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You're thrutching the bad moves, vein worms pulsing in your forearms. You sweat and shake, then calm yourself by checking the last bolt, which is down by your feet. Calling to your belayer for slack, you launch for the exit bucket. And miss.
Falling you wait for your ratty rope to come taut as it has hundreds of times before. But it never does - the bolt pulls. As you hit the ledge it dawns on you that maybe those bolts you snagged at the army surplus store weren't such a bargain after all.
There's a litany of bolts for fastening in concrete and stone and climbers use them all. Most climbers assume all the bolts are bomber, too. Yet when you a bolt you don't really know what you're getting. Making matters worse, the person who drilled the anchor probably didn't know what they were getting either. Fact is, most bolts are better at anchoring Pizzeria sign post like they are designed to than catching leader falls.
To sort the good from the bad, we tested every type and brand we could find. We pulled them in concrete blocks custom made to simulate soft and medium rock, then checked those results by testing again in sandstone, marble, and granite. When their hydraulic puller finally creaked to a halt we had broken 325 bolts.
You can't just look at the charts, though, and start drilling away. To select and set a solid bolt you have to know what hardness of rock you're dealing with, and understand how bolts work.
Even then, bolting may not be for you. When you drill you assume responsibility for everyone who climbs the route after you. Good bolts and hangers are expensive, and bolting is hard work. I you aren't up to the task and if slapping up a new route means more to you than doing good work, leave the job to someone else.
A Rock and a Hard Place
A bolt is only as solid as the rock you put it in. And rock can be iron hard, or so soft you can carve it with a stick. You'll know when rock is hard - your dulled bits and quickly drained Hilti battery will tip you off. Soft Rock is easy to define, too: even with a hand drill you can punch a big hole with little effort. It's the rock consistencies in between that raise questions.You can get an idea of how well a bolt should hold in different hardness of rock by checking its strength as supplied by the manufacturer for tensile (pull-out) and shear (straight down load, as a bolt on a vertical wall) in 2000-psi (medium) and 4000-psi (hard) concrete. (2000 psi means that it takes 2000 founds to crush a one - inch cube of that rock or concrete.) The best bolts for climbing are usually the ones with the highest strengths in the lowest psi concrete. Our chart lists manufactures strengths (for simplicity we bumped some concrete strengths to the nearest 500-psi), and based on our own tests, notes whether bolts are suited for use in soft, medium, or hard rock.
For construction purposes 1000-psi concrete is too soft, so bolt companies don't bother testing their anchors in this material. Still, this concrete is about as hard as the soft rock in many climbing areas, so we tested in 1000-psi concrete that we had specially made. These blocks could be scratched with a fingernail, and were about as hard as the limestone swells around Dallas and Austin, Texas, and the volcanic rock at Cochiti Mesa and the Enchanted Tower in New Mexico. (The rock in these areas seems harder, though, because a tough outer crust belies the soft substrate underneath.)
Our "medium" blocks consisted of 2000-psi concrete. We couldn't scratch these blocks with our nails, but the "rock" still drilled easily by hand and had a consistency similar to the rock in Penitente Canyon, Colorado and Smith Rock, Oregon. For "hard" rock, we tested bolts is solid tombstone-grade marble and granite blocks and a conglomerate boulder.
You have to be careful when correlating concrete to rock. Concrete is the same consistency throughout, so bolts set in it yield uniform test results. Conversely, rock usually varies in hardness and quality from one bolt hole to the next, making it impossible to predict exactly how strong each placement is. Use out test data and the manufacture's list strengths as rough comparative guidelines only. Every time you drill a hole re-evaluate whether the rock is sound enough for your bolt. If you can't decide what hardness of rock you're bolting into, err on the safe side and assume it's softer.
The works
Mechanical bolts, those that work by either expanding of compressing, grip the rock by pressing against the wall of the bolt hole (Figure 1).The pressing action creates friction between the anchor and the rock; for the bolt to pull out, the applied load has to overpower this coefficient of friction. But more important than understanding how bolts work is knowing how they don't work.
A bolt will fail by either breaking , pulling out, or destroying the rock around it. A bolt will break if its holding power is greater than its shear strength. You can virtually eliminate bolt breakage by using a bolt with a shear strength of at least 5000 pounds. The hardest you'll likely ever load a bolt is around 2600 pounds, so a 5000 pound shear-strength anchor gives about a two-to-one safety margin. (For details on fall forces see "The harder you fall" Over two tons of breaking strength may seem like overkill, but it isn't. This safety factor is in fact only half what the bolting industry recommends for bolts used to safeguard life.
