ReBolting the Mother Lode
Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 3:22 am
So I hesitated to post this at this time due to the tumult over access and the community reflection on our own behavior self governance, but perhaps it is this very reflection that makes this an ideal time for the community to demonstrate that we can over see our own governance and, in this case, infrastructure upkeep, so to that end...
There is a serious and concerted effort afoot to finally commence with a very big up grade to our beloved Motherlode.
Dustin Stephens, myself, and several others who have either expressed interest or haven't yet but will (they just don't know it yet) have undertaken the monumental task of rebolting the Lode with SS glue ins.
The task is to re equip the Lode with the forever bolt so that for the rest of our lives we can rest easy knowing the Lode bolts are not an exercise in planned obsolescence (as it is currently). As it stands now, most of the bolts at the Lode were placed approximately fifteen years ago (most close to and after 1993). As most of us know these five piece mechanical zinc plated bolts, while good and have performed well, do have a finite life. Best estimates that I have found are twenty years (coming from the Anchor Replacement Initiative guys). I think it is difficult to know the life span of these bolts in that they weren't designed for this application and the manufacturers don't give specs for lifespan in soft sandstone exposed to weather with 1000's of falls on them.
Basically, the best we can do as developers is try to shoot for over kill in the engineering of the bolts we use and hope that we have eliminated as much as humanly possible the probability of gear failure.
The far end of this spectrum of over engineering are SS glue in bolts. We propose to likely use the Heacocis Wave bolt, possibly the Titt twisted rod bolt, with a slight chance of using the Fixe bolt with the Hilti epoxy system. Rick Weber has been instrumental in refining this application with many iterations of these routes bolted at MV (thanks also to Kipp and others), but also through his testing of these.
These bolts glued in have withstood 8000 pounds of tension pull out force before the bolt deformed and the dynanometer maxed out and the quick link failed. Needless to say this is way above the working load of a bolt needed for climbing.
So this is the job, this is why, and this is how. How many is a good question. We count by the guide 530 bolts including anchors would need replacing. The price tag is around $3-4 K. Bolts will be around 5 bucks per, a tube of glue should replace 2, perhaps 3 routes and a tube is $30 with 60 routes at the Lode.
So $2500 for bolts and $900 for glue, and a few hundred more for nozzles and then the hundreds more I haven't accounted for because I am a doctor and not a project manager and have no idea what I am getting into- so I reckon $4000.
Reality is a good deal of this will be picked up by individuals. But in the interest of community spirit we have asked Blake and Team Suck to create a Paypal button on TeamSuck.com and we are soliciting donations toward this end. We could easily overshoot with collections and when this happens we will shut down the paypal button. Any extra donations will be first offered to Jeff Neal to cover his costs for his martyrdom-level work at rebolting Funk Rock (dude goes straight to Nirvana with 20 virgins and all the clean well lighted head walls he can bolt). Another option for any extra collected funds will be possibly put toward permadraws for the lode, and yet another option would be to give it to the RRGCC, of course. As Dr. Bob says, this entire community driven existence of the climbing venue we all enjoy should be an exercise in enlightened self interest.
So, there it is. You can expect over the next few years the majority of the routes at the Lode to get rebolted.
Anyone interested in helping do the actual rebolting step up and make yourselves known. No reasonable offer will be refused. Glue ins are a bit tricky and messy, but with some practice I trust a degree of efficiency will be attained. Maybe with enough strong backs and sharp bits we can get this knocked out fairly quickly.
Thanks
the Lurkist
There is a serious and concerted effort afoot to finally commence with a very big up grade to our beloved Motherlode.
Dustin Stephens, myself, and several others who have either expressed interest or haven't yet but will (they just don't know it yet) have undertaken the monumental task of rebolting the Lode with SS glue ins.
The task is to re equip the Lode with the forever bolt so that for the rest of our lives we can rest easy knowing the Lode bolts are not an exercise in planned obsolescence (as it is currently). As it stands now, most of the bolts at the Lode were placed approximately fifteen years ago (most close to and after 1993). As most of us know these five piece mechanical zinc plated bolts, while good and have performed well, do have a finite life. Best estimates that I have found are twenty years (coming from the Anchor Replacement Initiative guys). I think it is difficult to know the life span of these bolts in that they weren't designed for this application and the manufacturers don't give specs for lifespan in soft sandstone exposed to weather with 1000's of falls on them.
Basically, the best we can do as developers is try to shoot for over kill in the engineering of the bolts we use and hope that we have eliminated as much as humanly possible the probability of gear failure.
The far end of this spectrum of over engineering are SS glue in bolts. We propose to likely use the Heacocis Wave bolt, possibly the Titt twisted rod bolt, with a slight chance of using the Fixe bolt with the Hilti epoxy system. Rick Weber has been instrumental in refining this application with many iterations of these routes bolted at MV (thanks also to Kipp and others), but also through his testing of these.
These bolts glued in have withstood 8000 pounds of tension pull out force before the bolt deformed and the dynanometer maxed out and the quick link failed. Needless to say this is way above the working load of a bolt needed for climbing.
So this is the job, this is why, and this is how. How many is a good question. We count by the guide 530 bolts including anchors would need replacing. The price tag is around $3-4 K. Bolts will be around 5 bucks per, a tube of glue should replace 2, perhaps 3 routes and a tube is $30 with 60 routes at the Lode.
So $2500 for bolts and $900 for glue, and a few hundred more for nozzles and then the hundreds more I haven't accounted for because I am a doctor and not a project manager and have no idea what I am getting into- so I reckon $4000.
Reality is a good deal of this will be picked up by individuals. But in the interest of community spirit we have asked Blake and Team Suck to create a Paypal button on TeamSuck.com and we are soliciting donations toward this end. We could easily overshoot with collections and when this happens we will shut down the paypal button. Any extra donations will be first offered to Jeff Neal to cover his costs for his martyrdom-level work at rebolting Funk Rock (dude goes straight to Nirvana with 20 virgins and all the clean well lighted head walls he can bolt). Another option for any extra collected funds will be possibly put toward permadraws for the lode, and yet another option would be to give it to the RRGCC, of course. As Dr. Bob says, this entire community driven existence of the climbing venue we all enjoy should be an exercise in enlightened self interest.
So, there it is. You can expect over the next few years the majority of the routes at the Lode to get rebolted.
Anyone interested in helping do the actual rebolting step up and make yourselves known. No reasonable offer will be refused. Glue ins are a bit tricky and messy, but with some practice I trust a degree of efficiency will be attained. Maybe with enough strong backs and sharp bits we can get this knocked out fairly quickly.
Thanks
the Lurkist
