Are you UNKNOWINGLY climbing on homemade gear??? 

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Old guy here. Back when I started the sport we made all our own gear except for carabiners. We filed the threads out of machine nuts and threaded them with rope or webbing for chocks and we had a forge where we made our own pitons. Nothing we did would have been considered safe. I love that you guys are making it safe. CHeers.

While I am not a recreational climber I do some work at height on small antenna towers and have some experience in industrial rigging. I also have quite a bit experience in crimp termination for electrical work. The permanent dog-bones that you tested look like they were probably made using 7x19 1/4" GAC (Galvanized Aircraft Cable). 7 Strands each comprised 19 individual wires. It normally has a 7000 Lbs minimum breaking strength when new. The galvanized coating is relatively thin so I would not expect that it would resist corrosion for long permanently installed outdoors. You can get it in a stainless version but it does have a slightly lower minimum breaking strength of 6400 Lbs. Outside of actual MIL spec versions that are certified, commonly available aircraft cable is not actually used for control cables in aircraft. In industrial rigging the cable used is referred to as "Wire Rope" and while similar is not quite the same. The most common versions are probably 6X19 IWRC and 6x37 IWRC (Independent Wire Rope Core). The center strand is not considered to be load bearing and is only there to support the outer strands. There are also fiber core versions and many other stranding configurations. Very commonly it is not galvanized but oiled to both prevent corrosion and lubricate the wires as they move against each other while going over sheaves or being wound onto drums. In the case of GAC termination using Oval crimp sleeves (also called Duplex or Nicopress Sleeves) like your samples had is probably the most common method. These were originally invented by the "National Telephone Supply" Company in the early part of the last century. Your samples looked like they had aluminum sleeves, additionally they are also available in plain copper, zinc plated copper, tin plated copper and stainless steel. The different materials and platings are not universally interchangeable. Aluminum, copper and zinc plated copper are usually used on galvanized cable while tin plated copper and stainless are used on stainless cable. Aluminum is generally considered the weakest option and may or may not hold the full breaking strength of the cable. I have also heard that it may be more susceptible to stress cracking but cannot find a good source for that. Copper or plated copper sleeves are generally considered to be stronger and more reliable and should consistently hold until the cable itself breaks. Stainless sleeves are usually reserved for more corrosive environments and tend to be much more expensive. In addition to the wide variety of sleeve materials and platings there is also a wide variety of tooling available to crimp or swage them. As with all crimping based termination systems whether they are mechanical or electrical, consistent results can only be achieved if everything is properly matched and done to the manufacturer's specifications. The sleeves must be the correct size for the cable, the tool must be the correct size for the sleeves, and it must be crimped the correct number of times in the correct order. In the case of the commercially made ones it looks like they were crimped with a hydraulic tool while the home built ones were most likely done with a hand tool. As far as I know the largest size possible with hand tools is 5/16”. Even ¼” requires a very large tool. The correct Nicopress hand tool for ¼” sleeves is a 3-F6-950 and is the size of a large bolt cutter. If everything is done correctly the results should be consistent and your testing is in line with what I would expect. Even with aluminum sleeves you were seeing failures above MBS. I would be interested to see how much things change with weathering and corrosion. It might be worth doing some accelerated aging as a test (IE exposure to corrosive environment). Personally while I am interested in the idea of using industrial hardware even with everything done correctly I would still want these proof tested before I would trust my life to them.

It's not just small garage manufacturers which can lose track of quality control on handmade terminations... there's a French rope company targeting the arborist community with a recent advisory because one of their distributors skipped stitching the spice... and their proprietary splice depends on the stitch to stay together. (This is in contrast to a traditional double-braid eye splice where the stitch is a backup solely to prevent the possibility of creepage.) A climber took a scary fall when their eye splice fell apart under static body weight, triggering the notice.

I like thimbles, they cost little, help a little and make it look like you know what you’re doing.

I’ve done a bunch of cable crimping when building high ropes courses, and as long as you use the proper tools, follow the specs, and check your crimps every time, you absolutely can do it yourself.

I’m gonna bet the thimbles help with repetitive loading. We use air craft cable at work for hanging banners, whenever we don’t use thimbles the eyes tend to degrade faster then when we do. Totally different application, continuous static tension with spikes when we put a banner up and spikes when the wind is blowing is not the same as climbing.

