Running over your rack...

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 melto1664 31 Jul 2014
Soooo, managed to reverse over the sack contain my entire rack. Needles to say I curled up in the fetal position and wept for some time.

Looking at the remains I'm trying to decide if anything is salvageable. The cams are clearly muntered and I wont be using any of the carabiners regardless of appearances. But I'm trying to decide whether the nuts are any good. There isn't any moving parts to damage, would the force of one wheel of a Volvo estate car rolling over them cause as much harm as a big fall?

Cheers all.

P.s: the pod sac took it like a champ!
In reply to melto1664:

epic fail!

I dare say nuts would be ok. Just look for fractures and if they're mis-shapen
In reply to melto1664:

At least it wasnt the neighbours cat tho!
 jkarran 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

Oops! Personally I'd use what's straight/un-kinked and still working as intended. You have to make your own decision.
jk
 deepsoup 31 Jul 2014
In reply to jkarran:

> Oops! Personally I'd use what's straight/un-kinked and still working as intended. You have to make your own decision.

Me too, carabiners included most likely.
 erictant 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:
As a rough approximation one corner of you car weighs less than 500kg which is about 5kN. That load would have been spread, by tyres and sack, over several bits of the rack so I doubt any individual piece would have taken much more than half of that.

Even the micro cams will be rated at least 5kN. The carabiners are rated for 7-8 on the minor axis. Hexes are rated 14kN, other nuts are just lumps of metal. All cams and nuts are low angle wedges so the pressure on the contact faces in a fall will be massively higher than the overall rating which is usually limited by wire/slings.

I would say the only thing to worry about is medium to large cams that were loaded across the cams. Even then you could ask DMM what load they can take in that direction and discount if more than 3k.

If you still feel nervious then PM me to arrange postage.
Post edited at 12:25
 Plungeman 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

When I was 10 my Dad managed to reverse a Nissan Bluebird over my foot (on it's side) with no damage - I'm sure everything is fine!

As to the point above about spreading the load over several bits: it's not wrong, but what you'll have no idea about is where there may have been point loads.

Personally I'd take the worst ones along to the likes of DMM (or someone else with a testing rig) next time I was nearby and get them tested to failure BEFORE binning the rest of the rack.

Ultimately think about being 30m up with one piece of gear in. Would you be reassured if you thought it might be something you'd crushed??
In reply to erictant:

> Even the micro cams will be rated at least 5kN.

You realise the rated strength isn't determined by the maximum force they can withstand whilst being run over, right?


 goose299 31 Jul 2014
In reply to mh554:

I'd rather run over the neighbour's cat than my rack
 Jimbo C 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

Wires - probably ok unless bent to sh*t
Karabiners - if still dead straight then probably fine - I'd be dubious if there was even a slight bend though.
Cams - probably unpredictably and invisibly damaged. I wouldn't risk it.
Slings - unless torn, frayed or holed, what can go wrong?
In reply to melto1664:

I've recently had a Ford Mondeo Estate, loaded with 4 people run over my foot and I was fine.
 andrewmc 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

With any bit of gear: if it can be thoroughly examined and doesn't look broken or feel broken, it is probably fine? This obviously does not apply to chemical/UV/textile aging damage, where the damage will be invisible. I can't imagine running over a nut could possibly do it any damage except for what should be obvious damage to the wire; I would be surprised if you could damage any part of a carabiner except the gate mechanism, and that should also be obvious. Personally if a cam looked undamaged and still worked smoothly I'd still use it... I would just make a bloody good inspection of everything first! The most fragile bits of cams (the trigger wires) are not safety critical (they are not what holds a fall, although they do help keep the cam in). But there are a lot more hidden bits in cams.

Black Diamond tested a bunch of carabiners collected from the bottom of a big wall in Yosemite. Removing the ones with obvious damage, they were all fine.

