UKH

https://www.thealpinestart.com/2019/01/22/tech-tip-impact-forces-during-a-f...

Andy Kirkpatrick put this on his FB page.

In reply to paul mitchell:

A big fyckup in my opinion...

Albeit not because it's not full strenght so it can be used for anchors (albeit I have done that, but with different tools), but because even a small slip can render the tool next to useless (you'll need to use the upper grip only).

By minimum, it should have been a tad stronger than normal leashes/umbilcals, so the the tool stays intact and only the leash breaks. The means, that if it indeed was just a small slip, your tool is still usable and you can continue (albeit the leash might be a goner).

In reply to paul mitchell:

And to think, they patented that pommel design too...

https://media.giphy.com/media/L8XuphFGqlSfe/giphy.gif

In reply to paul mitchell:

That's a good article.

I'm currently reviewing a pair of these and have been using them exactly like demonstrated here, ie WRONG!

I guess it's probably mentioned in the manual but that is still quite a bad design. A lot of people are going to break their tools like this.

I'll make sure to bring this up in the review.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Yeah, a mention in the manual is no excuse for a bad usability design. I mean, you wouldn't design a pair of axes not robust enough for mixed climbing, sell them in a territory where the primary activity is mixed climbing, have lots of videos on your website of sponsored athletes using them for mixed climbing, and then try and squirm out of warranty obligations because said usage "isn't in the manual".

Oh, wait...

 

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

I wonder if the ergonomic has the same fixing on the lower pommel and if that then will become a weak point with continued use on steep tooling when having the climbers weight going through one axe on fig 4 stuff?

In reply to climber34neil:

From the report...

THE SMALL BOLT THAT GOES THROUGH THIS HOLE IS ALL THAT HOLDS THE LOWER POMMEL ON!!

Looks like the pommel is PLASTIC and it's this plastic that has failled rather than the "small bolt"!

Can anyone confirm if it is a plastic component without internal metal strengthening?

I'm not sure what's worse, designing a non-full-strength hole at the end of an axe or the end user expecting a plastic component to be full-strength!

In reply to JLS:

I just pulled mine apart. It is just injection moulded plastic that the bolt goes through, with no metal reinforcement. It is infact only about 6mm of plastic (in width) which is even thinner in thickness when you account for the counter sinking of the nut and bolt.

Actually, despite this being a monumental f**ck up by the design team, there is a pretty obvious fix. I.e. machine the steel part of the pommel so that there is some reinforcement and distribute to dealers. Though I doubt we will see this happen. 

In reply to paul mitchell:

Baffled by how the link seems to focus on bad user actions rather than bad design. I've never sat down and read the user manual after buying a pair of axes. Has anybody else? Petzl should really be sticking warning labels on their axes with such an acute weak point.

People are probably mistakenly clipping the lowest point of the axe because most other manufacturers have designed axes to allow this to be done perfectly adequately.

Going back to the link, who seriously carries a pair of Spectres for backing up their belay rather than just clipping their axes? 

In reply to paul mitchell:

DMM advertise their axes as having "high strength clip-in points for classic winter belay techniques". Just saying...

In reply to paul mitchell:

what is the reason for the pommel being designed like this? does it pivot? if it pivots then why is this beneficial?

Seems extremely dangerous to me. I've used my Axes (Tech Machines so thankfully solid) as belays when topping out when I've had to. If someone with these does the same then at 1.5kN It would likely not even hold if a second fell.

also second the idea carrying Spectre's when you have 2 perfectly good tools to hand is a bit daft.

dangerous over engineering I think. think they would have learned after the wobbly head issue. People still seem to buy them though. one of the most commonly seen axes out there for sure.

In reply to Gawyllie:

Yes. To allow size adjustment of the grip.

In reply to planetmarshall:

In designing a product to be 'fit for purpose', I would imagine that the manufacturer has a duty of care to condider how the product is likely to be used, as well as their design intention.

It seems as though Petzl have deliberately made the pommel low strength to help keep weight down.  Seems like usability has come a poor second here.

In my early days, I once hung from a sling round a tree while clipping the rope into my abseil device.  At which point I noticed that I was clipped into one of my gear loops  not the belay loop 8-}.   Boy was I glad that some designer at Troll had 'over engineered' those gear loops.....

In reply to Mr. Lee:

If you pick up a pair of axes, and the most natural way to use them can result in damage at best, and a potentially dangerous situation at worst, then it isn't user error. It doesn't matter what the manual says - it's poor design.

I apologise in advance for my naivety having never owned a pair of the 2nd gen nomics, but the full strength clip in point is in the handle so why would you assume they’ve moved it? 

