UKC

for the budgetly challenged climber are the new kids on the block ie ZeroG any good?

i've climbed on some old DMM wallnuts so what difference would i notice if i bought some shiney new zerog nuts?

bearing in minf that DMM'S are nearly twice the price what advantages do they offer

In reply to rallymania: DMM is designed for welsh rock, zero-g for czech rock, choose depending on location....snigger

In reply to wiwwim:

lol thanks... um what about scottish rock then???

In reply to rallymania: irn-bru?

In reply to Jon Greengrass:

thanks, i'm suprosed no-one meantioned Big Country... scottish rock at it's um "best?"

In reply to rallymania:

thanks, now does anyone have anything even close to verging on the useful to add to this???

In reply to Jon Greengrass: the bottle in my profile pic could be used as a chockstone in the wider cracks

In reply to wiwwim:

zero g are a british company

In reply to mark1984: Blitish?

In reply to rallymania:
From talking to the bods at needlesports the zero-G nuts are softer metal. If you can find some old style (non anodised) wallnuts or rocks then get those.
I got my WC rock set for only £5 more than a set of zero-G nuts.
Ade

In reply to mark1984: oh dear, you're right. Not great advertising on their part then. Rock empire are czech..... sniffle....

In reply to soveda:

fantastic, thanks for that... so the zerog's are a lower grade alloy, interesting!

In reply to wiwwim:

well there is a lot of great gear from eastern europe, however it is difficult to import etc because they are no CE tested

In reply to rallymania:

Cheap flight to Prague, go to Hudy Sports and slash out on some very good but cheap gear. Nuts about £2 each, Cams about £15

And they do a BMC discount!

Bring some back and flog it on here to pay for the trip.

In reply to soveda:

Why get the old style (non anodised) ones? Are the newer, anodised ones not as good? Cheers!

In reply to mark1984: Are you sure? I think you will be surprised.

In reply to adrspach:

well the gear i have seen has not had the markings on, spoke to some geezer who was selling it in cham and that was his story - still bought 2 cams though

In reply to Enigma:
You can get the old style ones cheaper.
I know some people don't like the anodising for some reason, I've got a mix of both and the anodising gets nicely worn after a couple of placements for that "I've been climbing for ages me" look ;*p

Ape

In reply to rallymania: I have DMM Wallnuts and they are great. I recently got a set of Zero-G's and they are great also. A 3 year old English start up that seems to be growing so can't be bad. I have used their nuts a bit and find them as good as the DMM and the few WC nuts I have.

They just don't seem to have the same polished finished as the big boys. But UIAA and CE all add up.

In reply to rallymania:

softer doesn't automatically equal lower grade, it just has different properties ie, 6061 serise aluminium is stronger but softer than 7000 series.

(of course this is a generlization, it varies due to other factors such as heat treating)

In reply to soveda:

Ok, if thats the only reason then I will go for the anodised ones, as they look nicer anyway, and I can get them for cheaper than the non-anodised ones

Cheers!

In reply to Enigma: have you been to enigma is newton abbot, used to be rafters, but they wanted to have a change of image. Pity, the locals call it nigers. (i never been)

In reply to wiwwim:

From the blurb in Needlesports it would appear that the Zero G aren't as strong for the same size, at least at the smaller end of the range. The Zero G are only 2KN.

Also DMM and Wild Coutry are basically the same size for each nut, so if you lose a number five rock then you can replace it with a number 5 wall nut.

Zero G are different sizes again.

I would, and have in fact, gone with the old style budget Wild Country Rocks. You can get a set of 1-10 plus a crab for £50 post free from Needlesports.

I don't think the anodising and few grams saving in the larger sizes justigy £20 odd premium.

In reply to Ty:
Just a short mail to try and correct some inaccurate posts on this thread.

The type of alloy used on nuts and the treatment the alloy receives is very important, especially on the small nuts. DMM¡¦s small nuts are forged from 7075-T6 because this has both a high tensile strength and is relatively hard. The common 6000 series aluminium alloys ¡V 6061-T6 and 6082-T6 - do not come close to giving the same tensile strength or hardness.