PS this is obviously what I should do and you (and every climber) needs to make their own safety assessment of the gear they possess on a regular occasion.
 andrewmc 31 Jul 2014
In reply to victim of mathematics:

I think he was arguing that the forces felt by the components of the cams themselves will be greatly in excessive of the rated load through the cam, and so the individual components of the cam lobes will be much more robust than that. So his argument wasn't unreasonable, albeit with some caveats and assumptions. The major caveat I would apply is that the components are rated for loads in a specific direction; they would (for example) probably be very bad at taking crushing loads that push the cam lobes together along the line of the axle.
needvert 31 Jul 2014
In reply to andrewmcleod:

That major caveat is big enough that it makes the argument unreasonable. The applied loads are so different as to make those rating numbers are worthless in this circumstance. Consider a 20lb rated wire, you could leave it on the pavement and drive a concrete mixer over it and it wouldn't fail.
cp123 31 Jul 2014
In reply to needvert:

Exactly.

The strength given is for loading in the way the it is supposed to be loaded. And although the guess about the force transmitted by the tyre is roughly correct, you simply cannot infer the way the pressure was distributed through each part of the jumble of gear in the rucksack. For example it is quite easy to imagine a carabiner's beam resting on another beam of a carabiner at 90 degrees whilst under the car and so being bent.

That being said, at the end of the day its only metal and string, if it looks ok, and feels ok, its most probably ok.
XXXX 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

Bin it all. Please. You can't possibly see what damage has been done inside the metal or to the very delicate plastic fibres that make up the fabrics.

Your nut might look fine, but it might now have a significant weakness inside the metal that causes it to shear in half as soon as you fall on it.

Lucky dip.


 Ffion Blethyn 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:


I'd be more likely to trust a krab that was flat on the road and gently trundled over by a car but I'd be less inclined to trust one that had been laid over another and run over.

Perhaps better explained here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93strain_curve

Binning some of your kit will hurt you in the pocket, but are you sure you can trust it? Isn't that why you asked?


Edited to remove my pulling/snapping pencil analogy as when I read it it seemed too annoying.
Post edited at 14:59
 Scott Quinn 31 Jul 2014
In reply to Ffion Blethyn:

Sell it to savvas
Removed User 31 Jul 2014
In reply to XXXX:

> Bin it all. Please. You can't possibly see what damage has been done inside the metal or to the very delicate plastic fibres that make up the fabrics.

MICROFRACTURES, MICROFRACTURES EVERYWHERE!

Rather than bin it, send it to me and I'll 'dispose' of it for you.
 LastBoyScout 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

I'd hazard a guess that if the gate action on a krab is still smooth and doesn't catch the nose, then the krab is probably not bent and therefore ok to use. Assess each individually.

Nuts, wires, ropes and software probably all still fine.

Check your harness buckles VERY carefully.

I'd agree about binning cams.

If in doubt, chuck it out.

Insurance claim?
 JJL 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

Isn't this why we have e-bay?
In reply to andrewmcleod:

> The major caveat I would apply is that the components are rated for loads in a specific direction; they would (for example) probably be very bad at taking crushing loads that push the cam lobes together along the line of the axle.

You mean as if the rated load had no relation to the ability of the cam to withstand a force in a different direction? If only that had been my point in the first place...
OP melto1664 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

Thanks for all the responses. Just to clarify, some of the cams are clearly damaged. My Camelot 3 for instance must have been loaded over the axels because the lobes now move laterally quite freely. My concern with the karabiners is as some people have said, whether they would have been damaged by being loaded along the spine. I'll take a real good look at them all and make a call, I haven't quite found the courage to look at it thoroughly yet. I was expecting a lot more derision and abuse for being a numpty so thanks for the restraint in this dark time.
 Merlin 31 Jul 2014
In reply to melto1664:

You should have driven back over the rack to make sure it was dead. Then you don't have the dilemma of trying to decide if you should use it or not...
XXXX 01 Aug 2014
In reply to melto1664:

Imagine money was no object. Would you replace it? I'm guessing the answer is yes.

If you therefore decide not to replace it, you value you life less than the cost of a new rack.

