Dr Storricks new tree devices

Tree Machine

That's exactly right.



These devices, though improved over earlier versions, evn though they'll do static doubled, dynamic doubled and single rope technique, they're still not hands-free devices.

You can make them hands-free, but our requirements say that the device needs to have the soft/hard lock ability intrinsic in the device.

I would bet that ten of us would find ten completely different, though effective, means of attaining lockoff. But we don't really want improvisation here. We want the device to posess it's own ability to drop into a second stage of friction that DOES make it, at that point, a hands-free device.

Other requirements were that you should be able to soft or hard lock one-handed, either going in or coming out of lockoff, and be able to adjust your position while in soft lock, also one-handed. In a perfect device world, you should be able to work the crown and tend slack while in soft lock. You wpouldn't necessarily have to live in soft lock while up in the tree as going in and coming out, as mentioned, should be one-handed and take about one second, either way, since in and out of soft lock is nearly as common as slack tending.

So any ideas on how to create an intrinsic soft-lock in these devices? This might be a great time for a digital design. Describe it, and I will 'build' it.

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gdstorrick

[QUOTE=Tree Machine;9979]All right, Dr Gary. No more Dr Storrick.

You lucky Dawg, going on a trip to Italy! Do you need an assistant?

I think it's very supportive to all the readership that you're planning a trip to Italy, just so you can pick me up a device.

[QUOTE]

Sorry, you don't meet my "attractive single female" requirement."

I'll see if I can get a couple CT Kaisers for us to play with. They're dirt cheap. Reading the catalog (in Italian), I see that they are for 8 to 12mm rope. Weight is 80g, no info on size, slot length, etc. other than what I can scale from the pic.

----> Gary

TreeCo

Maybe it gets easier after you've been bashed in the head a few times!

Tree Machine

With 1:1 devices there should be no head bashing. Friction hitches are positioned more 'up', sort of face-level, more or less. It would depend on how the particular climber has it set up, but when I see hitch climbers climbing, I see the hitch being worked in the upper torso, head region. This is another of the differences between hitches and devices.

With descent devices in the trees, expect them to be right off the front of the saddle, in direct connection to you, at about belly level. You will never handle the device itself, like you would a hitch, to adjust friction. You will handle the rope. Your belay hand allows the fine-tune control, while the piece takes on the first 95+% of the job. There will be times when you move along, allowing the rope to self-feed out, but more often you'll be in soft-lock where to move out of a stop or slow creep you need to feed the standing end of the rope upward with a light touch.

Most of the time I climb around with the device NOT in soft lock. That's because if you're just getting around the canopy you're in 'tending slack mode'. Soft lock limits you pulling rope through the device when going upward. With all but a few hitches, you tend slack two-handed; one hand to advance the hitch, the other to pull rope downward through it, OR use both hands to pull down, often with the torso leaning back and the hips thrusting up. With the device, since it is down low, you pull rope up through it, one-handed.

As soon as you're in a place to do something, you drop into soft lock. Some devices allow you to adjust while in soft lock, some require you to exit soft lock, adjust, drop back in. I definitely prefer the former because the latter is more the mode for hard lock and these two places should be distinctly different for you to command friction with full adjustability and precision and instanteity.

I find this stuff rather hard to describe in words alone. It really deserves pictures or video.

Anyway, there will be no face-bashing with hunks of alloy. On ascent with ascenders your hand, or hands, are on the ascender pretty much full time and your upper body/head position are angled back a bit from the rope and ascender, line taught. On descent, your piece is by your belly. Your face is safe unless you've just pulled your head out of your

That wasn't necessary. Hey, I had a meltdown with my image library about a week ago. I had all these nice ATC pictures, and still do, but with software change, and learning my way around the new software, I have lost the original order and my device-specific folders. Now they're mixed randomly amongst 13,000 other images.

I'll re-shoot because I think it'll be faster than sifting through the collection, and I appreciate your patience. I have a few more ATC images, then we're going to magically (Photoshopically) add a soft-lock feature onto an ATC, and then move on to devices more Storrical in nature; the CT Kaiser and it's relatives.

I'm off to take some photos. Here's one I shot awhile ago while looking in the mirror.

