UKC

In reply to jon: Ha ha, that's brilliant. Does it actually work? I'd have thought that the way the individual wedges are loaded would mean it doesn't properly? And it would be really fiddly to adjust it once it had been bashed about a bit.
Sam

In reply to Sam L:

If you look at the right hand one you'll see I adjusted it with an ice axe. No, is your answer.

In reply to Martyn Maltby:
That's an imaginative novelty that looks like a good enginneering solution that should work (but might be massively fiddly in reality).

In reply to md@r: and i imagine really heavy. are you supposed to carry a full set of them?!

In reply to Brendan Hanratty:
It would be a bit scarey to a have rack that was used up in a single placement!
I guess each one (set?) has the same volume of aluminium as a large nut so not massively heavy. Maybe the idea is to have a few or a normal set of nuts plus one of those strange things.

In reply to jon: It's a bit like those bolo nuts (wires with a nut on each end) only more crazy. Or even those new fangled link cam jobbies, might cover a massive range but you can only place it once on a route. I suppose if you were only allowed to carry 1 piece of gear...

In reply to jon:

I bought that for when I was climbing pretty easy Alpine Routes, where gear would not normally be needed, and I was in the habit of taking around 2 or 3 hexes and 2 or three chocks. I rarely if ever used any, so I thought that bit of gear would be OK for the emergency instead of taking 6 other pieces.

In use, the hardness, (the sleeves were steel) meant they would not 'bite' and had minimal surface area in contact with the rock.

In reply to Martyn Maltby:

I think though, mine is more useless than yours!

In reply to jon: aye some of my home made gear

In reply to ice.solo:

Many, many years ago I bought one of those. OK for the first couple of uses, just don't fall when using the "larger" sizes . The device is currently residing in landfill

ALC

very good idea's but not quite got it yet. the top one i feel would be very tricky to place and I'm not sure I'd trust it in a crack close to its maximum expansion!

the second one is more stable it seems but again fiddly. Would be great to actually get your hands on the gear and try it out for yourself!

In reply to jon: camp brought out some double sided nuts a while ago... http://www.needlesports.com/acatalog/campbolonuts.jpg

In reply to scotty_webster: i thought these looked good, did they turn out to be shit in the end?

In reply to Brendan Hanratty: oh er, is the censoring thing not working today? *sorry all*

In reply to jon:

I hadn't bought any really crap gear for a while, and then came this - http://www.gearbuyer.com/products/simond_toucan_belay_device.html

As a former fan of Simond gear, the Cubic belay device in psrticular, I went for one of these. I persevered for a while, but it's now residing at the bottom of the spare parts bin.

In reply to nniff:

I can't really see how you are supposed to use that. I'm guessing it's along the same lines as a Reverso?

In reply to speekingleesh:

Yes - same idea, except it doesn't really work. THe extra hole is for guide plate use, with the big handle thing supposedly doing away with the need for bits of string/krabs as hadles/fifi hooks etc. Seriously prone to being dropped (had to add string to it) and just a general faff. Looks nice, but.....


Got a Reverso 3 now. Like that.

In reply to nniff:

Those are pretty popular over here. (The proximity of the Simond factory may have a bearing on that) Never tried it myself, prefer a grigri, or a simple plate for double ropes.

In reply to jon:

Being controvertial...

I had a bunch of those small rockcentrics on wire. One of the first bits of gear I owned. Hardly ever used em as I always had something else that worked better, usually a large wallnut.

I like the larger ones, but the small wired things always seemed about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

On the other hand the person I flogged them to seems to be making good use of em.

In reply to jon:
Try this:
http://img.skitch.com/20080401-bjkj5p2t6mhhek3idcknf2s4mr.jpg

In reply to daveyw (HMC):

not totally useles but a bit dissapointing, DMM peanuts. Just don't seem to seat well, think it's becuase they are a pretty hard alloy.

In reply to daveyw (HMC):

Very good. You could call it a troll nut... but that's already been done!

In reply to nniff: Funny - a friend who climbs both rather hard and very regularly had one and told me it was the best belay plate he had tried!