UKC

I've made my fly's leashless for a fiver using epoxy putty.
The video may be useful to anyone thinking of modifying theirs.

youtube.com/watch?v=WQzq8VytOmU&

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Nice!

In reply to Dan Arkle:
nice one!

In reply to Dan Arkle: That's got me thinking - good one!

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Nice one, that'll give me something to do for the weekend!

In reply to Dan Arkle: I saw this stuff on TV and wondered if it would work on axes, where can you buy it?

In reply to Dan Arkle: Surely going leashless is just a case of taking off of your leashes, no?

In reply to Frank4short: No, your hands will simply slide off the end of the axes unless you do Dan's mod.

In reply to Mark Collins: No i think you'll find Dan's mod is for hand rests. The likelihood of your hands sliding off of the axes is just a function of how hard you hold them.

In reply to Dan Arkle:

why are you wearing a down jacket inside your house?

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Clever, very clever.

What do you reckon the life span on the grip rests are?

In reply to Morgan Woods: I even started typing that exact same question 20 minutes ago but decided it was rude to ask.

In reply to Morgan Woods: to save on heating bills obviously.

In reply to TobyA: I always wear my belay jacket in my house. But im a student and can't afford heating. Dont know what his excuse is.

looks really good mod.

In reply to s.scott:

Isn't a jumper, maybe a shirt and jumper, over you t-shirt enough? Just how cold is it where you live?

In reply to TobyA:

Probably about 5c in winter in my room at the xoldest. Doesn't sound to bad but when you spend a few hours at a computer working you get pretty cold.

It sets rock hard and I can't imagine them failing in normal use. If you shoved the spike into a crack and then jumped up and down on the head then I would expect it to scratch up a bit, and possibly chip bits off and crack.

Get it from Ebay. Ugly yellow is £3 delivered, and black is £4.
I'd not heard of the stuff until recently but now I've been using it to fix oven knobs, tripods. You can mould it to replace any plastic broken part, its really versatile.

In reply to Dan Arkle:

The jubilee clips are a good idea, I think I've seen Alpkit do trigeers with Sugru but not with the clips.

Although Wingnut of this parish made a similar attempt using polymorph in Colab08:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=287747&v=1#x4267914

In reply to Dan Arkle:



In my experience epoxy fillers are hard, but very brittle. Not so sure about putty, but I presume the additives are similar? I think that bashing it against things (rocks etc) will be the major test. Neat project though; looks good.

In reply to Frank4short:

In that case I'll be resting all the way to the top, I am quite lazy.

In reply to Dan Arkle: Looks good, but have you tried freeze testing them?? See if their properties change at low temperatures (which is where they'll be used), because it would be a bugger to find out mid route!!

In reply to Dan Arkle: Looks like a neat idea if it works, have you tried them out on climbs since making the video?
If you could update the thread if/once you have used them that would be great!

>have you tried freeze testing them?

I've been climbing with them in -5 to -10 conditions. I've tested the material by giving it a fair whack at these temperatures.
I've climbed about WI5 with them, they seem to work ok

I directly compared them to Nomics by doing a steep pitch with a Nomic in one hand and these in another.
- The swings were similar, and both would get good placements equally well.
- I got a little less pumped with the Nomics. Mainly because the Nomic's fully ergonomic handle is narrower in diameter and set back at a better angle. The difference was not huge, and at this time for me is not worth the £200 price difference.

I was in my shed/office/log cabin in the garden, and was not in for long enough to put the log burner on. And I'm southern, and soft.

Full text from the video description below:

A way to add a pommels, finger guards and higher grips to any set of ice tools using Milliput 2-part Epoxy Putty.

This is for anyone with an old set of ice tools that they want to use to climb leashless.
This idea has a few advantages over using trying to fit Grivel sliders/horns/griprests.
-Easy to do. No drilling required
-Very cheap. The putty is £3 and I used 1.5 packs. Compare this to 2 or 4x £10 for commercial add-ons. IMHO if you are going to spend £40 on doing up some old tools, then you'd be far better of selling them and buying a newer design second hand.
-Made to measure - have it fit your hand perfectly.
-You can have more support around the side of your hand than a simple pinky rest.
-It is potentially reversible- the putty could be chipped off, leaving a slightly scratched tool.

And some disadvantages.
-They are ugly. Using the black putty, or coating with tape/plasti-dip would reduce this.
-Heavier, about 60g of weight added to each tool.

Testing
They are hard and strong, and were fine down to -10C
I directly compared them to Nomics by doing a steep pitch with a Nomic in one hand and these in another.
- The swings were similar, and both would get good placements equally well.
- I got a little less pumped with the Nomics. Mainly because the Nomic's fully ergonomic handle is narrower in diameter and set back at a better angle. The difference was not huge, and at this time for me is not worth the £200 price difference.

Instructions.
For the pommel I cut away 1cm of the rubber handle, used a file to roughen the surface to get a good key, then added the putty.
Foe the higher rests, I used a 30pence hose clip as a base and added putty on top of this.

In reply to winhill:

I'd be interested to know how well Sugru works with that sort of thing.

https://sugru.com/ < if anyone is interested, it's amazing stuff.

In reply to Mark Collins:


Lies

In reply to mattrm: I've done similar to one of my axes with suguru. i then covered it in self amalgamating tape to give it some protection and a grippier surface.

its held up for two short winters now and some indoor ice and drytooling! and shows no signs of tearing. makes a fairly big difference to the axe too (have only done it to one axe so far!)

In reply to Northern Climber: Sounds great. Can you post a photograph please? Also, is sugru tough/rigid enough?

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Go axe less for nowt

In reply to Northern Climber: If it's really good why have you done it with only one axe? Forget my question if you don't have a matched pair or one has 'real' triggers/rests on it.
What did you put the suguru onto? Plastic, metal rubber etc