UKC

In reply to Chris Rowlands: Will the Phantom quickdraws be hitting the shops at the same time, or will they be a bit later than the carabiners?

Cheers

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

Both Draws and Singles at the same time. We're flat out trying to make enough to go around !
Chris Rowlands
Brand Manager DMM

In reply to Chris Rowlands: Being a design and technology teacher, I'm a bit of a geek about gear - especially when lost wax casting is mentioned! do you have any inormation that I could use with school kids about this process being used in wales to batch produce?

Sorry to be boring - good looking device btw, will hopefully stop my rope turning Blue/black too!

Mark

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

they're gonna fly off the shelves-we're getting lots of requests for them.

Good stuff.

In reply to Wes: The few i've got a great, like the prowire only lighter. Better shape then the spectre.

Chris, When are coloured one going to be avilable?

Tom

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

Wes, the Lost Wax system basically entails an exact copy of the product being reproduced, and then the wax versions are covered with a ceramic 'eggshell', then the material is poured in, wax melts away, product cools and eggshell removed. The product will then require some finishing , in the case of the VTwin ,electro polishing, drilling for the retaining wire , and labelling.(Other products we have had investment cast in the past include the Predator Ice axe hammer, adze and spike.)Hope this helps a little. You can find more info at http://www.deangroup-int.co.uk/

Tom,The coloured ones will come through a little after the regular draws as these are in most demand, but it'll be pretty soon.
Best
Chris Rowlands
Brand Manager DMM

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

Chris,

Excellent news on the product front although I'm slightly surprised and disappointed that you seem to be moving to 12cm or 18cm options on your quickdraws.

For the last 6 years I've been using the open 15cm slings that came with my DMM Prowire draws and I find them an ideal compromise length for both sport and trad.

I know for a fact that I'm not the only person who things that a 15cm open sling is the ideal length for an all round draw. A friend bought up a set of brand new 18cm wiregate draws direct from you last month but he wasn't really happy with them and he immediately wanted to change the slings.

Is the change based on customer demand? Is it DMMs view that people want draws tailored to either sport or trad rather than marketing just one to the middle ground?

Cheers,
Mark

In reply to Mark Stevenson: Does length of quickdraw really matter? As long as it long enough so that the gear doesn't flickout. what in your view is the advantage of having 15cm quickdraws over 18, 20 or 25 cm quickdraws?

Reducing your fall lenght by 5cm make f*ck all difference.

I'm about to replace my quickdraws with 12 phantom quickdrwas. 6 on 60cm slings and 6 on open 25cm slings. this means that on long mountain routes i can easily reduce my rope drag.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide: its much nicer climbing sport with short draws.. dunno why really, it just feels right.

In reply to abarro81: Obviously you wouldn't want to be putting a 60cm qd on every bolt, but i don't see what the difference betwen 20s and 25s is?

In reply to Chris Rowlands:
couple of questions chris...

did msr not make some I beam carabiners back in the 90's? obviously never in the uk but i seem to remember them from catalogues..

how long for a "guide plate" version of the v twin?
with the poularity of reverso and atc xp guide i would have thought you would have gone straight in with this type, obviously a simple task of welding a washer on the top of it as its steel! shall i get the TIG welder out?

cheers

In reply to gear boy: except the atc guide is being discontiuned because petzl are sueing them due to breech of patent. so i'm reliabley informed.

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

Did I hear that you were going to dip your Nutters in plastic to give us the palm friendly Stilleto once more? Please do... soon.

Hi Mark,
Quickdraw lengths have always caused alot of discussion, and I'm sure will continue to do so !!. Ask 5 people and you'll probably get 5 different answers. We went to 12/18/25 cm lengths after considerable thought, and discussion with many customers, climbers,and sponsored climbers. The 12 cm was thought to be better than the previous 10 cm as they were a little more useful for Trad and still fine for Sport. 18, and 25cm obviously offer longer lengths more useful for trad.
The argument for open slings is a valid, and many of us use a combination of asymmetrical and open.I guess the bottom line is we can't please everybody all the time and so we have taken a point of view that is a sensible compromise.

