I don't know what Tradklime's situation is, so maybe the cost difference between the quicklinks vs new webbing plus rap rings is a factor.

Speaking of which, please pardon the personal interjection... Hey Tradklime- you around the 11th or 12th of May (Sunday/Monday)? Looks like my wife will be bailing on me for climbing while we're out in Boulder visiting relatives, so if you'd be interested in showing an out-of-towner around the Flatirons (or wherever, preferably trad) drop me a PM. I'll have the prototypes with me and promise not to replace any of your raps stations (while you're looking....).

-aric.

The equipment in question has a SWL of 1550 lb, which is greater than any expected load when used in the manner tradklime has in mind.

If I found one (or two) of these quicklinks at a rap station would I rap off them? Hell no. But I'm also the kind of guy that tends to cut off all the tat and completely replace everything at a rap station when I get to it.

We can debate the appropriateness of using them until the cows come home, but long story short we're seriously lacking in information about the quicklinks (materials, safety factors, etc.) and no amount of online bickering is going to change that. If the results I got makes Tradklime trust them for the use he intends, more power to him. If I find them and replace them with climb-spec gear, more power to me.

Holy fuck...In a similar vein, how do we know the head of your penis won't pop off from all of the pulling? How big was the sample size? No penis heads have ever failed before, but that does not mean that the head couldn't just pop off from work hardening....

I agree, that would make for an interesting comparison but no one I know of keeps a wrench on their rack so I have doubts as to the relevance of the results (unless it convinces people to keep a wrench on their rack for this purpose...).

What's there to get? Yes, I believe they're probably safe to rap off. I also clearly stated that I'm the type of guy that generally replaces everything regardless of what's there due to concern about the soft goods. If I'm going to go to the trouble to replace the soft goods I might as well leave the station with unquestionably good, climb-spec gear. If there was climb-spec gear there to start with, I'll just replace the soft goods and reuse the gear. If the gear isn't climb-spec, is in poor condition or is of unknown origin, I'll replace it. While I feel confident in my ability to make the determination of what's good enough because of my background in engineering and manufacturing, I don't know if the next guy will be similarly qualified and would prefer doing what I can to make it so that its not an issue for him.

Exactly why I do it.

My guess would be that the market for these sorts of things has considerable overlap between recreational climbing and uses that demand far stronger and more rigorously tested gear such as emergency services, search and rescue, military, law enforcement, etc. Its far cheaper to just make a lot of one product to the higher standard than smaller quantities of two different products with different design criteria.

True, it was an assumption on my part lead to only hand tightening them. I don't know offhand whether Tradklime intended to use a wrench or not as it wasn't discussed. As to what "most climbers do", I think neither you nor I are qualified to say what that is with any degree of authority. It wouldn't surprise me if someone were to use them in the fashion I envisioned though, and believe I've read about that very thing here on rc.com. Please feel free to send along some quicklinks for testing with the nuts wrench tightened, but until you do I'm not terribly interested in quibbling over the validity of the assumptions I made for the testing in a nonconstructive manner when they are, in fact, quite valid assumptions to have made regarding the use of the samples being tested.

Good thing I don't climb in JTree then, I suppose.

Well, off the top of my head OSHA regulations come to mind pretty quick. Plus I would think that law enforcement probably follows the guidelines set by the search and rescue folks, so perhaps someone like Majid could provide some insight on the how and why they spec their gear the way they do?

Actually, I'd contend that only occurs because CE and / or UIAA certification is required on equipment sold in Europe for use in rock climbing.

Jay, I'm afraid I have yet to see much of anything from you in this thread that wasn't argumentative, so my defensive reaction to your nitpicking my methods shouldn't be surprising.

And without specific information regarding torque specifications, how valid would the test be with tightening the nut with a wrench an arbitrary amount?

Given the uncontrolled nature environment that rap stations are in, the best way to assess suitability of the gear would be worst case scenario, which in this case would be having the nut only finger tight. That way the test would account for cases where a climber gets to the rap station and finds the quicklink undone and somehow manages to close the nut by hand.

Did you miss the part where I talked about the community at large maintaining things, thereby reducing the need for any one person to shoulder the entire load?

Personal attacks are never part of productive discussions and frankly inappropriate here in The Lab. I think I'll spend the rest of the afternoon amusing myself with the irony of using your own killfile tool on you.

And I might as well quote the whole thing for context and posterity....

...Or to see about having you banned from The Lab. Frankly you've added little value to this discussion...

I've PM'd a Mod with my complaint about it and the quoting was to prevent you from hiding the evidence.

...Or to see about having you banned from The Lab. Frankly you've added little value to this discussion and your behavior has clearly violated the TOS for this forum. I've PM'd a Mod with my complaint about it and the quoting was to prevent you from hiding the evidence...

Do you think that the only reason that BD and Petzl maintain high quality standards is because the CE and the UIAA says they must? I rather doubt it, especially since UIAA is a climbing industry organization. That is, the climbing equipment industry develops its own equipment standards (to which conformance is voluntary).

It still might me interesting to see how wrench-tightened links perform compared with finger-tightened ones.

1) n=6 is hardly a big enough sample to say with any certainty that these are "safe". Ever hear of bimodal distribution? Maybe 1 in 15 will fail at 500+/- lbs for some reason.

If you are truely interested, I would send some more to Aric, assuming he is willing to continue this...

1500 lb no name harware quicklinks are way better than the 2" shrub for rappelling of a route.

Unless your belayer is fooling around with you, 1500 lb backed up by a second bolt/quicklink on a top rope or rappel is quite solid to me. I would use it anytime.

I would be more concerned with noninspectionable bolts, and then only the first 2 anyway.

Nice testing though, proof that even cheap chinese no names are perfectly fine to rap off.

You should rap off the ones that actually say 300 kg on them before complaining about the 1500 lb ones.

No matter what anybody claims after the fact, let's face it: the reason that these links were sent for testing in the first place is that the owner didn't trust the quality of a 75-cent quick link made by an unknown Chinese manufacturer.

In spite of the fact that I have clearly explained this repeatedly, there is evidence that only one other participant in the thread has understood; while, in contrast, the majority of participants, including the owner of the links and probably the tester himself, believe that the testing has proved that these 75-cent links are safe.