that height if it is a higher up pitch in a multi pitch route, so way more important than just one quickdraw fail. In my almost 30 yrs of climbing, i have never heard of anyone having a seriously bad accident regarding a quickdraw fail, but i did heard quite some cases of really bad accidents (including deathly ones) regarding anchor fail (most probably not due to sling or cord break but to wrongly executing the anchor setup building, or due to excessive forces applied to poor protection, by either rusty old pegs,... or nuts cams in poor places or shity rock)
Lol at how you casually used "jerking off to anchor systems and ..." I've been using that term as well, it's fun. I just found that my harness (maybe a year old) has some loose SEWN threads on the belay loop and is fuzzier than my friends'. I think the cause is that my belay carabiner has the wire for preventing cross loading... which I love but now all that rubbing... thinking about sending a picture to BD to see what they say.
Love the videos as a whole! As a beginner climber the short buying guides really help. I will be buying all my gear from extreme gear when I can. I really appreciate the work you guys are doing.
Rescue technician here: We have to spec everything to G-rating, which means we have to be 40kn+ on all of our gear. Mainly the reason is because we're looking at 2 person loads on the system. By the time you tie knots in the rope, and run it around edges, things like that, having the highest MBS you can is best practice.
Love the buying guides! I think the format of having the guide in a related video would make it a little harder for people new to climbing (or your channel) to find the content they are looking for, but cool members know eventually everything is going to be cataloged on your website and will be much easier to find ;)
I really love this kind of data that makes it easier to understand how equipment strength diminishes over time! I think it's a super valuable insight that you pretty much can't really get from your own experience - thanks a lot for that! 🙂
Doing drop tests would be great, particularly for things like draws which are going to see their forces applied dynamically but for short periods of time, this is a different pattern to a static pull as is shown here.
@@barrethudson372 it would be awesome, but I understand why he shows "sterile" lab results for gear he does not have the full history of. The drop test is its own set of variables and randomness - that is fine with "known fresh gear", but really complicated with aged gear. But... then again: He is asking for old gear, so if he has plenty - and ideally a set with the same known history - then a drop tower test would really be awesome, as that truly shows how tricky it is to judge gear health.
Man, this definitely has me more worried about my boss's gear that sits permanently in the bed of his pickup uncovered :| Also a big fan of concise buying guides; that was well put together.
Good job man. About time we called out the misdirected focus on anchors - which are over-built and unlikely to experience anywhere near the load on single points. Also worth foot-stomping that old nylon retains strength much better than old Dyneema (or "Spectra). If safety was the priority, that humble, not-sexy 1" nylon sling brings a lot to the table.
Oof, I'm getting kinda worried that some of my quickdraws are no longer "super good enough." That's the big problem with age and wear, there's so much variation in actual strength reduction that you just can't know by "inspection." But 4-8kN? Thats so much scarier than I expected.
Yes, this is the problem. It’s hard to know when to replace because visual inspection probably won’t always tell you and since frequency and intensity of use vary just saying replace after x years isn’t necessarily helpful. But maybe it’s better to just plunk down the money and at least cycle in 3 new quick draws every few years. At least you can justify getting shiny new toys 😂
Always enjoy your videos this one came at the perfect time. I've just been contemplating replacing some of my second-hand quickdraws. They're probably super good enough but I've no idea how old they are and how much they were used or what for previously. This video definitely backed up my decision to buy some new dogbones! I'd send the old ones to you but postage from Scotland probably isn't that cheap. Also really enjoyed the buying guide, nice and succinct, and to the point and I would have found this really helpful when I was first starting to build my rack. Keep up the good work, you've really helped me build confidence in the gear I use!
Ayy I have a lot of old dogbones I'll send your way if you want more data. Bought them off of MP 10 years ago, and they are older than that. Some have been left out in the weather. for non climbing reasons. Had this conversation with many partners about whether they are good enough, and they always stay in my garage since I am unsure. For the comment hecklers, I haven't climbed on them since college.