If a bolts holding power is less than its shear strength it will pull out before breaking. The typical pull-out follows this scenario: the bolt flexes, crushing the rock beneath it. Without the support of the rock the bolt continues to bend until the developing prying action pulls the bolt out. You can increase a bolt's holding power by using a larger-diameter bolt that won't bend as readily as a smaller one and has a greater rock to metal contact (friction) area. In the case of soft rock or rock that has a flaky or crumbling surface, lengthening the anchor may also improve its holding power by letting the bolt grip into the more solid underlying rock, if there is any.
In hard rock, the bolt or the hanger will usually break before the rock crumbles, but he failure of the rock itself is a concern with any anchor in soft or medium rock. To keep the rock intact, don't place bolts too close to one another at belay/rappel stations. Keep bolts at least one foot apart, and place them equally far from corners, cracks, pockets, and other rock flaws. Before drilling, tap the rock with your hammer. If you hear a hollow sound, place the bolt elsewhere. Watch out, too, not to set a bolt in a block, which may sound solid but could tear loose. Finally, don't be fooled by rock with a hard outer crust. Varnished sandstone, limestone and some volcanic rocks are frequently hard on the outside but soft on the inside. In these cases be sure to use a bolt suitable for soft rock.
Never trust your life to a single bolt. Always double up at belay, rappel, and lowering stations. Bolt companies make millions of bolts a year, and there's no way they can check each bolt for flaws. And sure enough, defective bolts slip through their safety net - in our tests we found bolts that broke well below their list strengths in nearly every brand we tested.
Length and girth
You should always place the fattest and longest bolt that's practical. When you're using a power drill or bolting by hand on rappel there's no excuse for placing a flimsy bolt, and at a minimum you should use a 3/8inch by 2 1/2inch bolt in hard rock, 3/8inch by 3 1/2inches in medium rock, and a 1/2inch by 4 1/2inch glue-in bolt in soft rock.Bolt design
What makes a good bolt? Climbing bolts should be strong, durable, easy to place, corrosion resistant, have some leeway for user error, and be removable so you can replace them. No bolt fits the entire bill, but various models of sleeve, wedge, compression, self-drill, nail-drive, and adhesive bolts are as good as you can get for now.Sleeve bolts
These are tapped into a hole and then tightened down with a wrench, drawing a tapered cone into the sleeve, causing the bolt to expand. Sleeve bolts are among the most dependable mechanical anchors in hard and medium rock. Yet you have to be careful as there are two types of sleeve anchors: strong and durable bolts with solid hexheads and internal threads; and weaker sleeve bolts with external threads and an end nut (See "Bolts to Avoid") that can break under the strain of repeated loadings.There are three solidhead sleeve bolts that are applicable to rock climbing: the 3/8 and 1/2inch Rawl Bolt, and the 12 millimeter Hilti HSL (model number M8/20). These anchors are easy to place (you tap them in and wrench them down), removable, strong in tension and shear, and fit through standard 3/8inch bolt hanger holes.
The Hilti HSL, proving stronger in our rests, is the better of the two bolts, but costs twice as much as the Rawl Bolt. Additionally, the HSL is metric, requiring an expensive metric drill bit. We called every drill supplier in the phone book, but the only 12millimeter hammerdrill bit we found was from Hilti and cost $57. In comparison, a 1/2inch bit costs around $12.
In our tests the 12millimeter HSL and 3/8 and 1/2inch Rawl Bolts were stronger in hard rock than stainless steel bolt hangers, which usually broke at around 6000 pounds. In medium rock all three anchors pulled out (rather than breaking) at an average of 4100 pounds (HSL), 3700 pounds (1/2" Rawl), and 3400 pounds (3/8inch Rawl), making them the strongest mechanical bolts in this type rock.
We also tested these bolts in soft rock, but their expansion cones, being slightly larger than the drilled hole, sheared away the inside of the hole as the bolt was tapped in, causing the bolt to spin when we attempted to tighten it down. In solid desert sandstone where you can drill a dimensionally correct hole and the bolt tightens down, the 1/2inch Rawl Bolt and Hilti HSL are about twice as strong in shear and pull out as drilled angles.