 

In reply to paul mitchell:

I have friend who fell and ended up looking at his tethered axe above him. He managed to climb back up to said axe pulling on the tether. Finished fine. DMM have an extra hole on their tethers for just such a thing. I think the article is a bit disingenuous. If Mick Fowler can clip his rucksack strap in when he was pumped then; (I am coming out here) I have done it more than once.   And once when the ice screws kept freezing I clipped a runner into the rope then to the axe while I fought to get something in. Now which way for correction punishment .

In reply to Mr Messy:

“And once when the ice screws kept freezing I clipped a runner ant the rope to the axe while I fought to get something in. Now which way for correction punishment .”

seems quite sensible in the circumstance to me.

In reply to climber34neil:

Might be wrong here but I think it’s the same design as on the previous model. Just that there is a clippable spike now. Very much doubt fig 4s will be an issue.

However people clipping the obvious hole in the spike will be an issue. Mostly that will be in desperation when pumped. A desperate slump onto the pommel is probably better than a fall as the pommel might hold. Strange than they haven’t made it stronger though. 

In reply to Mr. Lee:

I've been thinking about getting a pair of quarks... with these, there no option to clip the axes in this way? There's only the spike hole, and no full-strength point (except in the head) from what I've seen.

 

In reply to planetmarshall:

Well said. I vaguely remember posting that the way they handled the initial nomic issues meant I would never trust a petzl axe and being roundly shot down for it. You need to trust your axes are stronger than you'll need them to be. When you have manufacturers like DMM and grivel who are quite blatent that their priority is making products that are strong as f**k I really don't know why anyone would risk buying a petzl axe. They blatently don't have any input from winter climbers during the design process of their products, either that or the bean counters have the final say to cut corners and advice doesn't get listened to.

In reply to l21bjd:

AFAIK that is the case...

Quarks have the full strenght cliphole in the spike... Nomic doesn't.

But they look almost the same (in fact, I think the metal spike is the same), so it is easy to misunderstand even the very instruction...

And as I stated above... since Petzl rates their own leash at around 2kN, the should have atleast made the "logical" connection point to be that plus some. After all, breaking  a leash will not hinder you much... but breakin' the lower trigger will render the lower handle useless... Something that I would not prefer to happen whilst climbing in a multibitch environment...

In reply to Sharp:

How they swing and that they are readily available...


That said, at least Camp/Cassing X-Dream has a better swing that either Gen1 or Gen2 Nomic. And I would assume the new BD Reactor to be the same (after all, it's a carbon copy of the X-Dream). And from what I have heard is that the Grivels offering is about the same as Nomic. DMM... well... built to last, but imho not that good swing... more akin to the Fusions (both orange & green) I use.

In reply to HeMa:

whilst climbing in a multibitch environment...

Always a stressful situation.....

 

In reply to Sharp:

Because they are absolutely delightful to climb with. I haven't used Grivels but Nomics are significantly nicer to use than Switches IMO.

In reply to Mr Messy:

Far from being a punishable offense, that's something that I'm pretty sure is suggested in more than one book on ice-climbing technique. You did well to have the sense to think of it.

In reply to HeMa:

Indeed, given what I've said above it may seem odd but I do own a pair of 2nd generation Nomics and will continue to use them until and if they start suffering from "creaky head". I try not to use tethers if I can help it.

 

In reply to paul mitchell:

Seems to be some sort of loss of corporate knowledge at Petzl with regards to this.  I read somewhere that the spike was in response to user feedback.  Clearly you can't clip the spike and Petzl should have known this as they obviously did for V 1 & 2. 

Anything sharp on the base of my axe gives me the creeps anyway so I would have changed the pommel or filed the spike down as I've done for my current pair.  This wouldn't put me off buying a pair of the new ones I needed a new axe. These are the ones I would still buy out of all the current axes so they still get my vote for what it's worth.

In reply to HeMa:

  Some of the companies manufacturing gear seem to do R&D after mass production has started and then these sort of glitches emerge in action.  

Not exactly a design fault but it is reasonable to unconsciously clip the base of a tool because the last six types of axe you’ve used over the years could all be clipped that way.

The vid really showed how big forces are generated in short slips that don’t have any air time at all.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:

I wonder how much "high strength" really means. Anyway, 1.5 kN for the Nomic is less than the 2 kN required to pass the UIAA test 

https://uiaa-web.azureedge.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/UIAA152-Ice-tools...