This is fascinating stuff. The range of wear is interesting. One thing that you probably have heard before, but it's about how dirt and especially salt can wear fibers. This is from a dry cleaner friend. He said that salt in clothing, from sweat or salt water exposure would get into fabric, and when it dries it forms crystals. Like kosher salt in the kitchen, but microscopic. Then, when you flex the fabric, those tiny grains cut the fabric. No idea if it was just something to get people to dry clean their clothes more frequently, but it sounds like it could have some truth behind it.
8:14 sounded like someone crunching on a carrot 😂. This video reminds me of when I was at this awesome cave in Sweden and I wanted to try the classic 8a that was pre equipped but when I touched the draws they were ‘crispy.’ Ended up replacing the cleaning draw on another climb.
Love the idea of older gear test helping the community make good and informed decisions. Thank you so much for the work you do Ryan. I’ll have a hunt around for some old gear to send you.
I don't climb, heck you can't get me close to a cliff. I still love this channel. You're doing a great service dispelling tribal knowledge and rumor with data. It's just....goood stuff man. Good Stuff.
Some of those were definitely lower than I would've thought, even though the majority held a large amount- and ALL of them looked like crap. I'm guessing they felt dried out and brittle too? I've found a few lost or dropped quickdraws and I've always tossed the dogbone and keep the biners if they look good. And I definitely have some "older" draws that were probably manufactured around 2010, but stored well, and kept clean. I'd do the whole once over again, but they're most likely super good enough. If I never comment again, I guess I was wrong!
love the buyers tip. One main consideration for draws is usage. For sport climbing, the thicker the dogebone the better. Thicker is stiffer making it a ton easier to clip on lead. The Dyneema dogbone is supper floppy and a pain in the ass when it comes to sport leading, they do come in handy tho when you are racking up for a trad route and need draws for extensions.
Great video Ryan! And excellent thought experiment, you're absolutely right about redundancy on anchors vs the first few quickdraws...how could that be improved? Now that's a video suggestion xD leaving jokes aside, you can be like opening a sport awareness change in security in this matter...great content as always!!
Great video!! From the first batch that were reported as not permas. The condition of those things, that failed at low values, looked bad to me. I would not have had them on my rack. Faded and fraying to the point that they sure looked like draws that had been permas or left on climbs in the weather quite a bit. I think it would be good to focus on that point. Also seems we should not be using fabric permas much. This is great info to put out there guys!!
Well I guess I should get some new dogbones (looks like extreme gear sells a few options) to replace them on my old draws. At least for the draws I use lower down. Important to stay aware of when a fall (especially if gear fails) is a "free rope swing" vs a costly evac or worse.
It's also worth noting that you'll likely need to surpass the forces demonstrated in the video, as there is only a burst of high force during a fall. That said, the difference isn't large, due to the fact that most of the damage during the force ramp-up occurs towards the end
"It doesn't have a gauge on it" gave me an idea; I wonder if there is a way to introduce some sort of color changing mechanism (without compromising it), like maybe some sort of hollow thread filled with dye that breaks at a certain force or whatever and then changes the color of the dogbone/rope/whatever other soft gear.
Was watching a vid on why the figure 8 knot is so good, and have learned that these type of thread do exist (kind of) and they are sometimes used for testing.
So as a mitigation, could you double up quick draws for which failure would result in a ground fall? If the bolt is good enough to fit 2, or if you clipped the 2nd draw to the first, essentially a secondary back up for the first and clip the rope through both?
The answer is, nominaly, yes. However, if you have doubts about the strength of a dogbone...how much do you doubt it ? If you put in there 2 shitty draws that are able to whistand 1Kn each, you'll still deck. So why bother with putting in two draws that are "maybe not so strong", when you can use one that you're perfectly sure will hold ?
Or not have perma draws at al unless they have made of metall. They removed all perma draws with uv covers from my local crag after they tested a couple and they broke close to half streght. Think water and freze cykles might have done a number on them.
Ryan and team, if I may suggest one thing you might cover as an informational sub-topic: (If you did this already, disregard.) That is, the load applied to the gear vs. the load on the climber in a fall. The FORMER bears on gear failure - albeit trad more than sport. (Review: arresting point load is roughly 1.6 times the load on the climber aka the "3-5-8 Rule.") That "gear load" is not much-discussed and I suspect that newer climbers may conflate THAT with the published UIAA rope rating. In practice, this applies to FF>1 i.e., severe but, such a fall could load some trad gear (or an old sling) close to, or above, its capacity - while the rope itself performed within limits. All I got. Thanks for what you do.