The HSL and the Rawl Bolt are solid anchors in hard and medium rock, but they have some quirks. The biggest problem is that they require an immaculately clean hole-dust in the hole prevents the expansion cone from setting, preventing you from tightening the bolt down. When you set these bolts be sure you use a blow tube (a piece of 3/8" aquarium tubing works fine) and a test tube brush to clean the hole, and use a fairly new drill bit-worn-out bits will undersize the hole and make tightening the bolt difficult. If you get a spinner, clip a quickdraw to the hanger and pull out on it while you turn the bolt. If this doesn't work you'll have to remove the bolt, and since the spinning bolt won't unscrew you'll have to drill it out. Patch any bolt scar with a mix of polyester resin, like Bondo, and crushed rock.
Hilti, Rawl, and all other bolt manufacturers recommend torquing their bolts to a specific number of foot pounds. You aren't likely to take a torque wrench to the cliff, so prepare in advance by placing some bolts in a block of rock, and use a torque wrench to get a feel for the correct tension. On the cliff the bolt should draw up snug, but not too tight. If you over torque the bolt you might shear the head off, or worse, get it to the verge of shearing. The Hilti HSL and the Rawl Bolt may loosen slightly over time. When this happens, simply retighten them.
Wedge bolts
Wedge bolts have a tapered end with an expansion clip (Figure 3).Other than the Rawl Bolts discussed above, 3/8inch wedge bolts (1/4inch ones are far too weak) are the most commonly used climbing anchors. Their simplicity makes them easy to place and inexpensive (typically 40 to 75 cents apiece). And as an added bonus you can set these bolts with one hand-an advantage over the Hilti HSL and Rawl Bolt, which take two hands to start them in the hole, a sometimes difficult procedure.
It's hard to botch a wedgebolt placement in hard rock, as placing one is as simple as drilling a hole deeper than the bolt is long (you can't drill the hole too deep), blowing the hole our, tapping the bolt in, and tightening it down. Tightening the bolt pulls it slightly our of the hole and draws the expansion clip over a cone, creating a friction hold at the back of the hole. If you don't get the bolt quite tight enough, no problem: this "selfenergizing" bolt will tighten itself when it's loaded.
It is easy to botch a wedgebolt purchase, however. We tested seven different brands and found that while some can hold up to 4000 pounds in hard granite, others are pitifully weak or are of erratic quality, and can break at as little as 1500 pounds. Compounding the problem, one wedge bolt looks like the next. If you use wedge bolts, the only way to make sure you know what you're getting is to insist on a sealed box or package. Avoid getting wedge bolts out of a bin where they can be mislabeled, or not labeled at all.
The strongest and most dependable wedge bolts are, in descending order of reliability, the Petzl , Hilti, Ramset/Red Head (also known as Phillips), Rawl, and WedgeIt. In hard rock the Petzl outdid all other wedge anchors by a long shot, proving stronger than the Petzl Coeur bolt hanger. The worst wedge bolts, the ones that can break at only 1500 pounds, are the USE, Star, and "generic" ones.
Because their exterior threads make them prone to work fatigue, wedge bolts aren't nearly as dependable as solidhead sleeve bolts. For that reason if you must use wedge bolts consider 1/2inch diameter ones, which still fit through a 1/2 inch Petzl Coeur bolt hanger, and are far more resilient than the 3/8inch size.
Beware of any wedge bolt that draws our of the hole more than 1/2inch when you tighten it (a common occurrence in soft rock); the expansion clip may be perilously close to slipping off the end of the bolt. You can't remove a wedge bolt, but you can countersink it and patch the hole if it was drilled slightly deeper than the bolt's length.
Compression bolts
Also confusingly called expansion bolts, these anchors are larger than the drilled hole and are forcibly hammered in, compressing as they go. These bolts try to "spring" back to their original size, creating a frictional force that gives the anchors high pullout strengths in hard rock. But the expansion effort can also cause the rock to crack or dinnerplate, and over time the bolt itself may crack from stress fatigue.The Rawl Drive (Figure 4)
is the only compression bolt we found, although Rawl makes a similar, and weaker, anchor called the Spike. Prior to the use of cordless power drills, the Rawl Drive, being fast to place and relatively strong, was the bolt of choice for drilling on lead and on big walls.
Rawl discontinued the 5/16inch Rawl Drive , the best bolt for on-lead hand drilling in hard rock, but continues to produce this bolt in the 1/4 and 3/8inch sizes. The 1/4inch Rawl Drive is too weak to trust even when brand new and set in hard rock. In softer rock or after a couple of years of weathering, the strength of these anchors is reduced to about body weight. If you place a 1/4inch Rawl Drive, plan on coming back and replacing that anchor before anyone has time to get on your dangerous route.
