UKC

Hi,

My friend is really keen to file down some of my old sold wallnuts and turn them into offsets? Does anyone tried this or know if its safe or not? I feel pretty skeptical about why it would be safe but have no real proof to back up this opinion.

Thanks

In reply to r fizzle: Thousands of Climbers spent around 3 decades climbing with filed down MOACs without any issues, so there is no great issue provided the nut is still large enough to retain its strength.

I think you could probably safely remove _some_ metal off either of the previous two generations of DMM wallnut, but I wouldn't want to try it with the latest ones.

In a similar vein you could easily file WC Classic Rocks down to have the transverse taper present on the newer Anodised versions.

In reply to r fizzle:

I'd tell him you'd not know how much metal would be safe to remove without affecting the strength if I was you.

MOACs were really beefy to start with where solid Wallnuts are less so IIRC.

Get him to buy some offset nuts? ()

In reply to r fizzle:

How safe it'd be would depend on how good the judgement of the person doing the filing is, so an engineer might do a safe job, and an enthusiastic non engineer might not is what i'm getting at.

Hope the above makes sense.

Tim

In reply to r fizzle:

Hmm I'll think about it. He's a student mechanical engineer.

How would it be possible to know how much being removes would be enough to affect its strength though?

In reply to r fizzle:

That's what i'd be worried about. I've no idea.

In reply to r fizzle: wallnuts are offsets if you turn them 90 degrees?!

In reply to r fizzle:
With most modern nuts they don't use much metal so I think the chances are you're going to weaken them regardless. I suppose you could look at is better than placing no protection but then for £40 odd why not buy the proper ones. Or maybe design your own from billet. I suppose the only real use for making your own is for a route that you're working on where nothing else will fit.

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:
It's not just about the original geometry.Materials have become substantially lighter, with commensurate worse performance elsewhere (eg wear and tear).

Are the materials used in modern nuts more recent than MOACS (including the previous two generations of wallnuts) able to withstand 'user modification'?

In reply to r fizzle: The older walnuts are pretty beefy, especially the bigger sizes. The 9 and 10 are just solid lumps of metal on the same thickness wire so I can't see how taking a little off the 10 would make it any weaker than the 9.

Ben

In reply to Sharp:

A set of Offsets 7 - 11 can be bought for £40. By the time your mate has measured up, planned and carried out his modification it will have taken the best part of a day. At the end of that he will have a set of sub standard nuts and obviously a good story but probably slightly less confidence in the kit.

In the same time he could get some day work and buy a professionally made set.

He won't be able to make them from size 6 down as they are brass - for good reason. And he will probably have to use hand tools to do the work in order not to affect the metal properties from the heat treatment.

In reply to r fizzle: I think that it was will be fine only using the larger sizes of the old solid nuts. its a no brainer that it would be silly to do it on the hollow modern ones. its not the fact that its 'only' £40 for some new ones but its also recycling the old ones and having a good story I can't see how using hand tools to take a small amount of metal off will affect the strength, the bulk of the material won't be changed, it will remove some coating if there is any. As long as the wire doesn't get damaged I think its fine. with regard to removing too much material I don't think this is too much of a problem the rock 1's don't have much metal but are strong. I say go for it son !

In reply to r fizzle:

I once had the remains of a large Hex that someone had drilled out to make lighter - someone else dropped a rock on it to test it and ended up with 3 bits!

As stated, whether it's safe, or not, depends on how much metal they're removing and where from - if you're taking a bit off the "ends", then probably no big deal. I wouldn't take any away from the "faces", if you see what I mean.

I'd use a hand file, rather than a grinder, to do it.

In reply to HenryC:


If it takes you a day to file a couple of millimeters off 5 nuts then you might have trouble picking up some of this "day work" which is so abundant at the moment.

Ben

In reply to r fizzle:

Mabye you could file them down, but the question is would you trust them? would you be willing to fall on them? if you are at all skeptical then i would sugest not. I think you will end up with a nicely filed set of offsets sitting in your cupboard, best buy a set if so determined.

In reply to r fizzle:

'Safe' is relative. Done carefully you'll end up with something quite serviceable that likely has the same failure mode/load as the original nut. Do it badly and you'll have a mess that could let you down. On the solid nuts I think it'd be hard to get it that wrong without having some suspicion you'd cocked up badly though that very much depends how handy you are with the tools. I'd not take anything off the wall thickness of the hollow extrusions or the old forged 'pocketed' wallnuts.

jk