Dont step on the rope!

the link! : http://www.mountainproject.com/v/general_climbing/our_climbing_rope_rug_picheavy_instructions_included/106267153

cruising around the intraweb, as i so often due to past the time between the rock scaling, i found this jewel . Its not exactly a new idea and this post originally went up in 2008 but i thought TWproject was just the place to keep the dream alive. so if youve ever wanted to make one of these beauties Mark and Stacy Egan have laid it all out in their post on mountain project. thanks guys. well done!

Remember! retire your ropes before they retire you!

Cronical

i like so many of you love climbing movies and literature. for that reason i wanted to give a little shout out to Mike Chessler. he's the genius behind http://www.chesslerbooks.com/ . recently i made a large bulk buy of movies from Mike. i took a look on his site, made my dream list of movies i wanted to add to my already huge collection and sent him an email. I said "hey mike, i want all these movies, if i buy them at one time will you give me a discount?" he said sure, quoted me a price and i called him up a little later to place the order. he's a cool old climber. i had bought books from him in the past and he sell cool memorabilia on ebay from time to time. like pitons sign by Royal Robbins. anyway, when guy do good by me i like to give them credit and a little advertising. along with this i think i may have an upcoming top ten climbing movies post.... stay tuned... go check out mikes site for guides, literature, dvds, and lots of other climbing media!

if you dont tape your hands... tape your mouth.

all the folks i climb with know i tape. i tape heavily... religiously... some agree with me, some could care less and others still freak out about it. i would say this third group is the most annoying. arguments get made about how taping cheapens the sport. if your one of these people just put the tape over your mouth so we dont have to hear it. climbing is barely a sport. and for those of you constantly making up rules and keeping score? really? stop and come back to simply enjoying climbing. next to that, do you climb barefoot? ...chalkless? ...ropeless? do you tape tendons? ...i cant think of one person who bitches about hand taping that doesnt tape up a tendon. and i've never heard of a redpoint invalidated because of taping an A2 pulley tendon. on a person note, dude i work in the medical field... AIDS, HEP. C, MRSA... they all love a good vector of transmission.

now because i love tape gloves, and im so great at it... people just always ask my preferred method... not really... i just never stopped listening to that positive self talk my mom helped me create!


step 1: i used a little "magic marker" to help you see in the pictures how i do things. so, three perpendicular pieces down the back of your hand. this creates a base layer. i like to slap the tape down onto the back of my hand to get it to settle.


step 2: half strips, depending on your hand size, about 10 inches long. go straight up between the bones of the third and fourth finger. then twist the right a the middle three time. this makes a nice "cord" to wrap the finger.


step 3: wrap around the finger and cross back across the hand to end on the opposite side of the wrist. then repeat the process for the index finger. i dont wrap the middle two fingers... its superfluous.

step 4: the finishing boxer wrap. start at the outer prospect of the hand wrap around the hand over the knuckles, just a little, and come around the palm of the hand. you want this tight but not overly so. spread the fingers as much as you can as you tightly wrap around. your get the hang of it after a few tries.

step 5: make only one complete wrap then come down to the wrist. make two complete revolutions around the wrist. i like to make this pretty tight also. then cross back up over the back of the hand and wrap the palm again making one full revolution and ending in the palm.

step 6: you can see in the picture where i end the tape. i added a black line to show it more clearly. its best to end here because you can now pinch and twist the tape into a cord across the palm as seen in the second picture. this will keep the tape from ever pealing up as you stuff it into never ending feet of beautiful cracks!

step 7: cut the tape off as you see. then if you lay the tape flat you can see that there are the tabs left over. cut those off and you can reuse your tape glove by applying a simple boxer wrap. i usually get about 4 or 5 days out of a good glove. if you try this methods and find it useful... please comment and share with the other readers!