The 3/8 by 2inch Rawl Drive is an acceptable anchor for hand drilling in hard rock as it can hold over 5000 pounds in any direction, doesn't require a wrench, and takes a shorter hole, hence less drilling time, than the longer sleeve bolts. Nevertheless, if you have a power drill you've no reason to use the Rawl Drive, and plenty not to: the bolt tends to dinner plate the rock, can stress fracture over time, rusts badly, and is less reliable than solidhead sleeve bolts. And, forget about this bolt in medium or soft rock-in our tests the 3/8inch Rawl Drives pulled out at between 500 and 1000 pounds.
The 3/8inch Rawl Drive comes in two styles: round head and hex head. The roundhead version is more reliable than the externally threaded hexhead, which can crack across the threads. Disadvantages to the roundhead are that it only works with the 1/2inch Petzl hanger, and it isn't removable. (You can't remove the hexhead Rawl Drive either, but if you drill the hole deep enough you can take the nut and hanger offend countersink the bolt.)
Naildrives
Naildrives, such as the Petzl Long Life (Figure 5),expand when you drive a nail through the center of the bolt, expanding the anchor at the back of the hole.
If we had our druthers we'd make everyone use the Petzl Long Life for hard rock. Available in 1/2inch and 12millimeter sizes the Long Life is stronger than the Petzl Coeur hanger, which breaks at around 6000 pounds shear and 4000 pounds tensile. Besides having Herculean strength, the Long Life is easy to place, tamper proof so you don't have to worry about some low-rent swiping the hanger, and because both bolt and hanger are stainless steel, is virtually corrosion free. Unfortunately, even with the Long Life's advantages you aren't likely to ever clip many- they cost $9 each, hanger included.
The Long Life is fine in hard rock, but don't count on one in medium rock, where it can fail at under 2000 pounds. Also, don't confuse the Long Life with the fragile all-American, which looks similar and is temptingly available in many hardware stores at about a fourth the cost. You can tell a Long Life from the All American by color: the Petzl bolt is silver; the other is gold.
On our hydraulic puller the 3/8inch all-American sheared off at a paltry 1000 pounds. Even the meaty looking 1/2inch one, rated to 3620 pounds tensile, broke at 2200 pounds-a pathetic performance for a bolt this large. And don't even think about using the 1/4inch jobs: the ones we tested snapped off under a 400 pound load.
Drilled Angles
We were surprised at the high shear strength of drilled angles in hard desert sandstone. Placed with eye pointed down and drilled at a slight downward angle, these anchors held an average of 3500 pounds in rock that was solid to where the pin was difficult to pound into the hole. (Set with the eye facing up, they held about 1000 pounds less.)Drilled angles aren't a panacea, though, as they are dangerously weak in straight out pulls. In the same rock we used to check shear strength, the 10 drilled angles we tested pulled out at an average of only 1100 pounds, so don't pull out on these anchors at belays or when beginning a rappel. Additionally, drilled angles loosen with age as most anyone who has ever repeated a desert "classic" can attest. Test a drilled angle before weighting it, and even if it seems solid don't bet your life that it is.
In the end, aside from glue-ins, there really isn't a safe anchor that you can place on lead in soft sandstone. The best you can do is to use large sleeve anchors when they will tighten up, and go with a large wedge bolts when they won't.
Adhesive bolts
Glue-in bolts bond molecularly with the rock, giving them the highest pullout strength of any anchor. These bolts are superior to mechanical anchors in many ways. Foremost, they are reliable in soft and medium rock. To see how adhesive bolts perform in these mediums see part two of this article Adhesive Bolts.Reprinted from Climbing Magazine.
You've finally mended after decking out when your flimsy bolt failed. Your accident, made famous when the last issue of Climbing used it to exemplify careless bolting, has people jeering you from Pig Rock to Kaymoor. Eager to redeem yourself, you seek out a new crag. You find one, too. Way overhanging and just minutes from the road, "your" cliff has all the trappings of a fashionable sport crag.
Only one problem: the rock is a little soft.
"No biggie," you say, "I've got glue-ins."
But what are glue-ins? And are they safe?