In reply to melto1664:

Is there a way to claim on home and contents insurance if you were to "lose it"?
 colina 01 Aug 2014
In reply to martinmckenna:

> I've recently had a Ford Mondeo Estate, loaded with 4 people run over my foot and I was fine.

that's one hell of a way to test whether running over your rack would be a problem. respect dude
 spartacus 01 Aug 2014
In reply to martinmckenna:
A Ford Mondeo drove over my uncle.

He died several days later...
 jkarran 01 Aug 2014
In reply to XXXX:

> Bin it all. Please. You can't possibly see what damage has been done inside the metal or to the very delicate plastic fibres that make up the fabrics.
> Your nut might look fine, but it might now have a significant weakness inside the metal that causes it to shear in half as soon as you fall on it.
> Lucky dip.

Fascinating if perhaps a little melodramatic. Could you elaborate a bit on what damage you think have been done and by what mechanism?

jk
 jkarran 01 Aug 2014
In reply to melto1664:

> I'll take a real good look at them all and make a call, I haven't quite found the courage to look at it thoroughly yet. I was expecting a lot more derision and abuse for being a numpty so thanks for the restraint in this dark time.

Get stuck in, most of it will be fine, it's tough and simple.

jk
XXXX 01 Aug 2014
In reply to jkarran:

Two krabs lieing on top of each other have large compressive force placed on them. Could cause point loading on the lower krab, bending of the top krab over the bottom for example. Gates could be damaged. If I could lay all the items down next to each other and drive over them I might accept that as a risk. The way my rack sits I'd anticipate all sorts of cross loading, twisting and bending through all the metal components. All of the fabric we trust is vulnerable to crushing although I guess that would be more obvious.

Maybe my experience of industrial climbing and the associated safety culture has made me soft. Who knows.
 Offwidth 01 Aug 2014
In reply to victim of mathematics:

Maybe there will come a time we will not be able to buy some gear as it doesn't have a UIAA crush load rating?

My sympathies to the OP.
 andrewmc 01 Aug 2014
In reply to XXXX:

> Maybe my experience of industrial climbing and the associated safety culture has made me soft. Who knows.

Lots of the instructions for industrial gear say something like 'destroy following a fall'. This would make sport climbing very expensive...

Do you discard all gear after (big) falls?
 andrewmc 01 Aug 2014
In reply to victim of mathematics:
> You mean as if the rated load had no relation to the ability of the cam to withstand a force in a different direction? If only that had been my point in the first place...

Fair enough (although now that I go back erictant had also explicitly stated that loading cams across the axle would be bad). From your original response though it _seemed_ like you had missed erictant's point which was not a simple comparison of loading and 'rating' (which it _seemed_ like you were criticizing) but rather that the individual components need to be able to withstand much larger forces. He was mostly referring to hexes/nuts etc where the exact orientation isn't really important so it is not an unreasonable argument in this case - the metal needs to withstand forces in a fall vastly in excess of the loading. This argument only really invalid for cams; for nuts and hexes these loads could come in pretty much any direction.

In other words I think we are all saying exactly the same thing without realising it. Aren't internet discussions wonderful? :P
Post edited at 19:14
 Merlin 01 Aug 2014
In reply to melto1664:

I think the OP will be in a better place to discuss this after a month in a dark room with Touching the Void on DVD and a vat of ice cream.

Simoooon...!
 Ffion Blethyn 01 Aug 2014
In reply to Merlin:

Touching The Void?

I was thinking more of the beginning of the Cliffhanger documentary..

 jkarran 05 Aug 2014
In reply to XXXX:

> Two krabs lieing on top of each other have large compressive force placed on them. Could cause point loading on the lower krab, bending of the top krab over the bottom for example. Gates could be damaged. If I could lay all the items down next to each other and drive over them I might accept that as a risk. The way my rack sits I'd anticipate all sorts of cross loading, twisting and bending through all the metal components. All of the fabric we trust is vulnerable to crushing although I guess that would be more obvious.

