UKC

Any views and experiences on using knotted protection, particularly keen to hear of any lobs taken on this sort of gear. I know some people climb exclusively using this kind of protection in Europe but not heard of it in the UK.

In reply to Heavy Mental:
Come to Saxon or Czech sandstone if you feel suicidal.....

The long version is that knotted pro can be placed so that it holds, but the selection of possible placements is much more limited, and it takes more experience to get it right.

If you have a proper constriction in a crack with lots of rock on either side, a precisely fitted sling (correct diameter and number of threads) with the correct type of knot will hold as well as a metal nut, possibly better in particularly soft rock (the rock quality over here varies between weetabix and bomber gritstone, sometimes even within one route).

Often you just tie a fig of 8 into a bight, flatten it out, push it into a crack with bight facing down. If you then slightly tuck on it, the knot will expand, setting it safely above the constriction (they say...). Ideally the sling will just fit through the constriction, so that the knot can never be compressed sufficiently to be pulled through. Also, setting is usually done with a wooden spatula to achieve the tightest possible fit.

I have not yet fallen onto any of my knotted sling placements, as on sandstone I only lead well below my technical limit, but bodyweight loading was always fine. Give me rock where I can use proper pro any day.

CB

In reply to Heavy Mental:

I've been planning to make some monkey fists for ages but haven't got around to doing it yet. I'm not gonna use them, I'm just gonna put a load on my harness and watch people's reactions at stanage.

In reply to Heavy Mental:

Used 'em a few times but never fallen on them....................

In reply to Heavy Mental:

A climber where I used to live went on holiday to Czech to climb on the sandstone. If I remember the story correctly, the first fall he took, on I think the first day of his holiday, he pulled all his knots out, hit the deck and broke his back. It definitely put me off the idea of climbing there when I heard about it.

In reply to Heavy Mental:

Well you only need a knife to remove them if they jamb up!!

In reply to TobyA:

As I said above, it takes a lot of experience to place knotted pro. After I moved to Dresden it took me six or seven years to start leading on Elbe sandstone. I still am very selective as to which routes I trust my protection skills on, and where I know that all the slings I could place would just make a colourful decoration of the crater rim in case of a fall.

However, there is a new type of textile based pro called UFOs that will expand like a friend when fallen on.

They are available from various czech companies like restday or obrworks (e.g., https://www.camp4.de/restday/uforing-ulite.html)

I have a set, and this makes protecting cracks with less pronounced constrictions MUCH easier than, say, quadruple thread figure of eights or monkey fists. I have not taken a true fall on one (just a short test fall at home with an extra top rope), and they seem to hold well. Of course, like cams, they put quite a bit of horizontal load on the rock, and I would not put them behind a sandstone flake.

Using UFOs may actually be a good idea for certain gritstone routes with soft and partially worn out cam slots (some routes in Birchen come to mind immediately, but I forgot the names), as they do spread the load much wider.

CB

In reply to cb294:

The brackets around the link meant it didn't work, but having noticed this, I found the page
https://www.camp4.de/restday/uforing-ulite.html

They look amazing if somewhat bizzare! Not even very expensive. How stable are they so that they don't twist and fall out of the crack? They look surprisingly narrow but I'm sure they work. You don't see something that ingenious very often! Thanks for the link.

In reply to TobyA:
Thanks for fixing the formatting!

There are two types, one with a rubber layer almost like a climbing shoe sole on the outside, and one without. I have the rubbery type, and at least the larger are deep enough that they do not twist at all once you set them with a sharp tug (have not used the smaller ones in slots where that would have been a worry).

CB

edit: of course that means that the crack needs to be rather deep, TCUs they are not!