Alec, go speak to DMM, based in Llanberis, to see how they forge them en-mass. That would be a cool vid in a similar vein to your visit to Tata steelworks or when you went to your local foundry
You should look into how carabiners can cut ropes, it's really quite insane to me how little of an edge can result in such a catastrophic failure. Even what would appear to be a smooth edge can be dangerous, even with strong ropes.
@@graeme.davidson I agree but it’s still a super cool process. You couldn’t use it in your kit because of the heavy testing and certifications that the come with the commercial
@@neloy4200 I mean, you could use it if you wanted. You just could not sell it without a lot of liability risk. You coukd use whatever the hell you want though. Whether it is smart to use it is a different question and one that involves your own calculation of risk.
obviously it goes without saying that Damascus and Aluminium have different tensile strength. So please just be careful on how much fall/sheer pressure is applied when you use it. Otherwise nice one! have fun!
Steel carabiners would actually be stronger than aluminum ones they would also be a lot heavier so if you’re doing a long climb, where do you need a lot of carabiners for supports it would get really heavy.
Alec, your work is phenomenal, so I propose a challenge to you, to produce all the hardware of an electric guitar in damascus steel. It would be really cool to see you do this. A big thank you for all your content that I've been following for years. Wagner Berzagui from Brazil
Please do a DMM factory tour, the hot drop forge their aluminium carabiners and I have now idea how they make their steel ones. It would be fascinating to see your perspective on their manufacturing, plus Jamie would get to make beautiful B roll of North Wales.
I think it'll be really interesting to see the wear on the damascus pattern after the caving trip! Can't think of many others doing this level of material testing on pattern welded steel ;D
I am seriously enjoying the videos where you make these every day objects like the lighter and crescent wrench. Its so interesting to see the mechanisms behind the items. Keep up the good work!
I think it might be beneficial if you only surface-harden it like it is done with gears. This way you can achieve some more strenght with a still low risk of snapping it. As far as I know, surface hardening can be achieved by blasting it with glasbeads just like in sandblasting. The material should work harden on the surface. But if you actually put your life on the line with this, better trust your guts. We just learned about this method in university which is why it came to my mind. Its a pretty cool concept that could possibly work quite well for parts like this.
I understand what you mean about being scared of heights. When I was in the Boy Scouts I could never do the climbing more than above a certain amount of height. Although for me the fear was going up not down so if I started high up I could climb down no problem. I did go caving once my last year as a youth but we didn't do much traversing of ropes, just one in order to get around a drop that most people didn't go past.
When I was in Boy Scouts getting the Climbing merit badge the instructor did a demonstration for how strong the ropes. He attached the rope to his harness and suspended himself about a foot off the ground, then cut the sheath around the outside exposing six smaller stranded ropes that braid together into the core. He then cut each strand one by one until he was suspended by only a single core rope. That made me much more confident while climbing because I knew just how overengineered the ropes were which made it easier to just trust them to do the job and focus on the actual climbing.
@@Merennulli I regularly suffer with bouts of depression, especially in winter. A friend of mine recently talked me into starting running, using the "Couch to 5K" app. It's really helped with my mental health!
@@ApexHerbivore I have a disability that prevents me from walking very well, but I appreciate it. This was the result of a terrible day at work (former coworker lied about something being ready, I got assigned to deploy it on short notice, and found it's fundamentally designed in a way that could never work, meaning it really needs a total rewrite...in 5 days after he spent months making it a glorified mockup.) I do have cyclical depression, but it's not tied to seasons and I am thankfully not in the depressed part of the cycle now. I try to keep a distinction between feeling down (bad day sort of thing) and feeling depressed (where it's biological and my circumstances have limited effect on it). My last cycle was before my injury, and honestly the exercise was of some effect but not much. I normally find social interaction draining, but I find forcing myself to do it when I am in a depressive cycle is the best way to mitigate it.