I'm curious to see how very modern (2018 onwards) synthetic blends of soft goods like the technora/nylon blends in ropes like the swift protect by Edelrid (as well things like titan slings which I think are nylon/spectra, but those have been around for around 30 yrs) will do once they pass the 10 year mark.
both dynema and nylon degrafe with exposure to sunlight however never keep nylon gear in wet/humid conditions as nylon absobs water faster than any other synthetic polymer i recommend storing nylon with a desiccant as storing in a humid enviroment will reduce its lifespan by up to 2/3rds
Do you have a source for the 2/3rds lifespan? I'm aware that nylon is hygroscopic from 3d printing, where wet filament prints terribly because the water boils in the nozzle, but I didn't know moisture actually causes nylon to degrade.
my personal take on this is that I buy different coloured sets of quickdraws when I get new ones. I then slowly phase out old ones, using them only where it doesn't matter as much. But also: just changing dogbones. just getting new dogbones is not that expensive and I've done it for two sets of quickdraws now, because they were gettting a lot of use in the sun, on sharp rock and for a long time.
Love your videos! I was watching this one and wondering if there would be a different result with an instant shock like in a whip compared to a straight slow pull till it breaks like you are doing here. I’m curious to see if that gear would hold up to a sudden impact better than holding the force until failure.
I did a pull test on an old dyneema sling and it broke at half it's rating. I retired them about a year later. I'm certain a lot of the pro I place is below 10kn.
Did you come up with any rule of thumb to translate these quasistatic stress tests to those where the shock force is applied in milliseconds? I.e., what would this be under a fall tower test?
Wonder if you could work out a was to test single strand strength before breaking them to see if there’s a way to roughly calculate it to a consistent single strand breaking value that can determine if it’s going to fail.
hmmmmm, old tat on trees/ rappel anchors strength. Could be a good test. Always curious about their strength. Redrocks has lots of that around. Cheers.
I have a question. What is it about 10 years that has the nylon degrading so much? Is it accumulation of UV? General climbing wear and tear? Does nylon just degrade at that rate regardless? What if dogbones had been kept in a dark dry closet for 10 years, would they still break at these low forces?
I have made my own quickdraws with the Nineteen G on the bolt side and and Mammut Sender Wire on the rope side and I think it the Nineteen G were a mistake. They're tiny. I haven't really used them yet, but I think they will be okay to clip, but hard to clean. I should have picked the marginally heavier, but noticeably larger Camp Nano 22 or BD Miniwire instead.
I have a bunch of quickdraws that I’ve never used and have been stored in a dry, light free environment. 8 years old. I wonder how good they are ? Dyneema.
I recently bought a bunch of new dog bones when I inherited a family member's old climbing gear. The carabiners I'll gladly keep on using for a few more years. But for about 4 euro per dogbone, replacing those seemed like a total no-brainer to me. TLDR: replace your dog bones after a few years, they're cheap.
Have you asked any of the manufacturers if they put in an UV marker into their synthetics like two different pigments for similar colors where one is UV sensitive. I feel like I will avoid gear with out any neon colors since faded colors is obviously among the easiest way to spot UV damaged gear.
Very useful informations that they can save your life. I want to say about another serious problem that causes a total destruction of the carabiner of a quickdraw when you leave it outside specialy to this that is connected with the bolt. I'm talking about the electrolysis that happened in this carabiner. That happened because of the different metal they are (carabiners are a mix of different metals and bolts are also). This phenomenon happened near to the sea because of the salt (salt by the humidity of the waves can travel miles in to the mainland). I have seen a lot of times carabiners totally destroyed after only one year of exposure hanging on the bolt. ( they become like dozens of aluminium foils together specialy near to the trigger.) Have a nice climb all of you.
My old 12mm kermantle climbing rope from 1989 was rated to deliver a max 5KN load due to stretch.. It really stretched. Load on gear, bolts and human was limited to 5KN. What has happened to ropes since those days. Has their been a mass migration to static ropes? If so why? Is it because climbing gyms buy the cheapest rope they can find?