Gear Boy,
You might be right, but My memory is a little vague !! If they did I'm pretty certain they weren't hot forged.I'll see if I can find out.
As for Guide version, yes there are patent issues which have to be avoided, and we wanted to get a simple version on the market first. A Guide type device is obviously something we would be looking at too. However we are 'looking at' rather alot of new designs all the time and some things obviously take longer to come through than others. The first V Twins are now leaving the warehouse and so watch out for them in stores very soon.

Jimm,
Not sure where you heard that !, no plans for a large plastic handle like the Stilletto but perhaps something more comfortable than the standard nutter. Watch this space !! (I've still got a stilletto and find it works for me !)

Thanks all for your interest and questions which we will continue to try to answer as fully as possible.

Best
Chris Rowlands
Brand Manager DMM

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

Cool. I must admit that from a photography point of view, some brightly coloured quickdraws look great. I think I'll get a set of Phantom quickdraws, but I'll wait until the coloured ones are available.

Cheers

In reply to Mark Stevenson:

Mark, it is generally true that most climbers now want a daw tailored for a specific end use. The days when we used to buy krabs and put them on tape to suit our own preference seem to be long gone. When I suggest that to a customer who's been climbing less than ten years or so I usually get a blank look of incomprhension.
I agree with you entirely about open slings though. IMO they are far better than closed slings

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

This were my comments on the Shadow krabs from another thread last week:

In reply to boothy:

> i just reckon the new shadow draws look pretty good.

I got a bent gate one with my set of wallnuts from V12. I've tried it out as the rope end krab when sport climbing, and to be honest it's nothing special. It doesn't have a prominent nose so getting the rope to stay as you push it through the gate is actually harder than on some older generation DMM krabs. For pure "clippability" I would still say Mambas and Cobras are the best I've ever tried.

The shadow is perfectly good but I think its mainly aimed at making a krab that is nearly as light as wiregate but for people who for whatever reason don't like wiregates. Personally I find the DMM spectre wiregates a little easier to clip and they are lighter.

Saying "nothing special" might be a bit dismissive, as they are probably as good or better than any other bent gate krabs out there, but they still aren't for me as good as well designed wiregates, be those DMM or another make (DMM spectres and BD hotwires and neutrinos make up most of my rack).

Is there a particular reason for moving away from the very prominent noses such as on Mambas? I remember back in the 90s discussing whether they make the rope coming out of the krab on a fall more likely, but I've never heard of that actually happening? The big nose does make clipping them very easy.

In reply to IainWhitehouse:


I'll third that! I've several times entered gear shops trying to buy some 10- to 15-cm open slings for trad quickdraws, but not found any.

[And yes, 10- to 15-cm is plenty for most trad placements when using double ropes.]

In reply to Chris Rowlands: why the Americanisation through the constant use of "biner" in DMM's marketing ? I live in North Wales and everyone I climb with, regardless of age, uses "crab". Same thing when I climb in the peak, never hear "biner" used.

Bob Knowles

In reply to Anonymous: The only people i have ever heard say binner are from DMM!

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

I use biner Tom.....not really into crabs, unless I'm on a beach.

In reply to Mick Ryan: suppose you look under the hood of your car as well

Bob Knowles

In reply to Anonymous:
As a non-native English speaker I find it always difficult to use the word crab. Biner is much more easier. When someone talks about crabs I always think about these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab

And when you are not a native speaker and pronounce it slightly wrong it gets to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crap

Back to topic: The V twin belay device looks very nice. Like most of your stuff it looks really technical, not just piece of metal.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: you're a yank though.... well nearly.

In reply to Tom Ripley Mountain Guide:

I'm a world citizen Tom.

In reply to Chris Rowlands:

Thanks Citizen Mick !! Biner, Krab, Crab, Carabiner or Karabiner. Sorry to cause offence with the use of the word Biner. I have been using it for a fair few years now in catalogs and articles, never been questioned before though.
Chris Rowlands
Brand Manager DMM