@@Merennulli I'm sorry to hear about your disability, I shouldn't assume everybody is fully mobile when I make comments like that, my bad. I struggle with social interaction too, and had a 15 year struggle with alcohol and cannabis which I thought were helping, but were actually making things worse! Glad you've found something that helps you, sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders in any case, and that's the main thing! All the best to you :)
Most beautiful carabiner I've ever seen! Will certainly be at least three times 'super good enough ' given that it's made of steel and will only see static loads, not any lead climbing falls.
If those aluminum carabiners are not forged, they will be weaker than the forged steel one you are making due to the rearranging of the metal structure during the forging process so hopefully by time you are done there's no stress cracks and it will function well as a carabiner
Steel carabiners are the go-to for caving. Not sure about Damascus ones. But it's awesome to see. I was always taught 'thumb on bum' for SRT descents. Better control of the rope generally. Awesome to see a crossover between two hobbies!
I have got to say, you are an amazing entertainer, and teacher. I have never messed with a forge in my life, the most I've done is bend some rebar, and I have been watching you on here and my other account for a very long time, you got a great personality and I love the videos and I don't even know much about this, I guess what I'm saying is well done. You're A huge inspiration
You should do a collaboration with hownot2!!!!! Pleaseeee im begin you 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 Also.. i hope that you dont really mean to try that carabineer in a real life scenario. Those things have manufacturing standards
before using it, get it xrayed and a ultrasound done on the metal work, big ouch if it goes wrong. My climbing gear used to have yearly inspections. A couple of them came back chopped in half.
You should consider cutting out that channel that the bought one has, that cross section shape like an I-beam makes it more resistant to bending than an oval, even though there's more material in the oval.
You know... When you make the gate... You could make it L shaped to force a front and back section in the closed carabiner... Or by adding a secondary wire gate like in the Beal Orient Express. Should help stop you cross loading the biner when you're moving around at weird angles.
Hi Alex! I've been watching your videos for a while now. I remember one of your videos, where you mentioned horseshoeing being part of a blacksmith's workload. I was wondering if you could make horseshoes, and then fit it on a horse. (If no horse, maybe a horseshoe for humans, and then fit it onto a human shoe).
He is planning on going caving with a homemade carabiner that has already proven to have cracks in multiple spots. That is the definition of reckless, regardless of how much PPE he wears while grinding.
Alec, an engineer should be to quickly calculate the strength of your carabiner to see if it's strong enough or not. After all, you don't necessarily know if your Damascus billett is as strong (or stronger) than the carabiners material. The modulus of elasticity of your material has a lot to say in a cross sections strength 😅
For this material, it would be almost impossible to tell, because of the different properties of the two steel and there is no way to know what proportion of each material there is at any given cross sectional area. Its possible to make an estimate by averaging the two materials though.
@@JacktheFireEater bcs you have a life on the line you go safe and take the lowest possible values / worst case scenario, that way it can only be the same or better.
@@I_am_here_to_eat_your_toes Well, yes, but this will already be above the minimum factor of safety just through the design and material. That doesn't tell the yield strength for the carabiner like I think the OP was getting at. Im an engineer, so I agree with you that thats what would be done for the lowest estimate, what I was saying is that there isnt any way to get the exact value and that an average would just be as close as we could get.
@@JacktheFireEater I'm just done my engineering degree, and that crossed my mind. There are tests one can do to determine an approximate strength, it's done with rebar, but it's not accurate. Averaging would be my go to, but I lack the experience to be more confident in my abilities to say anything else 😅
@@I_am_here_to_eat_your_toes this is also a solution... Though aren't the carabiners made of aluminum? In that case steel in general has a modulus of elasticity about 2.5x that of aluminum, which should sort any issues out.
Alec--I suffer from low-level balance issues, due to a bout with vestibular neuritis a few years back. Part of what I do with my life involves climbing a scaffold (6m) from time to time. Imagine my delight....
