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I am an engineer and do failure analysis for a living. Needless to say I’ve turned into a climbing gear enthusiast without climbing a single time in my life. Thanks for the cool content.

I can answer the 'why are there jagged edges' question! All metals have crystal structures, called grains. Smaller grains pack together very tightly and do not have large voids between them. Larger grains have voids or imperfections in-between them. The size of those voids affects the crack propagation of imperfections in the metal. The more (and larger) the voids, the easier it is for the grains to translate between one another… or slip. The smaller the voids (and therefore the more tightly packed the grains are) the harder it is for the grains to translate or slip across one another. The surface finish of the broken material is heavily dependent on how much translation occurred during the plastic deformation along the slip-plane. A brittle (tightly packed grains w/small grain size) will have little to no slip (translation of grains) up until the point where the internal stored energy is enough to propagate the crack through the part. A very ductile (loosely packed grains with large grain size) will have a lot of slip up until the point where the crack propagates. The wavy-ness you’re seeing is caused by the ‘slippage’ of those grains as they stretch before fracture. Here’s a good article that explains it in more detail: www.thefabricator.com/thefabricator/article/bending/grain-size-part-ii-how-metal-grain-size-affects-a-bending-operation Also, I sent you an email about the drop tower. I’d love to chat with you about it!

Hey - if you are into this kind of gear testing, contact Sajid Sadpara in Pakistan. He doesn't speak English but is well known from the K2 winter expeditions. He's got a govt funded project to clean up the old ropes on K2, and some are probably decades old. It would be great to get some of those ropes and test them. Mt Everest and now K2 have very inexperienced people climbing on them, who will just jumar on any rope. One person Tomaz Rotar claims he was jumaring on a rope that broke under his body weight. Anyway they are cleaning all that junk off K2 and I hope someone tests it to prove the point.

“Just make sure you don’t suck.” 10/10 this is the kind of quality info I’m looking for 👌

It is indeed nice to walk up to the rock and see - not even rings oftentimes here in the Saxon sandstone. This and having no magnesia marks makes finding the routes a lot more challenging :)

A great replacement is the Edelrid bulletproof carabiners. They are aluminium but have a steel insert around the inside where most of your rope rubs against...Or possibly just use all steel biners since weight isn't a concern...Great video idea!

Can confirm -sharp edges are bad - having coreshot several ropes on lead falls. Once you get your drop tower - would be interesting to test the groovy/sharp biners on short/less dynamic drops vs longer/more dynamic catches. I'd put $5 that short jerky catches cut the rope more.

The area those draws came from (Horseshoe Canyon Ranch) is a really cool place to climb, definitely worth a weekend trip, and a great place to stop if you’re passing through

Watching the rope break footage, it seemed like the carabiner bent significantly and pinched the rope with the groove edges before it broke. I would think that the extra pinch pressure was a more significant factor than the groove itself. If you could create a rig which continuously moves the rope back and forth on the carabiner at tension you might see how the rope (and carabiner) wears over time at more realistic forces than 20+kN.

I really like DMM Alpha bent gate biners (I use a few myself), but they're really not the best choice for permadraws. Something with a steel insert like Edelrid bulletproof would be better -- but they're not cheap. This comment isn't a grumble though - let's appreciate people who donate the time and ca$h on equipping and maintaining stuff. Edit: just noticed 50 stitches steel comment about that too

Those Totems in the background? All dead now. May they rest in pieces.

I'm so impressed at how many things you find to break! Always interesting!

Horseshoe Canyon! Been climbing there since 2014. Recently discovered your channel and can't stop watching. I appreciate all your hard work

Great video, really apreciate the quick format and summary of your results.

Daaaaang man Supersoul is an awesome route, I belayed my buddy up it and he made it look easy back in October 2020 (on the new cable permas) and I remember him mentioning the gear looked pretty new lol that's awesome

Very important imo to look at the wear pattern of permadraws too. If they simply took a lot of falls vs. a lot of rope ran through them under tension. (creating a different wear patter/ sharp edges).

I wonder how strong an HMS carabiner with double rappel grooves would be

Commenting for the KZfaq algorithm. Great content Ryan

Prettyy cool, I've clipped those draws!!