As you might guess glue-in bolts are glued into the rock. And as you can surmise, not just any glue and bolt will do - use the wrong ones and you'll likely wind up on the crutches again. To determine which adhesive anchors are applicable to climbing, we set a batch of every promising type we could find and then tore them out of specially made testing blocks just as we did with mechanical bolts in part one of this article. Here's what we found.
Adhesive bolts work because the glue used with them penetrates the rock where it forms a chemical coupling. With right glue, this molecular linkage can be as strong as the rock itself, meaning that a chunk of the cliff has to break loose for the bolt to pull out. Further, the glue reinforces loosely layered or fractured rock, giving adhesive bolts a decided edge over mechanical anchors. And glue-in bolts age better, too. Mechanical bolts loosen and weaken under the stress of repeated loadings and temperature changes. But in tests conducted by the fastener company Emhart/molly, 20-year-old adhesive bolts were as strong as new. And since the glue completely seals the hole, the anchor is practically impervious to the elements.
Glue-in bolts have inherent problems, however, that will keep most climbers using them in hard and medium rock, where mechanical bolts work fine. The biggest strike against adhesive anchors is their cost: the least-expensive rig is about $6 for the bolt, glue, and hanger, and some will set you back twice that much. Even if you have limitless greenbacks, glue-in bolts are difficult and tricky to set, virtually mandate using a power drill, and take full day to cure to strength, a fact that precludes placing them on lead. Still, in soft rock, the high strength and reliability of adhesive
bolts far outweigh their flaws.
(Note: the glue systems we tested are specifically designed for heavy-duty bolting. Do not experiment with the numerous two-part adhesives you can find at hardware stores - these glues appear similar to the ones in this review, but they are very different and are made for lightweight tasks, like patching broken coffee mugs, and will not sustain the loads associated with climbing.)
The Glue
Glue systems come in two styles: cartridge and capsule. Cartridge glue dispenses like toothpaste, via a caulking gun. To use this glue you drill the hole, fill it half full with glue, run a bead of glue down the bolt shaft, and then twist in the bolt.Cartridge Glues
Like all bolt glues, cartridge glue consists of two parts: one of the actual glue, and another of a hardener. Separately, the two components will hold about as well as syrup, but mix them together and the resultant chemical reaction turns them into a powerful adhesive.The worst cartridge glue is the Rawl Chem-Fast, which forces you to mix all of the glue at once (the smallest cartridge holds enough glue for eight, 1/2 inch bolts). Activated glue hardens in mere minutes, so unless you can set bolts at lightning speed, you're bound to waste more Chem-fast than you'll use.
Hilti C-100 and Ramset/Red Head Epcon Ceramic 6 cartridge glues are more practical. These systems use special dispensing nozzles that let the glue mix outside the cartridge as you need it, so there's far less waste.
Used in conjunction with Hilti 1/2-inch by 5-inch all-thread rods in medium and hard rock, both glues are stronger than any bolt hanger. Ceramic 6 claims a higher pull-out strength than C-100 but in our tests in soft, 1000 psi concrete both glues failed around 4000 pounds in pull-out when the rock "gave" way.
Disadvantages to C-100 and Ceramic 6 include the special caulking guns required, and the fact that you're sure to cover yourself and your gear with glue, which invariably dribbles out of the dispenser. And you're still bound to lose several bolts' worth of glue and ruin a couple of nozzles with every tube, as some glue will always harden in the nozzle before you can inject it into the hole. (You can cut your losses by pre-drilling all your holes and getting an efficient installation system down.)
Do not administer C-100 in damp rock - some of the glue will bond to the water molecules instead of the rock, reducing the anchor's holding power. Conversely, Ceramic 6 and the capsule glues (discussed later) are, according to the manufacturers, scarcely affected by moisture. If you've ever snapped off a hold climbing on damp limestone or sandstone, however, you know these rocks weaken when they get wet, which also reduces the holding power of any bolt.
The Ceramic 6 and C-100 glues cost roughly the same: around $2 for glue enough for a 1/2-inch bolt. We liked the C-100 because we couldn't stand the putrid smell of the Ceramic 6, which stays on your hands for days. In favor of Ceramic 6, Ramset/Red Head says their product has a longer shelf life than C-100 and sticks to dusty holes better, so you're less likely to get a bad placement. Both glues have their pros and cons, but the caulking guns cinched our choice. The cheesy plastic one from Ramset/ Red Head gummed up, cracked, and then quit working after only 6 bolts. The sturdy metal gun from Hilti never broke down, although it too can gum up with leaked glue, necessitating a good cleaning.