If it's bent it's bent, you can inspect and decide to get rid or make a judgement.

If it has bent but sprung back and it still works then you've applied one load cycle below the elastic limit of the material. Not that exceeding the elastic limit is automatically harmful, these things are of course bent from round stock initially albeit prior to forging and heat treatment. How the bending loads are applied is largely irrelevant.

Out of curiosity, would you bin a krab that got loaded over an edge but wasn't discernibly deformed and still opened/closed properly?

If fabric is cut, torn or otherwise visibly damaged then fine, get rid. The idea it would still after that sorting be harboring invisible 'crushing' damage I find a bit OTT.

> Maybe my experience of industrial climbing and the associated safety culture has made me soft. Who knows.

Maybe indeed, only you would know.

jk
In reply to XXXX:
> (In reply to melto1664)
>
> Bin it all. Please. You can't possibly see what damage has been done inside the metal or to the very delicate plastic fibres that make up the fabrics.
>
> Your nut might look fine, but it might now have a significant weakness inside the metal that causes it to shear in half as soon as you fall on it.
>
> Lucky dip.

Presumably you bin your rack after every time you go out?

In reply to Jimbo C:
> (In reply to melto1664)
>
> Wires - probably ok unless bent to sh*t
> Karabiners - if still dead straight then probably fine - I'd be dubious if there was even a slight bend though.
> Cams - probably unpredictably and invisibly damaged. I wouldn't risk it.
> Slings - unless torn, frayed or holed, what can go wrong?

+1
XXXX 07 Aug 2014
In reply to andrewmcleod:

I don't take big falls. I use my gear as a last resort, which is probably why I'm still a punter in the grand scheme of things. If I took a large fall I'd consider it, depending on the circumstances. If I took a fall factor 2 (never gonna happen) onto a nut, I'd replace it.

But we're not talking about gear being used as designed, we're talking about unknown (but large) forces being applied to some gear in a way that it wasn't designed to be.

XXXX 07 Aug 2014
In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Why would I do that? If I drove over it every time I went out, then yes I'd replace it every time I go out.
XXXX 07 Aug 2014
In reply to jkarran:
You're attitude to risk and mine are clearly incompatible. That's fine. Surely exceeding the elastic limit permanently deforms the metal, by definition?

 jkarran 07 Aug 2014
In reply to XXXX:

> You're attitude to risk and mine are clearly incompatible.

I actually doubt that. I'm not advocating using significantly damaged kit nor would I do so personally.

> That's fine. Surely exceeding the elastic limit permanently deforms the metal, by definition?

Yes, so what? Deforms and damages are quite different things.

jk
XXXX 07 Aug 2014
In reply to jkarran:

Well if I know what's happened to the kit, I can make an informed decision. It's the unknown factor that bothers me.

Deformed means it's now a different shape to it's intended shape. ie, it's now bent. I wouldn't climb on a karibiner with a bend across it.
 jkarran 07 Aug 2014
In reply to XXXX:

> Well if I know what's happened to the kit, I can make an informed decision. It's the unknown factor that bothers me.

What don't you know about the kit after you run over it and inspected it that you did before?

> Deformed means it's now a different shape to it's intended shape. ie, it's now bent. I wouldn't climb on a karibiner with a bend across it.

Nor would I. Before throwing them all away because they might be bent I'd look to see which if any actually were.

jk
In reply to XXXX:
> (In reply to DubyaJamesDubya)
>
> Why would I do that? If I drove over it every time I went out, then yes I'd replace it every time I go out.

You were advocating disposal of the entire rack on the basis that you couldn't be sure that any item in the bag hadn't been exposed to forces that had damaged it.
In reply to martinmckenna:

> I've recently had a Ford Mondeo Estate, loaded with 4 people run over my foot and I was fine.

You should have your foot x-rayed and dispose of the sock and shoe. The sock could have damage to the sock molecules which might fail when loaded, for example, when you run across the road.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...