I would be pretty certain that they have those samples. Pretty certain that Ryan will not get his hands on official retention samples. Some of those retention samples are reserved for the worst case big accident and law suit case. Some are surely regularly checked. Some may go in and out of storage regularly, just as a base of visual comparison. The interesting question is: What happens after 10/15/20 years, when any liability has ended. Do they just get thrown out? Tested to destruction?
The data for this video is at the blog: www.hownot2.com/post/dog-bones
Check out our new store! hownot2.store/
Thanks for not contaminating my subscriptions page with shorts!!
I've been a gym climber for a long time now. I'm starting to transition to climbing outside a lot more and these videos have really helped me understand my gear better. Thank you for all the work you guys do!
You should give the draws a would/would not whip rating before you break them, then see how safe your inspection processes are. It'd also be cool to chart the failure rate by age of the draw.
A lot of those draws would have been in the "would not whip" section for me.
All of the draws that failed had significant signs of wear and were old at the same time. Dogbones are pretty cheap. I would use them for more than 10 years, but when they start bleaching and fraying it's time to retire.
Pro-tip for the dirtbag climber. Buy 3 new dogbones each year. Always use those for the first 3 bolts. Then use the oldest draws closest to the ankers.
Okay, so the majority of these 10+ year old draws broke with a safety factor of at least 2. No reason to buy 3 a year. Just replace when looking worn/ severely aged. Probably somewhere between 5-7 years for dyneema and 7-10 for nylon
Another good tip: put a steel carabiner on the rope end of your first quick draw. When lowering a climber, if the belayer is standing away from the wall, the angle on the rope entering and leaving the first draw tends to wear it much more than all the other draws except for the highest one. If you do this, you will avoid sharpening your carabiners as quickly.
i just bought 16 dog bones to replace old ones between 7-15 years old total cost was under 100$ replacing your dog bones every 5 years works out to less than 20$ A YEAR any climber should be able to afford that.
@@skier523 Yes! Dogbones are extremely cheap, you can get them for 4€ each in Europe, and sometimes even less. Replace them when they start to look suspicious and you're good to go!
Yeeee didn't watch the full videooo
They should add a uv exposure indicator strip to some of these synthetic fiber products to give a better indication of their uv degradation
I'm glad you did a test with a heavy guy. Because I am a climber around 240. And because of your videos I am not wondering if my equipment will hold. Most climbers are in between 100 lbs and 180 on the high side. Yes there are heavy climbers out there lol. Thanks for what you do.
The concise "buying guide" you included was very helpful. I don't live within 100+ miles of a store that sells and displays climbing gear and had never seen dog bones sold separate from whole quick draws (except for slings used that way). Now I'll look for replacement 'bones on line and re-sling some older quick draws. Very informative braking tests -- thanks again.
I think the reason anchor building became such a point of focus is because it's always a foundation of getting started climbing, guiding, rappelling, etc.. A way to get the habit built in to try and back up and over build for that worst case scenario. When things go bad the last thing you want to worry about is "is this strong enough?" You want your attention focused on the problem. Rescue with 2 or even 3 people on an anchor system and all the gear. It is a good base to start, but you should always be troubleshooting and playing what if games so you can come across scenarios like this one.. Thanks for taking the time to show us this Ryan
Main reason why anchor is so much more important than anything else is because the consequences of failing are the worse that one can have while climbing, much worse than a quickdraw fail. If one quick draw fails, even if it is the first one, you will deck but from a not so many meters (normally 2-5 m) and I would expect at a reduced force as the fall force would first be way diminished by the force absorbed in the breaking of the quickdraw, the friction of the rope in the carabinner,... so not as decking directly from the height where you would start the fall. While, if the anchor fail, you will fall at least the whole length of the pitch (40 to 50m) if it is just the first anchor or maybe even many folds that height if it is a higher up pitch in a multi pitch route, so way more important than just one quickdraw fail.
In my almost 30 yrs of climbing, i have never heard of anyone having a seriously bad accident regarding a quickdraw fail, but i did heard quite some cases of really bad accidents (including deathly ones) regarding anchor fail (most probably not due to sling or cord break but to wrongly executing the anchor setup building, or due to excessive forces applied to poor protection, by either rusty old pegs,... or nuts cams in poor places or shity rock)
That buying guide, and the concise, but not lacking information, format of this video, I found extremely helpful.