In reply to paul mitchell:

This is typical behaviour from Petzl. I think it's such design f*ck up in so many levels that it's hard to justify why buy the brand. Of course there are obvious hacks that can be done and solve the problem, but why Petzl plainly incapable to solve pommel issues for the last 10 years is beyond me. Specially since every other brand has a solution for it.

In reply to HeMa:

I don't think the cliphole in the quark spike is full strength?

It's rated as 1.5kN in the pdf on the petzl site - I'm assuming this isn't what is meant by full strength...

 

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Hi martin.

I have been involved in the climbing trade for almost twenty years in a previous life and been intruiged  by ice axe strength since terrors were only available as pre production models.

Ice axe picks have developed to be as user friendly as possible but have serious limitations as belay anchors in ice.

Within looking closely at the regs and testing ( I will leave that to you) because the picks have inadequate holding as a belay, the required strength of the spike end clipping point is  set quite low.

Because of the development oof leashless tools and the resulting use of lanyards to avoid dropped tools, we have the fairly common occurance of a good rock hook or axe  torque, a skating crampon and subsequent fall onto a static lanyard attached to a relatively weak axe.

All in all, a fairly common  example of product development and actual use getting ahead of regulatory standards which attempt to cater for product sold and used all over the world in vastly different scenarios.

It used to be called joined up thinking or lack of it.

In reply to Rick Graham:

Is there any data out there for other manufacturers tools? I had a quick google but it didn't turn up anything interesting. I'm mostly interested in Fuels since they're what I'm using at the moment.

In reply to LucaC:

Lots of data on uiaa etc standards which I am confident all axes will meet .

You can also get data on anticipated shock loading in static slings eg Dmm web site.

In reply to Rick Graham:

Thanks Rick, but I’m specifically interested in the pommel strengths since that’s how many people use their tools when used as part of a belay. UIAA suggests 2kn across the length of the axe, but this seems pretty low to me and I’m interested in some real numbers rather than the basic standard. I’m well aware of the scary numbers shock loading of slings can produce. 

In reply to LucaC:

You might have to ask BD for some testing data or rip an axe apart yourself then hope the replacement is identical.

I recall being dismayed how weak axe picks and the placements were in an ice belay scenario. There must be some data on that somewhere.

The good news is that ice screw tests are better than I expected .

In reply to LucaC:

My son has had fuels for a few years and not complained about them.

He has trashed fusion 1s and nomics amongst others so that sounds promising for the fuels.

He has also broken quite a few lanyards

In reply to Rick Graham:

You say an Ice axe belay in Ice which I would think is uncommon in Scotland.

The only time I'd likely use them is after topping out so on a plateau and probably into frozen turf.

Any idea how this compares?

I would imagine at 1.5kN the spike and pommel is going to break long before pretty much anything including shock loading Dyneema

In reply to LucaC:

Good ol' Dane talks about this.

On a technical (T-rated tool) the attachment of the spike to the shaft should be able to withstand 2kN as I understand it, according to CE or UIAA requirements. See tables in the link below. IIRC Fuels have the same spike attachment as the Fusion 2's which is just a bolt that allows the spike and spacers to be removed/ added.

This info from BD was quite interesting...

"One thing I will clarify; there is no requirement for spike (load) strength even though it is now used as an attachment point for leashes on some tools.  BD proof tests every tool we sell (technical and mountaineering) to 1000lbs (pulled end to end). We have an internal requirement for the ultimate end to end strength to exceed 2000lbs (we usually exceed this by a large margin). 

We were the only one in the business to do this and test for it to my knowledge. I have tested many other manufacturers' tools and most do not meet it, and some tools (with plastic type spike/pommels) only went to a couple hundred pounds at room temps before they broke.

The only exception to the 2000lb internal requirement is the Fusion. Fusion spike will go to around 1500lbs with the maximum amount of spacers allowed(3) before the bolt breaks (the threads do not fail). We worked a bunch to maximize the strength of that area."

http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2011/02/just-how-strong-is-your-technical-i...

In reply to Gawyllie:

Uncommon I guess, only done them on alpine north faces.

A warthog might be better, but a grey science.

1.5kn might be just OK to hold a falling second with all the dynamics in the system. 

When belaying off axes I always directed the load to the head and tied off on the shaft to directionalise but in hindsight was probably lucky no one fell off.

Actually on two occasions I held a  15m leader fall but  both times a single poor ice screw held so the belay was not loaded.

( unlike the effect on my bowels )

 

In reply to Rick Graham:

Full of a cold ATM , so have had a bit of thinking time last night.

Its a bit pathetic that the heaviest , most expensive item of metallic climbing equipment has developed to be weaker than a bootlace.