That question did have me wondering a bit. Thanks,

Personally, I think the whole visual impact thing of climbing gear is a crock. The visual impact of climbing anchors on the tiny fraction of a percentage of outdoor areas that are climbable are nothing compared to the amount of littering, of clearcut areas, etc that take away from nature's beauty. Honestly, I think it's pretty cool to see areas where people have taken the time, effort, and money to ensure other people's safety and provide an accessible area for other people to be able to pursue their chosen outdoor passion. Especially if they use high quality stainless steel gear ;)

It was a good thought by whoever equipped the route to at least put a steel carabiner on the first bolt. 1st bolts tend to get sharp if the belayer stands far back from the wall and the rope runs through at an angle, wearing one side but not the other. That uneven wear creates dangerous grooves with sharp edges. It is not a case of the first bolt getting lowered off the most as mentioned in the video. The deepest grooves are often found at anchors from lowering off, but they tend to be the smoothest grooves and the least likely to hurt a rope so long as the cross section is not extremely narrow.

I just climbed Horseshoe for the first time last month, and it was the first place I saw those new cabled permadraws installed (they perma draw some of their most classic routes due to traffic). They look way stouter and longer lasting, plus far more appealing on the wall, IMO. So cool to see these tested in light of that.

Holy shit how much has your channel improved in a year, I had forgot how these og videos were like! Sounds like you're underwater hahaha

sick video man, would be cool to see what the stiching breaks at in a daisy chain

Hey I just wanna suggest a test for carabiners or bolts that you apply force on them like till 10kN and leave them for a day or 2 and then see if they show any instant effect on them and if not break test them afterwards to see if their strength is compromised by been under constant force for days. Love your videos

Steel carabiners seem to be the way to go for fixed gear

Found your channel super helpful. I have some questions if you would have tge time to reply i would be very greatful. Hi i am a solo climber as adequate equiptments aren't avalable here plus rock climbing is not a great deal here. Currently i have found a 300 plus ft wall with a pretty steep overhang i would like to know good bolts and hanger that are still affordable as it's going to be out of my pocket😅

Looks like there was a twisting mode on that jagged fracture compared to a normal geometry of fracture.

hey, I did that climb (supersoul sureshot) a few years ago

Where the biners sharp or just grooved? From the video none looked sharp. This makes a huge difference for cutting the rope. Lower offs and crux bolts get deep grooves but usually aren't sharp. First bolts and out-of-line bolts tend to get sharp and will cut your rope. There's a Black Diamond QC lab post about this (which you've probably seen, but didn't mention). I'm not convinced the rope breaking/cutting had much to do with the biners being grooved, but rather that the carbineer is a relatively sharp bend to begin with. Did you test a non-grooved biner as part of this episode or in the past?

I'd be curious to see a test rope+carabiners where the groove is "flat" and has sherp edges, as often happens with fixed draws that see the rope running at a slight angle during a descent, but not a lot of falls/lower offs. Those are the ones who have caused real-life rope breaks and at least 1 death. Easy to find: 1st draw of a lead line at a popular climbing gym. (I could source some, but i'm on the other side of the atlantic ocean)

I'd love to see some drop tower testing on the myth that back-clipping your draws will kill you when sport climbing. I have a feeling there won't be a noticable difference between back clipped and correctly clipped draws.

Here in the Alps a few years ago a montainguide fell to his death due to a groovy permanent carabiner cutting his rope while sportclimbing. So I guess falling on groovy carabiners is different from your tests because during a fall the rope moves through the biner and gets shredded in the procces? What do you think?

I think perma draws are fine for like 5:12 but we don't need em on 5.8s lol- if clipping makes the climb significantly harder then add permas but if it's all jugs, we can clip outr own draws. And if ya can't, have your freind set up the draws

One quick question, might there be a mistake in the edition at around 3:46? I think you say in the audio that it's the rope that breaks due to the sharp edge of the carabiner, but on the footage what appears is the sling breaking... Is that right? Great videos, by the way! I am learning quite a lot :D

You should try fixing one end of the rope and letting the other end run through the carabiner. A running rope might wear differently then one that Is fixed in one spot.

So, my understanding of this video is if you come across a perma-draw that has a groove it should be safer to clip a quick draw into the perma-draw (both in the event of a fall and for maintaining your rope) because the groove causes more damage to the rope without impacting the strength of the carabiner. Or is there some aspect of clipping carabiners to each other that makes this riskier? (Would it just be better to clip to the anchor under the perma-draw if you don't like the look of the perma-draw?)