Generally with Nico sleeves, you will put them through a go/nogo gage. It's basically two slots. The swage diameter should go into the go slot, and not go into the nogo slot. Crimping too tightly is as problematical as not crimping enough. Usually once you got the swaging tool calibrated, it reliably made swages that passed both gage slots. But you always check, because the swage tool wears.

Great tests! I've made up steel cable with swages for overhead lifts, and it can be safe. But, used to be there were 2 kinds of swages, copper and aluminum. Guess which one is cheaper and maybe not as strong? Yep, aluminum. The good ones used to be tin plated copper. Next thing, they DO make a test for them, non-destructive. It's basically a gauge that will slide over the crimp if it's crimped enough. If the gauge doesn't fit over the crimp, your crimp tool is worn or out of adjustment. If it's setup right, the cable breaks before it slips, as in most of your demos. I don't rock climb, but love the channel!

Old Porter Jarrard originally had all kinds of homemade hangers and hardware on his routes down in the RRG, and I definitely climbed on them. Thanks Porter!

if you do, please use those thimbles as you call it. not only for laods but also for wear!!! if the cable starts wearing then the stress massively increases.

I've made and tested my sewn webbing and swaged steel quick draws. Both are strong enough but I would never sell or subject others to my home grown safety gear - not because I don't think I can make them strong enough but because I don't want to be responsible for the risk and don't have the right insurance if I get sued. I only make and sell non-safety gear. Test some stainless cable with copper swages.

Please never use heat shrink or tape or anything of the likes on metal parts that are supposed to be outdoors permanently. Water gets trapped under it and corrodes the heck out of it and you can't see it because the tape and heatshrink aren't see through (most of the time (but still don't do it even if it's see through))

Love the Climbing Product Testing!!

Great video like all (most)😂😂😂. Very nice to see Bobby again! 👍👍👍

Those look like what we call a squeeze on or crimp it in powerline work. I have seen wire held up in some big spans weighing around 800 pounds sagged with a 3/4 ton hoist. I could see those made a little better by weaving a part of it and crimping the weave.

We support you in spirit, Ryan! from Canuckistan.

I take a drink every time you say swagged

This video cures my sail rigging gear fear. The way people talk you'd think you need a $5k super secret squirrel hydraulic swaging machine. There are also 'swageless' swage fittings

My inner machinist winced when you tossed those calipers, even if the might be cheapos from Harbor Freight.

always wondered why not just use a short piece of chain for permadraws? a clear heat shrink sleeve would stiffen it up and still allow visual inspection. swaged connections can sometimes hide corrosion

Have been watching your channel for a while. Would be nice to see some high-speed break tests🎉

Would you be interested in testing a farmers loop ? It's a mid-line loop rumored to be as good as the butterfly loop....

Thanks!

Coming at this from logging... it will generally break AT the thimble or the first bend point, that said, for funsies try a "flemish eye" splice (also know as a farmer eye) one of the easiest splices and doesn't involve bending the rope (bonus it can be done in the bush without special tools...) It also doesn't necessarily require a thimble, though a thimble does secure it from unraveling, but its not relying on it for strength.

Keep breaking stuff and happy New years.

If you're going to put something outside for long periods of time you should put no ox or some kind of waterproof grease inside of those crimps to keep them from collecting water and oxidizing or freezing and expanding.

Happy New Year

The DIY swaging is actually pretty simple, using tools made for the purpose; proper cable diameter and material, correct size swage, crimp correctly with a long armed tool, or a press. The check is done with a slide-on feeler gauge, and of course also having a reliable pull test done initially, and randomly after is smart insurance. If this seems suspect, consider the end user is likely in industrial work where serviceable tools and methods have evolved and been used for many decades; consistency is very important, and also a healthy safe working load margin. Home sewn webbing is a total non-starter with no consistency or check except pull testing - don't go there.

I do not climb anything that does not involve stairs. Nonetheless, I am always fascinated by your testing.

Do not throw you're calipers down! They are precision instruments that are susceptible to shock. That's why they come in shock resistant cases.

Nice to see testing of homemade galvanized cable and aluminum swages. But I only use stainless for my climate. I've been having a need for extra long permadraws, like 1 meter+. Have some routes with wide ledges and am trying to reduce rope rubbage. Recently bought some 6mm and 8mm 304 stainless steel wire rope, copper sleeves, & stainless steel thimbles. Next time I get out, I gotta break test my hand swaged ones. If the results are good, I plan to proof load each one before installing them. Otherwise I'll look into getting a hydraulic swager and stainless steel sleeves to see how that goes instead.