Lol at how you casually used "jerking off to anchor systems and ..." I've been using that term as well, it's fun. I just found that my harness (maybe a year old) has some loose SEWN threads on the belay loop and is fuzzier than my friends'. I think the cause is that my belay carabiner has the wire for preventing cross loading... which I love but now all that rubbing... thinking about sending a picture to BD to see what they say.
The take away for me is, use your newest draws first and your older ones higher up, where it matters less if they fail!
I like the idea of more buying guides. This video hits close to heart since I’ve been considering buying new draws. Thanks!
Love the videos as a whole!
As a beginner climber the short buying guides really help. I will be buying all my gear from extreme gear when I can. I really appreciate the work you guys are doing.
Great video! One of the most comprehensive, understandable guides/conversations around QuickDraws I've ever seen. Keep up the good work!
The quality of these videos is getting insane! It’s amazing to see how quickly you/the channel is progressing!
As someone who's learning, really loved the anatomy part at the end. Wish you'd do this more often!
5:35 Camp Nylon dogbone year? and in the video you can see 2015 xD
Rescue technician here:
We have to spec everything to G-rating, which means we have to be 40kn+ on all of our gear.
Mainly the reason is because we're looking at 2 person loads on the system. By the time you tie knots in the rope, and run it around edges, things like that, having the highest MBS you can is best practice.
Buying guides are super useful. Please keep doing them.
Entering my third month of climbing, excited to plan my first outdoor trip this year. Thank you for making the best climbing gear videos.
Love the buying guides! I think the format of having the guide in a related video would make it a little harder for people new to climbing (or your channel) to find the content they are looking for, but cool members know eventually everything is going to be cataloged on your website and will be much easier to find ;)
I appreciate the buying guides, please keep up the great work! Thanks Ryan.
I really love this kind of data that makes it easier to understand how equipment strength diminishes over time!
I think it's a super valuable insight that you pretty much can't really get from your own experience - thanks a lot for that! 🙂
Really important stuff to know. I think this has convinced me to replace dogbones at about 8 years no matter what.
Interesting work, thank you guys. Can you mention harnesses now? I mean that's the one thing we always fall on…
Yes, please!!!!
I would particularly be interested in how the belay loop holds up for an old harness
@@emilyscloset2648 I second this. Please break some old harnesses!!
I would love to see this kind of stuff on the drop tower. Edit: love the buying guide. Doesnt add much time, simple and good info
Doing drop tests would be great, particularly for things like draws which are going to see their forces applied dynamically but for short periods of time, this is a different pattern to a static pull as is shown here.
@@barrethudson372 it would be awesome, but I understand why he shows "sterile" lab results for gear he does not have the full history of.
The drop test is its own set of variables and randomness - that is fine with "known fresh gear", but really complicated with aged gear.
But... then again: He is asking for old gear, so if he has plenty - and ideally a set with the same known history - then a drop tower test would really be awesome, as that truly shows how tricky it is to judge gear health.
Man, this definitely has me more worried about my boss's gear that sits permanently in the bed of his pickup uncovered :|
Also a big fan of concise buying guides; that was well put together.
lol, buy him a bag....
Oh I wouldn't be, he'll probably have his gear stolen before it gets a chance to break.
Thank you for your service, its great to watch these tests!
Thanks for the data!
Good job man. About time we called out the misdirected focus on anchors - which are over-built and unlikely to experience anywhere near the load on single points. Also worth foot-stomping that old nylon retains strength much better than old Dyneema (or "Spectra). If safety was the priority, that humble, not-sexy 1" nylon sling brings a lot to the table.
Oof, I'm getting kinda worried that some of my quickdraws are no longer "super good enough." That's the big problem with age and wear, there's so much variation in actual strength reduction that you just can't know by "inspection." But 4-8kN? Thats so much scarier than I expected.
kind of goes to show that if a quickdraw even looks slightly off, it is better to assume a massive the rating or retirement of the gear.