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Tree Machine

The reason the ATC's and ATC-esque belay devices should be covered further is that other likely devices work on the same principal;

That principal is, running a bight of rope through a slot and clipping a biner on it.

I've really pushed for ultimate, boiled-down simplicity and there's only one other simpler way I can possibly conceive.

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Tree Machine

The limitations being, no intrinsic soft lock and 13 mm rope do not fit in the ATC. Even the 12 mm Fly by new England, you gotta stuff it in there.

I just got an 11 mm New England KMIII, a semi-static 11 mm. They call it static, but there's discernible bounce, nice minimal stretch. True 11 mm.

Now THIS rope is really nice in an ATC. Quick on, a really perfect 'fit'.
I had, until a couple days ago, been climbing on 13 mm New England Safety Vee and 12 mm New England Fly, mostly the Fly. These are not my types of climbing ropes, so I've been suffering. Now the KMIII, that's my kind of climbing line, so life just got a whole lot better.



Again here's how these ATC-type devices work. Single rope, or doubled rope. You can turn the device around to change the level of friction, but I have run it in the cleated, high friction mode almost exclusively. Lately I've been crossing the ropes after they exit the device, or running them 90 degrees off the sides of the device (in other words, using the device NOT as intended) and 180 degrees where the rope comes over top of the device and back onto itself (teempting rope-on-rope and rope-on-metal combo friction), just to fully explore the piece and the different ways friction can be modulated with this one, simple device.


But these devices, as a whole do not have an intrinsic soft-lock.
Therefore, they do not work wonders.

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Tree Machine

But if we were to collectively presume that an ATC device could work wonders, What would it look like?

Tree Machine

How would you add an intrinsic soft lock to this piece?

Tree Machine

Ok, here's a thought that came to mind, partly inspired by this Dr Storrick,...er.... Gary board.
Down on the bottom, left are four devices that have a spring wire gate, like these, or like this Black Diamond Live Wire.

The spring gate is the appeal, let me explain further.

Tree Machine

Here's another Gary page.

Look at the caribiner right in the middle, the one that has a wiregate horn. I'm familiar with that one.

It's this one:

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Tree Machine

This is a Petzl Freino,

Get ready, a lot of smoke and mirrors for this next illusion.....

Tree Machine

First, let's flip it around; spin it 180 degrees on its vertical axis:

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Tree Machine

The we'll put both faces on the same page......

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Tree Machine

Let's face those buggers with the gates looking right at each other,

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Tree Machine

Now we combine.....



Wait, that's not quite it......

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Tree Machine

Here we go!

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Tree Machine

Now the idea is that the dual wiregate spring gate horn would be affixed to the ATC.

It is too late for me to attempt that digital surgery. You get the idea, though, that as the rope exits the device, you are able to drop in a soft lock. You could be hard-locked. Only the creation of the device, and the testing would tell.

Hard lock means you go hands-free, you are holding position on the rope.

Soft lock will allow you to micro-adjust by feeding rope into the device, in other words, you give the rope a light push up with your fingers to come down.

Hey, here's a swell idea, let's get competing companies to morph gear with each other,

"Petzl, Black Diamond. Black Diamond, Petzl.
We'd like to put a Freino together with an ATC Guide in the same bin and see if they mate."

Eric Frei

I'll have to have another look in the morning, Friday avo with a few sherbets I'm seeing double.

__________________

Tree Machine

I'm getting woOOOoOzy

Eric Frei

Bloody hell, and I still got sailors feet from climbing, this is not good!

__________________

Tree Machine

.

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Tree Machine

Let's face these guys back to each other.......

Tree Machine

Erase the center.....

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Tree Machine

Pull them
together.

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Tree Machine

Not what we came here to invent, but this will get us a step closer.

We'll save this for later on. A logical name would be 'dual spring gate' or 'spring-gate hardlock' , 'wiregate friction cleats' 'dual spring horns', 'captive adjustable hardlock'.

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Tree Machine

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,

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Tree Machine

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Tree Machine

I threw the ATC and the Freino into the same box to see if they would mate and spontaneously combine. No luck.

Here's a pic of the ATC XP employing two biners. I was seeing if the greater bend radius might offer a more controlled friction. More testing needed.

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Tree Machine

OK, here's a roughed-in first attempt:

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Tree Machine

You get the idea.