As an arborist, your rope rub on the tree is nothing compared to rock. Good luck and be safe. Also, get a knee ascender it's helpful on 60ft' + climbs or sorry 18.2 m
Seeing you strapped up in the air makes me want to see you do a video forging but only in the air no feet on the ground. Makes me imagine a old time skyscraper worker up there working away.
Did I say single video? I meant single-year project, I don’t think it will take more than 52 episodes, unless something goes wrong at the very last moment ofcourse
This feels like the start of one of those conversations that goes "Where's Alec?......Oh, he's in the hospital after breaking his legs while testing out home-made carabiner" and all you can think of is Why??
I think those grooves around the carabiner are quite important to it's strength. If I recall correctly from my first year mechanics class, the "I shaped beam" helps against bending forces when keeping it lightweight.
I have a very silly obsession with D-rings of all kinds. I’m a disabled vet…I have absolutely no use for real climbing gear, but I will find uses for them even if just a fidget object when I’m having increased pain days. I have some that have a cool magnet locking gate that I love the most. I’ve got a couple of those. Then I have another thing that’s made by a company called Kong. Not the dog toy(but they do use one of them in a dog leash) it is a gate that will close onto a carabiner and an arm on each side you have to pull back on to open it and release whatever it has ahold of. That’s probably absolutely trash for a description. I would be lucky to even buy a piece of cutoff Damascus scrap, not a chance I’ll ever have the cash to buy a A. Steele Damascus carabiner.. unless someone liked my idea for The Kingsman mad gadget guy/turn into the bald teacher guy that I posted in the first video making the Damascus. Not that the idea is worth anything to anyone other than a funny action drama in my head. Heck if it is worth something, I could really use a belt sander/grinder…just saying, lol
pleas please please Alec, you have to carve the grooves on the sides of the carabiner!! its very structurally important as it is stronger WITH the grooves than without!! this is the reason "I beam" exists and plain beams are basically trash!!!!
Nice reflex control Jamie to keep hold of the camera and let the towel roll fall. More times than I care to admit I've dropped something I was holding to catch something tossed to me
Alec and Jamie, here are two important tips for climbing and repelling: 1) For climbing, make a three or four hoop ladder in your ascender strap. Climb it like a ladder and you will not get as fatigued ascending. Climb the ladder then bring up your harness ascender and sit, elevate your ladder ascender, climb the ladder and repeat. 2) Now on repelling, usd your right hand (assuming that Jamie is also right-handed) to hold the loose rope behind your lower back. This will give you extra braking friction. I've repelled and climbed since the early 1970's. I still have the gear but no longer participate in the activity. When you're young DO IT! because you won't be able to in your later years.
I wonder if there's been any studies on the force required to delaminate Damascus steel. Common sense that it should be less than the typical force to snap the steel, but by how much?
@@dumbideas3361 literally everyone else has been saying the same thing for 2 videos. I'm more thinking of strain testing damascus in different orientations and patterns with a standard size billet, and standard metal combos.
Please make steele branded boiler suits!!!! Would be perfekt for people like mee who just wants to put something on whilst working and then taking that layer of for when you go in the house
i mean a steel carabiner is something of a feat to break even the cheap ones tend to be stronger than the best aluminum ones though i personally wouldn't trust any hollow rings or carabiners to hold my weight
Come to Utah, in the states, and I'll get you over your fear of heights. It isn't caving, it's canyoneering. Utah is one of the best areas for canyoneering. I've got a 300 foot rappel with your name on it Alec.
if i was counting my life on that carabiner it would be getting it ht'd to at least HRC55. It will still bend but is super tough. no Way id trust a climb with out it.
You should check the story of Yvon Choinard,founder of Patagonia. He start his career manufacturing carabiner, pitons and hammers for bolting routes, and then created clothing equipment for climbers. Really cool to se climbing becoming more popular 😊