Yes, this is the problem. It’s hard to know when to replace because visual inspection probably won’t always tell you and since frequency and intensity of use vary just saying replace after x years isn’t necessarily helpful. But maybe it’s better to just plunk down the money and at least cycle in 3 new quick draws every few years. At least you can justify getting shiny new toys 😂
Always enjoy your videos this one came at the perfect time. I've just been contemplating replacing some of my second-hand quickdraws. They're probably super good enough but I've no idea how old they are and how much they were used or what for previously. This video definitely backed up my decision to buy some new dogbones! I'd send the old ones to you but postage from Scotland probably isn't that cheap. Also really enjoyed the buying guide, nice and succinct, and to the point and I would have found this really helpful when I was first starting to build my rack. Keep up the good work, you've really helped me build confidence in the gear I use!
Appreciate the buying guide and glad you put it at the end of the vid!
Amazing work you guys! Thank you for all the good data.
You guys are doing the essential work, thank you
Ayy I have a lot of old dogbones I'll send your way if you want more data. Bought them off of MP 10 years ago, and they are older than that. Some have been left out in the weather. for non climbing reasons. Had this conversation with many partners about whether they are good enough, and they always stay in my garage since I am unsure. For the comment hecklers, I haven't climbed on them since college.
Definitely approve of buying guides thrown in
I enjoyed the little buying guide at the end. Especially nice that you included the weight of the products.
Yes, buying guides and explainers are very helpful! Thank you!
Best channel on UA-cam. I don’t climb yet. Only boulder currently. But I feel so much more informed for when I start
This is fascinating stuff. The range of wear is interesting. One thing that you probably have heard before, but it's about how dirt and especially salt can wear fibers. This is from a dry cleaner friend. He said that salt in clothing, from sweat or salt water exposure would get into fabric, and when it dries it forms crystals. Like kosher salt in the kitchen, but microscopic. Then, when you flex the fabric, those tiny grains cut the fabric. No idea if it was just something to get people to dry clean their clothes more frequently, but it sounds like it could have some truth behind it.
8:14 sounded like someone crunching on a carrot 😂.
This video reminds me of when I was at this awesome cave in Sweden and I wanted to try the classic 8a that was pre equipped but when I touched the draws they were ‘crispy.’
Ended up replacing the cleaning draw on another climb.
Love the idea of older gear test helping the community make good and informed decisions. Thank you so much for the work you do Ryan. I’ll have a hunt around for some old gear to send you.
Love the whole video and the buying guide!!
This is so informative! Great job, fantastic reporting!🌻🌼🐝 Keep it up 🙌
I don't climb, heck you can't get me close to a cliff. I still love this channel. You're doing a great service dispelling tribal knowledge and rumor with data. It's just....goood stuff man. Good Stuff.
Some of those were definitely lower than I would've thought, even though the majority held a large amount- and ALL of them looked like crap. I'm guessing they felt dried out and brittle too? I've found a few lost or dropped quickdraws and I've always tossed the dogbone and keep the biners if they look good. And I definitely have some "older" draws that were probably manufactured around 2010, but stored well, and kept clean. I'd do the whole once over again, but they're most likely super good enough. If I never comment again, I guess I was wrong!
love the buyers tip. One main consideration for draws is usage. For sport climbing, the thicker the dogebone the better. Thicker is stiffer making it a ton easier to clip on lead. The Dyneema dogbone is supper floppy and a pain in the ass when it comes to sport leading, they do come in handy tho when you are racking up for a trad route and need draws for extensions.
Love the "Buying Guides". Keep up the good work!
Hi I definitely love the gear buying guides, definitely helpful
Great video Ryan! And excellent thought experiment, you're absolutely right about redundancy on anchors vs the first few quickdraws...how could that be improved? Now that's a video suggestion xD leaving jokes aside, you can be like opening a sport awareness change in security in this matter...great content as always!!
Thanks for the hard work you put in those videos! Also love the buying guides
Dude so good, videos getting better all the time!
Textiles left on routes are sketchy af. As a tree climber I keep my ropes dry clean and stored hanging in the garage.
Great video!! From the first batch that were reported as not permas. The condition of those things, that failed at low values, looked bad to me. I would not have had them on my rack. Faded and fraying to the point that they sure looked like draws that had been permas or left on climbs in the weather quite a bit.