Hey Ryan! Idea - I think would be nice to observe graph during breaking, I mean to see what happens at what force. In this case for example - at what point thimbles crush. I don't know how much work on edit part that would be, but maybe something worth to think about :). Cheers!

Curious to see where 5/16” chain and quicklinks stand up against cables. Pretty much everything is chain down here in the southeast

I'd love to see the same diameter cable eye spliced and and see what it breaks at.

Thanks much. I've never been comfortable with swaging cables, because i can't break test it.

Can you please test some ground anchors like duck bills and ground anchor screws like at American earth anchors?

Are these cables stainless? Or is it expected they will be inspected/replaced more frequently than the anchors they're clipped to due to corrosion? Both homemade and professional made versions

What about using a steel chain as Dogbones? Could use rated chains out of 304 Stainless. And maybe heatshrink around for better grip?

Hello from alaska, question would a impact on a line when its under say 2kn tension represent being whipped, I have this question due to some of the shale zones that I need to cross from time to time that has a lot of tumbling shale sluff.

Was that cable from a big box store? I know there's high strength steel cable out there for applications like tree cabling, but it's quite a lot more expensive. Thanks for the vids 🤙

Ryan, I love you. Please please help me with my OCD. Put the breaking strength number up when the part breaks not before. Please I mean no harm, it would just make the world right. Let the machine pull, tense, snap (display number). Please I beg of you. Please haha

WB Bobby!

Holy moly!Home made beasts.

I couldn’t find a video where you talk about it, but have you had any experience with the cmc texora sling? I just bought a few of the 1 meter slings at like $23 a piece. Considering they’re rated for 100kn I’d say that a steal.

Wonder if a braided and swaged eye would make it weaker or just eliminate the Chance for it to slip out of a swage

I wonder if the covered cable is a small risk because you cant inspect it?

they will definitely last a long time... but theyre gonna eat up aluminum carabiners... and even steel carabiners over time if left out in the wind all year to rock back and forth... and probably if you leave a steeel biner on them, it will wear off the galvanizing, then theyll rust... i have a metal shop and sell galvanized steel... im sure theyre strong though and will last a very long time if used with aluminum biners...

Have you tried the hammock straps at all?

- Re. Homemade vs unreliable batches?? - Homemade is FINE - provided the composition and processes are uniform - your Saturday article on "off-brand" items (13th Jan 2024) made sense (I want cheap UHMWPE - but not if it isn't what it says on the label): One thing to figure out with the "no-name" components, if were they failed in the quality department at some stage, or merely cosmetically defective. Testing small numbers out of a batch assumes that the batch is relatively uniform, it may be found with some parts that the batch is unreliably variable (making the QA necessarily more expensive as higher part counts need to be tested, rather than 1-2 out of every thousand... Once a batch is tested - and the reliability established -the "How Not-2" on the label should refer people of all the things NOT to do with this item, and how the responsibility for safe use rests on them - ie. we NEVER recommend you do this at home (Seek professional assistance for that problem).... Flooding the world with cheap 304SS sounds a great plan. (If a bolt can be had for $2 and a carabiner for $4 - backing up on the safety becomes trivial.) - cheers.

Just reminding you to make more rafting content :)

Did you do any of them with the cable woven back on it self? That is unwind three of the strands and then rewind them the other direction around the thimble? It would be interesting to see how that would work with *just* heat stink and no swages at all. I suspect if you do it the hard way (take every other strand rather than 3 consecutive strands and do about 3 full wraps back past the thimble) you might get number comparable to those ones. I suspect, given they were breaking between the swages, the result would be not enough better to justify the cost. For a dog-bone, you might even be able to have the strands coming back from the ends pass in the middle which might actually get some benefit.

i think the biggest difference with any life support gear that is homemade is quality control. When you buy from a reputable company you can feel confident there's a 1 in 100,000 (pulled that statistic out of thin air) it will break vs homemade might be 1 in 100 (also made up stat but i hope the point comes across). That would be truly the risk- the ability to be consistent with the manufacturing process and ability to assess quality on each device.