The jagged edges in the aluminum are there from the moment the carabiners are made and are there on the core and the surface, but you don't see the actual crystals on the surface because they are so small. When the aluminum deforms, all of those crystals get realigned and if you cut open the carabiner before it fractures, you could see a little more roughness, but not much. Also, this isn't a threat to the ropes being used because the rope's massive surface area is all used to polish against a small part of the carabiner, so the rough surface of the carabiner isn't something that could damage the rope.

problem is not the strength but the friction the rope produces in a lead fall, the groove cuts the rope

I think permadraws are alright on realy hard roof climbs that might get project3d alot, and that are not in a nice spot like in the mountains where people go to appreciate nature, in Etringen in Germany there is a cave where there are plenty of permadraws, but this is in an old quarry which I think is alright to have them there. sometimes on harder routes there might be one on the crux if safety is an issue, to make clipping feasable and safe (r) like on a route I tried recently, I do not think I would have managed the route without the permadraw, as I was unable to reach the clipping position before a very droppable dyno, and with a very tenuous landing if you do Fall.

Wasn't the highest recorded test on lead fall forces you got at Pipeworks under 5kN?

I remember reading a lot of testing reports by (I think it was black diamond) it was basically a blog version of slack pull with all the professional equipment but they stopped years and years ago. they were saying that the groove made the carabineer stronger and they had no idea why.

Watching the video where the rope broke. It looked like the radius of the bend in the rope was a cintributing facror to the rope breaking.

cool video

Interesting - I'm pretty sure the biners were bending similarly to steel due to them being hot forged.

Supersoul Sureshot is the one 5.12 route that has consistently kicked my ass where I STILL can't do the moves.

Nice 🤙

I’m not exactly sure how the algorithm brought me here but I like it. However I will say that it was a little hard to follow because I know absolutely nothing about anything you’re talking about 😂

Break test regular quick draws ? The common ones used for lead climbing.

Hey Ryan! Any chance you could test water knots vs flemish (figure 8) bend on tubular webbing? Also beer knot vs its figure 8 counterpart? Water knots seem to be the recommended standard, but I can't figure out or find any good info on why it would be superior to a figure 8 bend.

Bolts are great. Permadraws are great.

I never saw those at HCR, but there are TONS of the cable perma draws. Makes it faster if you are trying to do lots of routes at the north 40.

In my opinion the less you leave on the wall the better. For two main reasons: the philosophy of trying to keep natural spaces as they are, and because the less gear left on the wall the less "breaking points" over time there will be. So it's a security issue as well.

I don’t like to climb on permadraws. Just another component to trust.. I prefer bringing my own. Visual impact is nicer with only bolts as well for sure.

I recently purchased a set of shadow quick drawls and decided against the alpha because my buddy has those and when the gates open there's a kilonewtons difference. I think the angle of the spine for the reduction and sharing the breaking point between two angles.

„The shape is more important than the thicknes“ thats what i tell my girlfriend :)

I'm at 0:58 and I'm wating for a joke with groovy and funky

What happened to the sound in this video? Content is always good. Keep up the good work.

Pretty sure the aluminum looks like that cause its been cast and those are micro air bubbles trapped inside it. Its called porosity.

it tears like that due to the heat treatment

8:30 I beg to disagree. Permanent quickdraws do have significant visual impact. They are obviously visible. However, tine bare stainless steel bolts blend with calcium rock so well that you need to look carefully in order to see them. I see it as a nice compromise

If they're permanent why wouldn't they be steel?

Not convinced about hardware permanently installed. It is already super complicated to properly maintain some bolts and hangers in decent conditions for certain areas. The more complex a system, the more it is prone to failure. If something happens with your quickdraws, that is your fault. Who's fault is it if an accident happens with the "permadraws"?

nice

Jagged break = fracture due to over stress Smooth break = metal fatigue.

I can't say I'd ever trust a permadraw outdoors. I've seen nylon and other textiles age before my eyes in my climate

Big fan of permadraws on hard routes, especially at crux sections if not all the bolts. I understand sometimes it's better to not have them if the route already gets lots of traffic.

What about this channel? I dont understand.

Science 🧗🏻

You really should do a collab with betaclimber .

8:09 just say it: science b**ch!

You dont test against another risk with sharp carabiner. Rope running through it under load not like in this test machine.