UKC

Has anyone else had this problem?

New metolius medium supercam. Lovely bit of kit that was going half price at needlesports. Feels very sturdy. Home replaceable triggers (made of string). Has the range of about 2 camalots...

...and the bits at each end of the axle have started rusting within 2 weeks of a sea cliff trip during which I don't think it even got wet!

I know we're all meant to wash our gear after climbing on sea cliffs. But after years of fairly regular sea cliff climbing, I only do it once in a while - if I expect to be on a sea cliff again in the next two weeks I'll probably hold off on the washing until afterwards (unless the gear actually got wet or something). I've never seen any kind of corrosion on another bit of kit as a result of this policy.

Has anyone else had this problem?

In reply to Stone Muppet:

Master Cams seized solid on a week long trip to Scotland. Our Wild Country cams also seized but they got fully immersed in sea water whilst the metolious ones suffered no more than damp rucksacks.

The Camalots were fine.

All could be got going again with elbow grease and wd40.

In reply to Stone Muppet: its probably nothing to worry about - i believe metolious use carbon steel axles as opposed to stainless.

At the end of the day even if they didnt get wet you are still having them in a corrosive environment, just follow what the manual (which if your anything like me goes in the bin without being even looked at) says to do...

In reply to Stone Muppet: i've had some tarnish on the metal but i wouldn't call it rust.there's no need to replace your trigger wire at home metolius will do it for you(or just send you a new cam, as they did with me).

why not take a picture and send them an email

In reply to Stone Muppet:

I have a Metolius Mastercam which has just seized up. Went on a trip to Lundy for a week. Used it but didn't get it wet. Can't move the cams. Have sprayed WD40 on it to try and free it up, but still won't move. Next thing to try I guess will be a pair of pliers on each axle. Will be gutting if it doesn't move as it has hardly been used. I guess the smaller cams may be more at risk of seizing up like this, as they have to be higher precision.

In reply to Chris Sansum:

I had the same thing happen to one in exactly the same circumstances. I found liberal (ab)use of pliers and wd40 did the job. Well, actually one of the lobes is still fused to the axle, but as it's only one the cam still works fine.

In reply to franksnb:

Did just that, and here's the reply:

"Thanks for contacting us. The steel used for our cams will show some superficial rust but it
will not affect the strength of the cam. We don't use stainless steel because while it may not
show corrosion superficially it can become brittle and lose substantial strength throughstress
corrosion cracking. We do strongly recommend you clean your gear after any day of climbing
in a marine environment."

Clears that one up.

In reply to Stone Muppet:

Makes me a bit reluctant to buy these again for general use if you have to wash them every time you come off a sea cliff. Wonder whether the new Aliens will be sea air proof?

In case it helps, I have just got my micro cam moving again. I found normal pliers were no good, but was successful with 2 pairs of pump pliers - something like this: http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&cp=10&gs_id=p&xh... .

1 pair has to have a narrow head, no wider than the inner cam and the cam stop combined. Doesn't matter how wide the other set is (or you might be able to get away with a normal set of pliers). Anyway, by flooding the axle with WD40 and levering the cams backwards and forwards repeatedly with the pump pliers, after a while doing this it started moving smoothly again, and now works fine.

On this cam it looks to me like the inner lobe is supposed to be fixed to the axle anyway.

In reply to Chris Sansum:

If you read the small print on any climbing gear it recommends washing after use in a sea cliff environment, it isnt just metolius. Just seems that Metolius suffers worse than the others.

In reply to antoniusblock:

I'd be surprised if you found the average regular sea cliff climber washes all their climbing gear after each trip out to a sea cliff. Might be ok if you went every once in a blue moon, but it would be a real hassle to do every time! If I found a micro cam that didn't seize up after a few days climbing in sea air, that would be a selling point to me if I was climbing on sea cliffs regularly.

In reply to Chris Sansum: Agreed, but interesting that what metolius implied in the above email is that everybody's cams are damaged by sea air, only with stainless ones the damage is invisible.

That's some implication. Anyone fancy emailing another manufacturer for comment?

To be honest I imagine I'm just going to start giving my one and only metolius cam a quick dunk in fresh water each time, and clean the others less often like I always did.

In reply to Stone Muppet:

Thats not what they are saying. That fact that stainless is brittle is not due to exposure to seawater.

As a material stainless has the advantage of being less prone to corrosion but the payback is that it tends to deform less before finally breaking which means that you get less visual warning of damage.

In reply to Stone Muppet:

Certain stainless steels (austenitic I think) are prone to stress corrosion cracking and this is promoted by the chlorides in sea air/water.

The microscopic surface cracks aren't visible to the naked eye and the metal can look fine despite the underlying problems.

I'm not sure how big an issue it'd be on the stem of a cam. It depends on the grade/type of stainless steel. Bearing in mind the duty and lack of elevated temperature it's not something I'd worry about.

Hopefully some of the materials engineers like Horse will add an informed opinion.