In my climbing area they have an abnormal amount of chain made perma draws. Are those similar strength.

so i appears that when i make sailboat mast stays, I can somewhat trust my swages to be good enough.

I wonder how the coating on the cable would impact its ability to shed water? I've seen enough to know that water can get into anything and when it comes to metal... rust on cable is an issue. Having black coatings on a cable prevents you from seeing the rust. So I'd actually not prefer to climb on the bought and rated stuff given the plastic coatings. I'd much prefer to see the condition of the cable.

Prehaps I need to make up a really weird version of this, and send a few in. In the version I can make, if I can get a tight enough bend radius out of the cable, is to unwind the strands of a wire rope, then using a single strand, retwisting the single strand in a loop to recreate a nearly endless loop, with the only ends being the 2 ends of the single strand. This:ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GPp1GWGxG4c.htmlsi=8XRh5L5xaRDhizUP . Then collapsing the loop into a double strand center, with a loop at either end. Also, testing of the "Farmers Eye" demonstrated in that video would be interesting content.

I want this trucker hat

Warning! Do not use dogbones permanent outdoors with plastic sheeting! Two young boys died doing a rapell on a plastic sheeteed dogbone. It was set between two bolts and the boys having just started climbing and had not much experience put theire rope over the wire. The wire broke on the load and sadly the other boy also was tied in to the rapell rope. The reson for this is there was a plastic sheeting on the dogbone and even though it looked good on the ends it was rusted inside the sheeting.

i feel like chain would do the same thing

most ferrule specs call for 1 more crimp than truly necessary, at least when you use a tool and die that can't crimp the whole ferrule in one go. incomplete crimps are scarier than ugly ones imo, without using a gauge to check for full compression an incomplete crimp can look just like a proper one.

Sadly, stainless cable dogbones are very hard to get in the USA. Only Lappas makes them in Europe.

So home made stuff here works very well.

Do you have a device to replicate cyclic loading like these things like experienced in climbing?

Glad to know my aural load cell is calibrated about as well as the professional's.

Your buddy selling those homeamade ones? 😌

Where can I buy those “homemade” dogbones?

Nope brother I’m doin it knowingly but it’s 1 inch steel texture feels galvanized

I made a video a few months ago showing how to make your own rivet hangers using all amazon supplies and tools. Depending on who made the perma draw or rivet hanger I would have no issue trusting a homemade solution.

I wonder if when the cable is weaved is better than just folded over?

"Just crimp it and call it good" Am no expert on crimping wire rope, but afaik there's the cheap steel sleeves friction crimps which is what the motion and comment you made fits to, and then there's aluminium penetration crimps (I believe that's the one you're testing) which you need a powered hydraulic crimp tool for that's anywhere upwards of $1000. Not exactly what you randomly find at home depot.

IDK if it applies to climbing, but here in Germany any safety related steel wire has to be able to be inspected (for broken strands, corrosion or loose crimps. IMHO that's not possible with the store-bought versions, due to the almost potted plastic parts. How can one inspect these it they are visibly intact but internally broken? I think i would not clip into these.

I thought thimble was for sowing

If i was in USA i would prefer homemade. Homemade Boings, homemade EVs, homemade Galaxy Notes...

homemade things i trust: knots

did you had some "superloop" to test ???

Snappy

Why didn’t use splicing when manufacturing this stuff? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nlxju_UZgR0.htmlsi=G1ZMLHKUnQDDXDuM

mas o menos

35 kn whipper would destroy your body in so many ways. OUCH!

I wonder if welded cable would do anything. I'll email you if I fab some up because I'm an idiot who wants to see her dumb ideas tested

So with a Fair confidence when you inspect the thimble. If it has elongated, it has been severely overloaded above the working load limit. It’s still rope ,wire or not.

People crimp their own cables all the time. Maybe not as much in climbing but in other applications. At the end of the day you should know what to expect from your equipment.

if the thimble take the wear can't it become fucked and hurt even more the cable?

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i lift 3 ton engine above my head with things like this i made myself. i even made some toy tow ropes out of really thin steel wire for the kids and they can take my weight its like 3mm wire

In a very real sense, every time you tie a knot you're making your own gear. The ability to inspect the finished result counts.

DID YOU JUST THROW THOSE CALIPERS ON THE TABLE!? FFS😐

1:43 Diiiid my guy just slip in some Spanish, más o menos?!!?!