„h 7075-T6 gives typically 505-570 Mpa Tensile and 170 hardness on the Vickers scale
„h 6082 ¡VT6 gives typically 320-340 Mpa Tensile and 100 hardness on the Vickers scale
„h 6061-T6 gives typically 310-330 Mpa Tensile and 95 hardness on the Vickers scale

The real life result of using a weak, soft alloy on small nuts is that the placements will pull through.

7075-T6 is expensive, but it does the job properly - just compare the strengths of the small units between the 3 brands. The DMM and Wild country units are twice as strong and then factor in that the DMM and Wild Country also use a 3-sigma quality control system when rating their products.

The larger DMM and WC units use 6082-T6, because on these sizes the large surface area of metal in contact with the rock allows the use of a softer metal and here the softer metal has advantages because it bites well when loaded.

There are several other ways of cutting costs on nuts; you can keep the shape simple and reduce the number of cutting/CNC operations, but the simpler wedges just don¡¦t fit as many placements; you can reduce the time in the rumblers, but the product ends up with sharp edges that catch when you try and place the nut; you can use a thinner wire, but the larger units then wobble around as you try and place them at full reach and the placement becomes hard to make.

Then we go out of our way to add cost by using a large, but super-safe crimp to the wire. We also CNC a groove in the middle of the nut, but this allows further placement options.

This is why DMM nuts are more expensive.

Regards

Simon Marsh

DMM International

In reply to rallymania:

I can't comment on the ZeroG nuts, but I have a mixed rack of DMM Wallnuts and WC Nuts.

I always reach for the Wallnuts first because the complex shape allows for many more placement options than the simpler WC shape. Always best to have two different types of nuts, but if you have to have just one I'd recommend the Wallnuts.

In reply to Simon Marsh:

cheers for that Simon, theres some really interesting information there.

in my orignal post i was just pointing out that softer didn't equal lower quality, just different properties.

Ty

In reply to mark1984:

Two pals of mine use Zero G's and love them.

In reply to rallymania:

I bought a few to replace some nuts I lost. They are sized differently though as people have said. Not bad bits of kit and I took a short fall on to one and its still in one piece so would buy them again.

In reply to rallymania:

Zero-g nuts are also sold in italy as Kong. used to be able to pick up a set in Arco for £22. Think they are really good. The ratings for the small sizes are low because the nuts are tiny, about equiv to small a WC micro-rock. From size three up they have normal strength ratings, adn are also CE rated.

In reply to saph:

Forgot to mention, some of my friends zero-g's have taken some beastly falls and survived.

In reply to Max_01:

ah ha that explains it

i'd looked at the strength rates of the zeroG's and the smaller sizes seemed quite weak, but it's because they are much smaller than the WC/DMM's then that all makes sense

well i need to have a wee sit down with my climbing buddy and go over the advice you lot have passed out, appreciate, appreciate.... will let you know

In reply to rallymania:

No,the Zero G size 3 is supposed to be the same size as a rock / wall nut size 1, but is weaker.

The values are 2 KN and 7 KN so that is quite a big difference.

You have to get up to a size 6 in Zero G before the strength is the same as a size 2 rock.

The figures above are from the Needlesports website - I presume they are correct!

In reply to rallymania:

thanks to all you Guys and Gals who offered your practical experience for my wee query

because my cash is a wee bit tight for gear just now i've decided that my first set of Nuts will be the WC ones and later i'll add the wallnuts when i'm a bit clearer

once again, thanks for your help folks

cheers

In reply to Chris Tan.Clone: and do your bit to 1: add to global warning (plane emmisions) 2: finish off UK manufacturing (flood country with cheap inferior products).

In reply to rallymania:

yeay my first batch of gear has now arrived to the office

In reply to rallymania:

I prefer Wallnuts over Zero-G - I find the Zero-G nuts have sharper edges that make the nuts sit less well in cracks and not so good at working into thin cracks.

OK for a second set though