I think it would be good to focus on that point.
Also seems we should not be using fabric permas much. This is great info to put out there guys!!
The buying guide really helps👌👌👌👌
Love watching these videos deffo need some new dog bones for my rack I have learnt a lot thank you from the UK 🇬🇧 🙏 🙂
Well I guess I should get some new dogbones (looks like extreme gear sells a few options) to replace them on my old draws. At least for the draws I use lower down. Important to stay aware of when a fall (especially if gear fails) is a "free rope swing" vs a costly evac or worse.
I wonder if Edgeworks would let you put a collection bin "Old dogbones for HowNot2 testing" by the entrance. I would totally donate.
Good stuff guys. Thanks for the info. I've got a bunch of older stuff that I'm bit suspicious of.
Yes. The buying guides in videos where they are relevant are welcomed.
I appreciate the buying guides.
Buying guides are more than welcome!
It's also worth noting that you'll likely need to surpass the forces demonstrated in the video, as there is only a burst of high force during a fall. That said, the difference isn't large, due to the fact that most of the damage during the force ramp-up occurs towards the end
Love your content. Thanks so much for all you do!
"It doesn't have a gauge on it" gave me an idea; I wonder if there is a way to introduce some sort of color changing mechanism (without compromising it), like maybe some sort of hollow thread filled with dye that breaks at a certain force or whatever and then changes the color of the dogbone/rope/whatever other soft gear.
Was watching a vid on why the figure 8 knot is so good, and have learned that these type of thread do exist (kind of) and they are sometimes used for testing.
yes i love the buying guides, thank you!
So as a mitigation, could you double up quick draws for which failure would result in a ground fall? If the bolt is good enough to fit 2, or if you clipped the 2nd draw to the first, essentially a secondary back up for the first and clip the rope through both?
The answer is, nominaly, yes. However, if you have doubts about the strength of a dogbone...how much do you doubt it ? If you put in there 2 shitty draws that are able to whistand 1Kn each, you'll still deck. So why bother with putting in two draws that are "maybe not so strong", when you can use one that you're perfectly sure will hold ?
I’d say “add a UV blocking cover” but then no one will inspect them. Maybe a marking that appears as sun fades it.
Or not have perma draws at al unless they have made of metall. They removed all perma draws with uv covers from my local crag after they tested a couple and they broke close to half streght. Think water and freze cykles might have done a number on them.
Ryan and team, if I may suggest one thing you might cover as an informational sub-topic: (If you did this already, disregard.) That is, the load applied to the gear vs. the load on the climber in a fall. The FORMER bears on gear failure - albeit trad more than sport. (Review: arresting point load is roughly 1.6 times the load on the climber aka the "3-5-8 Rule.") That "gear load" is not much-discussed and I suspect that newer climbers may conflate THAT with the published UIAA rope rating. In practice, this applies to FF>1 i.e., severe but, such a fall could load some trad gear (or an old sling) close to, or above, its capacity - while the rope itself performed within limits. All I got. Thanks for what you do.
I'm curious to see how very modern (2018 onwards) synthetic blends of soft goods like the technora/nylon blends in ropes like the swift protect by Edelrid (as well things like titan slings which I think are nylon/spectra, but those have been around for around 30 yrs) will do once they pass the 10 year mark.
Excited for next week!!
both dynema and nylon degrafe with exposure to sunlight however never keep nylon gear in wet/humid conditions as nylon absobs water faster than any other synthetic polymer i recommend storing nylon with a desiccant as storing in a humid enviroment will reduce its lifespan by up to 2/3rds
Do you have a source for the 2/3rds lifespan? I'm aware that nylon is hygroscopic from 3d printing, where wet filament prints terribly because the water boils in the nozzle, but I didn't know moisture actually causes nylon to degrade.
that's... interesting. Thanks for another great video!
my personal take on this is that I buy different coloured sets of quickdraws when I get new ones. I then slowly phase out old ones, using them only where it doesn't matter as much. But also: just changing dogbones. just getting new dogbones is not that expensive and I've done it for two sets of quickdraws now, because they were gettting a lot of use in the sun, on sharp rock and for a long time.
are the pigments actually designed to fade in UV light in order to indicate damage? If not, should they be?