RYOBI-TITAN

"...what the hell is this?" you might be thinking that right now. others of you might be way ahead of the game. but heres the deal. have you ever wanted to completely reset your wall but dread the thought of taking down a couple hundred holds first. i was a head routesetter once of a no-nothing gym and i know what a BI-OTCH! that can be. but i know how great it is to set on a white canvass too!

in the past i have seen other solutions to the problem. the main one is getting and appropriate size allen bit and putting it into the drill. but 99% of drills cant overcome the torque needed to remove a set holds. the next option i have seen is using a hammer/impact drill. this option sucks because the damn thing is loud and annoying! ever gone into a gym and seen multiple route setters up on the wall with hammer drills. sure they wear their ipods so they can stomach it. but what about me! well this option works great, both fast and relatively quiet! watch my demo videos if you need more convincing! try it out for yourself... post a comment and let the world know i may be crazy, but this one idea is genius!

this last video shows me setting a hold with the Ryobi-titan setup. i dont really recommend it as it is easy to cross thread a bolt that way, but it can be done. i still think a t-handle wrench is smarter. some "professional", "tradesman" (ha ha aha ha ha!) routesetters think that setting with a drill is faster and makes a better product. frankly i use the ten seconds turning a hold by hand to think about the route and looking around for options on where else the route might go. that thinking time helps me make a quality route. face it kids faster doesnt mean better, every climber has moved to quickly up a route only to find themselves off route... for some reason setters dont realize they can get off route too. Mkay, im done picking on others... sorry. hope this thing works for you though!

big wall gri gri

i apologise for what i am about to do. i know that i have been talking lot about the gri-gri lately.... which is kinda ridiculous considering i have a gri-gri made in 1994. i dont know about you but i have had climbing partners younger than my gri-gri. its funny age is a factor in trust with me and climbing....weird?

regardless what could make me want to climb down into that gri-gri hole again and start digging? well, glad you asked!... i was at the gym the other day doing some laps with the K.cloud and some gym newbie looks at our gri-gris and is puzzled.

"what's the deal with that?" he asked us, as he pointed the belay setup. not really cluing into what he was after i launch into an explanation of how we are lead belaying with gri-gri's. and despite what he may have read or heard its perfectly safe and blah blah blah....

he cuts me off!.... rude?! much? doesnt this douche realize i love the long winded Socratic dialogue as i imagine myself on the steps of the senate hall! come to me children for i will corrupt the youth!

yeah he didnt care, he was pointing to the accessory cord on our gri-gri's. oh! huh! i had gotten so used to this upgrade i thought everyone who had ever seen a gri-gri new about it. i explain to the neophyte that this is so i dont drop it.... he looks at me like im retarded.... "from up on route!" i emphasize. then the light bulb goes off and the one-sided conversation begins anew as i explain all the beni's of improving on the patent.


he quickly grows tired of my blathering... leaving me with a itch to scratch. so heres how you turn your average simple gri-gri in to a big wall gem impervious to the gravitational pull which seems to claim so many a climbers overly priced means of egress....impervious, in theory any way.

so first locate the Phillip's head set screw on the fixed plate side of your original model gri-gri. conveniently picture to the left for those not blessed with the skills of following written directions.





next, remove the screw, duh! try to get the appropriate size screw driver... stripping the screw now would suck as eventually you will need to access this screw again and if you wear it out you just destroyed a perfectly good belay device... competitively priced at $75 or more.

i also strongly urge you not to loose the screw! when i was a mechanic a while back i use get duct tape and make an "H" on the work bench. the center bridge of the "H" wold have the "sticky side" up! put the screw on the sticky side. "huh? ...it stays?"






so that screw attaches the black plastic base plate on the bottom of the device. with the screw out it's still attached, but you can pry down the rear section by the eyelet...like so (look to the left genius).

next you need some small diameter accessory cord, and a drill bit of equal size. avoid going too big...

once you have your hole, thread the cord through the hole and tie a knot. i suggest you use a double fisherman's as opposed to the simple over hand knot pictured here. things get snagged on things and...well, frankly i like a little more staying power than that provide by your best "granny knot"




once thats done put plate back in place and replace the screw...whew! didnt loose it!

a quick word on "cross threading" and "back threading"! cross threading is when you go at a screw or bolt and turn like a champ until you force that thing into it's home. this also destroys the threads (little ridges on the screw and inside the hole? they lock together? attaches tap "A" to slot "B"?). this tends to happens very easily when a harder material is threaded to a softer material.... ie the metal screw in the plastic hole!!!!

back threading is a method of ensuring you dont cross thread. so put the screw in the hole. now, rather than turning it in (lefty loosey, righty tighty) we turn the screw backwards ever so slowly and gently until we feel the screw drop into the treads! this method will line up the threads and allow you to not destroy your gri gri!!! enjoy that! put it in your mouth! suck on it! it's sweet...you like..


my last suggestion is the drilling site. first ill admit, once again lost camera...therefore none of these pictures are mine...

so above it shows the hole drilled froward of the screw. i prefer mine to be further back. either works and is a matter of personal preference. but this way i can make the cording shorter and less "snaggable" ...in theory anyway. you will have to work a little harder to make the knot fit, but i have faith "handy smurf".






last thing i wanted to point out is... ever wonder how old your gri-gri is?

lift up the handle and take a peak hmm this kid was born in 1995.... ha! mines older, but at least i dont have the super heavy first series...

hope you kids like the blathering, again question and comments are welcome. ie, im lonely... hug me...

club dreher!

