bolt gone in ceiling, above Diving for Rocks Options

[Tommy]

Dear Folks;

Yesterday the glue in titanium bolt in the ceiling above Diving for Rocks broke.

Today Luke Bowman, Evan Jackson, Austin Meyers and I attempted to install another bolt.

We were unsuccessful. The rock in the ceiling is too soft for a "normal" Powers 5 piece bolt.

We will have to return next weekend with the proper epoxy and another glue in bolt.

Please pass this on.

Thanks.

--
Tommy Blackwell

[acrackmonger]

Hey Tommy, have to know, did the bolt break or did the glue fail. or the rock fail to hold the glue?



Maybe you guys could drill all the way through the roof and put a long eyebolt through the roof and then put a
BIG fender washer and a couple of nuts on it. It would require some digging on top to get to the rock but....

.....Just a thought...

Hey people laughed at perma draws also


(IMG:http://www.erockonline.com/forum/upload/uploads/post-81-1148493757.jpg)

[Tommy]

It broke!

It was a Ushba Tortuga titanium glue in bolt from Fixe. Cost $11!

It should have lasted forever.

Here is a small picture that the guy sent with the report of the break.

They guy wrote that he climbed out, clipped the bolt, weighted it and then heard a "ping" and the next thing he knew he was below the diving for rocks crux!

Attached File(s)

 Ushba.jpg ( 27.14K ) Number of downloads: 34

 

[Soy Cabron]

MAN! That's pretty frickin' scary. Probably some kinda commie plot. WTF? Body weight break.....!?!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/crazy.gif)

Maybe one of the lads can examine it closer under one of their fancy scopes and see if there is any tell-tale weirdness. It doesn't appear from the photo that there had been any hammering or other abuse of the bolt's eye. Will you get a chance to inspect it? Doesn't titanium make a more brittle metal than most stainless recipes for steel?

What about posting on one of the larger climbing forums to see if any other people have had similar experiences with the titanium glue-ins?

Soy Concerned

[Tommy]

I sent the reportee an email.

I explained that we would like to examine the bolt.

He hasn't answered, but he may .

I have noticed that it was used as a "dogging" bolt.

For the last 3 years and 8 months, folks could gain some altitude above the chains above Diving and clip this bolt and then hang.

Contemplating the rest of the roof to the Lonesome chains.

Originally, I was not going to install this bolt.

I didn't need it and was opposed to making a clip in the middle of a 5.11 crux.

Just go clip the chains was my idea.

Calmer, better heads convinced me that shorter folks who don't happen to be 5'1'' and have a + 3 inch ape index, might need the bolt in the ceiling.

Ok so it got set.

So, it is my conjecture that for the past few years alot of folks have hung from this bolt and contemplated the rest of the ceiling.

To hang there and then look over one's shoulder will cause rotation.

Carabiner against an eye bolt rotation.

Year after year.

I think the instance on Thursday night was the straw that broke the camel's back.

One time added to a thousand, or ten thousand times and the bolt broke....

Maybe we'll get to examine it. and maybe we 'll learn more from other sites....

[Bolt Breaker]

It was quite a ride when it let go.

I replied to your email with my #. Let me know when you're available to meet up so you can examine the bolt. I've been carrying it in my pocket, but it'll probably hang from my harness forever.

[acrackmonger]

Thanks for the info and all the hard work Tommy.
Overweight thanks for the personal insight. Did you have time to wonder what the ping was?
Anyone have a photo of someone hanging from this bolt?
How about a photo of the wall. I thought there was one on this site but cant find it.

This post has been edited by acrackmonger: Aug 3 2008, 01:40 PM

[spiffy]

Is it my imagination or does that bolt have a nice bend in it? Aren't bolts supposed to be straight?

Cool - nobody was hurt, the glue is still there holding strong
Not Cool - climbing bolts breaking -- regular hang dogging or not that is just sketcy

[Bolt Breaker]

Overweight thanks for the personal insight. Did you have time to wonder what the ping was?

Nope. All I had time to wonder was if i anchored correctly at the top of Diving for rocks. I keep analyzing the event in my mind... my experience and that of the guys that saw it from the ground is mostly the same except for the timing of the sounds. I heard ping, rope sliding and my scream all at the same time, but for everyone else they were at 3 separate times.

[stuckat5.9]

Calmer, better heads convinced me that shorter folks who don't happen to be 5'1'' and have a + 3 inch ape index, might need the bolt in the ceiling.

Tommy is numerically challenged; I think he meant to write 5'10" or 5'11".

As someone who more closely matches his original description, I have to say that YES, that bolt was much appreciated by at least one vertically challenged climber.

I've hung from it before myself. Scary stuff!

[Allen Corneau]

Anyone have a photo of someone hanging from this bolt?
How about a photo of the wall. I thought there was one on this site but cant find it.

The Gallery seems to be a little messed up. When I click on "Austin Rock" it says therre a re no pictures in that gallery.