Love your videos! I was watching this one and wondering if there would be a different result with an instant shock like in a whip compared to a straight slow pull till it breaks like you are doing here. I’m curious to see if that gear would hold up to a sudden impact better than holding the force until failure.
Totally agree.
Buying guide has been very helpful
Very useful data - thanks !
I have the camp dyon carabiners for my alpine draws and can confirm they are the bomb. So easy to clip in and out of with the hookless design
I did a pull test on an old dyneema sling and it broke at half it's rating. I retired them about a year later. I'm certain a lot of the pro I place is below 10kn.
Did you come up with any rule of thumb to translate these quasistatic stress tests to those where the shock force is applied in milliseconds? I.e., what would this be under a fall tower test?
Oh man. So you're saying I have to replace my blue water quick draws from 1997? ( thanks for the content )
Wonder if you could work out a was to test single strand strength before breaking them to see if there’s a way to roughly calculate it to a consistent single strand breaking value that can determine if it’s going to fail.
@6:22 Thank you! yes people over complicate the top setup
hmmmmm, old tat on trees/ rappel anchors strength. Could be a good test. Always curious about their strength. Redrocks has lots of that around. Cheers.
That sound at 8:11, amazing! Someone should lay that under a clip of a person biting into a snack or something
I have a question.
What is it about 10 years that has the nylon degrading so much? Is it accumulation of UV? General climbing wear and tear? Does nylon just degrade at that rate regardless? What if dogbones had been kept in a dark dry closet for 10 years, would they still break at these low forces?
I have made my own quickdraws with the Nineteen G on the bolt side and and Mammut Sender Wire on the rope side and I think it the Nineteen G were a mistake. They're tiny. I haven't really used them yet, but I think they will be okay to clip, but hard to clean.
I should have picked the marginally heavier, but noticeably larger Camp Nano 22 or BD Miniwire instead.
I have a bunch of quickdraws that I’ve never used and have been stored in a dry, light free environment. 8 years old. I wonder how good they are ? Dyneema.
love the buying guide!
Are you recording all the broken equipment? Gotta start making some graphs and using statistical tests soon ;)!
buying guide appreciate .. definitely
I recently bought a bunch of new dog bones when I inherited a family member's old climbing gear. The carabiners I'll gladly keep on using for a few more years. But for about 4 euro per dogbone, replacing those seemed like a total no-brainer to me.
TLDR: replace your dog bones after a few years, they're cheap.
Loved the buying guide
Have you asked any of the manufacturers if they put in an UV marker into their synthetics like two different pigments for similar colors where one is UV sensitive. I feel like I will avoid gear with out any neon colors since faded colors is obviously among the easiest way to spot UV damaged gear.
Very useful informations that they can save your life. I want to say about another serious problem that causes a total destruction of the carabiner of a quickdraw when you leave it outside specialy to this that is connected with the bolt. I'm talking about the electrolysis that happened in this carabiner. That happened because of the different metal they are (carabiners are a mix of different metals and bolts are also). This phenomenon happened near to the sea because of the salt (salt by the humidity of the waves can travel miles in to the mainland). I have seen a lot of times carabiners totally destroyed after only one year of exposure hanging on the bolt. ( they become like dozens of aluminium foils together specialy near to the trigger.) Have a nice climb all of you.
My old 12mm kermantle climbing rope from 1989 was rated to deliver a max 5KN load due to stretch.. It really stretched. Load on gear, bolts and human was limited to 5KN. What has happened to ropes since those days. Has their been a mass migration to static ropes? If so why? Is it because climbing gyms buy the cheapest rope they can find?
That’s why I only buy 9
thanks, been waiting for this :)
Would be great to see quick draw manufacturers keep retention samples per batch for long term storage testing!!
I would be pretty certain that they have those samples.
Pretty certain that Ryan will not get his hands on official retention samples.
Some of those retention samples are reserved for the worst case big accident and law suit case.
Some are surely regularly checked.
Some may go in and out of storage regularly, just as a base of visual comparison.
The interesting question is: What happens after 10/15/20 years, when any liability has ended.
Do they just get thrown out? Tested to destruction?