"HI! im josh!, it's my turn to get my very own treadwall Project post.... so what to talk about? i guess i could tell you that i dont like to be interrupted whiled in mid-meal! i also, like you, love the rock climbing and recently rediscovered my balls... thus i have made my triumphant return to the trad climbing! did i mention i sent the egg? no? ...oh yeah i sent the egg..."



"...and ...i love ladies! cause im a maaaddddd, pimp of love!"

"but i guess since this is a site dedicated to the projects, ill let alex tell you all about the sick wall he built for me. i mean he helped me to build, look... i designed it! im the engineer! i make schematics!"

.....ohhh-kay? ...thanks josh for that odd intro. but like you said we should get down to telling people about that project.

in all honesty this went down a while ago, i actually took time out from building my stuff to help josh make this miracle of science. he was kind enough to look over my shed drawings and in the same visit gave me a look at his design for a new bouldering wall. in truth, when i saw the computer generated design (yes..he did it on a computer... nerd) it looked like hardly more than a bunch of lines to me. but he was so very excited about it that all i could say was... "yeah man! that looks sick! let's build it... what does the wife think?" (note: he aint married but she knows who the boss is in that bis-natch)

he then explained the design to me. turns out the wall would not be nailed or framed to the garage... it was gonna be suspended by cables... i instantly distrusted this idea, but it's not my house so, F-it!, ill watch a wall fall down on josh. cause what are friends for?!

step one to building a bouldering wall, for any engineer is... get a couple of dummies to do all the work. enter myself and J-rod! ...stage left.

step two for the overly engineered super over hanging boulder wall, built into a rented property where your only allowed to have four anchor points to the entire building is... get a big beam. cut it to exactly the width of your rented garage and using a concrete drill blast some holes into the foundation. then using angle brackets, bolt the sucker down, like soo....

(oh and if you look back at the dummies pic above you can see it already in behind us on the ground)

this will serve as a stop brace for the bottom of the wall to lever against as it is suspended from above... again im skeptical yet optimistic! and let's not forget i have no deposit so "F%#@ -it! Doc drill!"

next we framed up a 12x8ft wall. there was a couple of errors made in angling the ends. it need bevels so the wall could sit flush to the footer beam and have an addition head wall added but... come on?! it's not like we had an "ENGINEER" on this project.

ill also suggest that before you put the plywood to the frame, stack it up and drill all your t-nut holes at the same time. we used the chalk line method to plot the 6" spacing we wanted. if you start 3" off the edge it works out. given that you dont drill the holes the same exact size as the t-nuts your gonna put in. in that "unlikely" event you may need to, at some later time, go back and drill slightly bigger holes so the t-nuts fit, but im rambling...

step four: drill a couple of holes into that burly ass glue-lam in the ceiling. then put a huge eye bolt in there and crank it down. then you swag a couple of cable into the eye bolts like so...

YES! those cables are going to be used to suspend the wall, tah-dah!...

lift it up, clip it in... and.. and... "...go stand under it."

"...uh, no dude!",

"...dude it's safe",

"...then you do it!" ...eventually josh did this, with only one cable attached!

to all of our amazement it held. then he hopped and we all cringed a bit. (is it just me or can you still see the edge of terror in his eyes?!) a few minutes later it leveled out and got way cooler as we added the second cable, balanced out the lengths and the set it back against the footer beam.

to finish it up we added an additional four foot head wall. the bottom of it is attached to the main wall and the top has two more cables running back to the same two eye bolts.

again we all dared each other to test it out. gingerly, like little girls dipping our toe in the pool we took turns pulling down on it. it was so basic, it shouldnt have worked. but it was solid, the weight of the wall itself keeps it from bouncing. and the lack of excess framing makes it practical to hang! the only thing left was to set the problems and start to crush!

if you need any extra specifics to build this monster yourself ... get yourself an engi-ma-neer type!