Anyway, here's the one that I pulled down a while a go...
 gallery_2_2_29904.jpg ( 54.48K ) Number of downloads: 20

[Bolt Breaker]

An email from my friend re: the bolt breaking on me...

"You’re already a legend…or maybe more of a tall tale. On Sunday I went to the north rock gym and some lady was telling the story of “apparently some big guy was climbing lonesome dove and broke the bolt out of the ceiling.” I set the record straight on how it exactly happened. If you want, I can start building a more glamorous story if it comes up again. Perhaps you were attacked by an animal and had a monster fall? You were nearly killed and just crawled out alive? I’m glad I went climbing…"

For the record, I'm 210 lbs, and it was the Chupacabra attacking me that caused the bolt to break

[Tim]

it was the Chupacabra attacking me that caused the bolt to break

Chupa wouldn't do that. Chupa, rhyme us some reason for that bolt breaking.

Back on topic: Is it possible that the tensile strength (? pulling on the bolt longways) is weaker than it's shear strength (pulling across.)

[John Hogge]

It does look like the bolt end is bent.

This bolt's shape isn't symmetric; every hang and fall looks to have stressed the shaft portion of the bolt against the side of the drilled hole in the limestone.

If this had been a non-glue in with a symmetric bolt holding a hanger holding a chain, the hanger would be similarly stressed. But perhaps its stress would be distributed along more metal, along the arch of the hanger. The glue-in is probably stressed most right at the edge of the drilled hole.

The permadraw doesn't provide as much shock absorption as a quickdraw; I don't know if the difference is negligible compared to the shock absorption of the rope. (I do love permadraws...)


Regards,
--John

[acrackmonger]

Nice OWC, really glad you wern't hurt.
Its amazing how ones time perception shifts when something like that happens.

I've taken long falls where I had time to think "shouldn't I have stopped by now???" twice!

You wouldnt have a close up of the broken end of that bolt would you?


Spiffy, thanks for the photo.
The shaft on that bolt looks bent to me also.

I never climbed up and clipped that bolt, was it placed all the way to the eye or did some of the shaft protrude from the rock?

OK John, now you have me thinking of a spring loaded permadraw

[Tommy]

I never climbed up and clipped that bolt, was it placed all the way to the eye or did some of the shaft protrude from the rock?

We used these directions installing the bolt Ushba

The shaft was sunk all the way into the hole.

I think the bolt was installed correctly.... but last Friday when we were attempting to install another, we noted that about a half inch of material could be removed from the surface of the ceiling with little effort.

What that means ( to me) is that it is possible that the bolt was sunk all the way to the shaft in Dec 2004, and over time, material near the hole fell of , exposing a half inch or more of the shaft.

This exposed shaft, then would be the brunt of stress. This could explain the bend seen in the photo.

[Bolt Breaker]

You wouldnt have a close up of the broken end of that bolt would you?

Not yet, but I'll take some tonight (unless I can get a camera before then) and post them.

[timstich]

Hey Tommy,

If you would like to talk to one of the guys that helped develop that very bolt, his name is John Byrnes. He's discussing this very bolt failure via e-mail elsewhere. Apparently, it's not good enough to just sink the bolt up to the eye. You have to actually drill a diagonal hole bisecting the main hole so that part of the eye can sink below the rock surface. This prevents the torquing that the bolt eye got, or so goes the theory.

Byrnes is known as "Lord Slime" from rec.climbing and his style is pretty abrasive and funny. His e-mail is posted here:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.h...46957&tn=40

Anyway, good luck putting a new bolt in there. Roof installations sound pretty complicated.

-Tim

P.S. Overweight climber, if you wouldn't mind some people would like to examine that bolt eye, not just see pictures of it.

This post has been edited by timstich: Aug 5 2008, 11:32 AM

[Bolt Breaker]

P.S. Overweight climber, if you wouldn't mind some people would like to examine that bolt eye, not just see pictures of it.

I know, I'm already schedule to meet up with Tommy.

[stuckat5.9]

Been thinking about this a bit.

A bolt in a horizontal roof is loaded much differently than a bolt on a vertical wall.

A bolt in a vertical wall is going to take the majority of its loading in shear, and in one direction - down.

A bolt in a horizontal roof will be loaded in both tension and shear. Further, the direction of loading will change depending on whether the leader or a follower takes a fall or hangs. On Diving, a leader falling will "pull" the bolt back towards the wall. However, a follower falling will pull the bolt out towards the lip.

This means the bolt will be subjected to cyclical pulling, back and forth in different directions. This could be what contributed to the bending and eventual failure of the bolt.

Implications of this? (besides just me spewing away) Well, I'm sure smarter heads than mine have contemplated bolting roofs. But at the least, this implies that the bolt material should be very effective in handling this type of cyclical loading.

Also, the orientation of the bolt relative to the two main directions of pull also strikes me as very important. By this, I mean not only which way the bolt "eye" is rotated on its axis, but also the angle at which it enters the rock above.

Just some stuff to think about when this bolt gets replaced. I wouldn't mind being there to witness or even help out, btw.