Capsule Glues
Like the cartridge glues, capsule systems use a two-part glue which activates when you mix the components. Unlike cartridge glues, though, capsules encase the glue and hardener in a single glass vial, which you insert into the bolt hole, suppository style. (On overhanging walls wrap a small piece of cloth tape around the end of the capsule to prevent it form falling out of the hole.) Shoving the bolt in the hole and then spinning it breaks the vial and mixes the two glue components.For climbing, we found that the capsule glues we tested - the Hilti HEA and the Rawl Chem-Stud - have several advantages over the cartridge glues. Primarily, they make stronger anchors. Also, the glue for each bolt is self-contained, so there's zero waste, no dispenser to mess with, and you can drill and set the bolts at your leisure.
The disadvantages to capsule glues is that you're supposed to spin the bolt with a power drill to insure a glue and hardener mix. With threaded rods this isn't a big deal as you can buy a special chuck attachment that converts your Hilti or Bosch into a setting tool. You can't, however, set eyebolts, like the Petzl Ring, with a power drill. You have to instead hammer an eyebolt into the capsule and then manually turn the bolt (spin it about 25 times) to mix the glues - a practice both Hilti and Bosch warn against. Indeed, capsule-glue hand-set ring bolts did prove weaker in our tests than threaded rods spun with a power drill. The threaded rods we tested, however, were about twice as long as the eyebolts, and this fact certainly contributes to the difference in strength.
The Bolts
You have two choices of bolts for adhesive anchors: threaded rod and eyebolts. For soft rock, which is likely the only place you'll ever use glue-ins, threaded rods are stronger because their extra length gives them more contact area. In medium and hard rock either bolt will suffice, making the cost per anchor the deciding factor for most climbers.Threaded Rod
You can get threaded rod made for use with glue in 1/2-inch and 3/8-inch stock from Hilti, Rawl, and Ramset/Red Head. The rod usually comes in 5 1/2-inch lengths, but it can be longer. If rod is longer than your drill bit you'll need to cut it down so it doesn't stick too far out of the rock. So you don't bugger the threads that the nut goes on, trim the excess length off the end of the rod that will go into the hole. If you are using capsule glue be sure you regrind the end to a sharp point so it can slice through the glass vial with minimal resistance, insuring a thorough glue mix.Do not use a 3/8-inch threaded rod in soft rock - the small bolt diameter doesn't supply a large enough bonding area between the glue and the rock. (In hard rock 3/8-inch Rawl Bolts and Hilti HSL bolts are stronger and less expensive than 3/8-inch glue-ins, which also suffer from work fatigue due to their external threads.) If the rock is the least bit questionable, 1/2-inch threaded rod (which requires a 9/16-inch hole) is your best bet.
You can get 1/2-inch rod in three materials: regular carbon steel, high-strength steel, or stainless steel. In dry climates, carbon steel rods or high-strength steel rods work fine. Stainless-steel rods are suitable for corrosive environments, like sea cliffs and swampy or industrialized (acid rain) areas, but are more expensive.
The only bolt hanger that works with 1/2-inch threaded rod is the Petzl Coeur P38150. Other hangers, like the Metolius SS. and the Petzl P34050, can be drilled out to fit 1/2-inch rod, but this is a laborious process that can potentially ruin the hanger.
Eyebolts
These let you thread the rope directly through them so you can retreat without leaving slings and carabiners behind. That feature alone makes them worthwhile, especially at belay/rappel stations. Another advantage of eyebolts is that since they are made from one piece of steel, they aren't susceptible to galvanic corrosion as are threaded rods and hangers.The stainless-steel Petzl Collinox and the zinc-plated Ring are the only climbing-specific eyebolts we tested. DMM and Trango have similar products, but these were unavailable for inclusion in this review.
The Petzl eyebolts we tested are too short to trust in soft rock - they have a 2 1/2-inch-long shaft (most 1/2-inch threaded rods have a 5-inch-long shaft). In medium and hard rock - where you're unlikely to use them - both Petzl glue-ins are bomber, although you still have to be very careful when you place them, as their short length allows little room for placement error.
The Collinox's less obtrusive appearance gives it points over the unsightly Ring. Strength wise you will never break either bolt, and their pull out capacity depends on the glue you use. In out tests the Collinox and the Ring pulled out of soft rock at about half the load of a 1/2 inch threaded rod when all the anchors were set with capsule glue, which is what Petzl recommends.
The Petzl Ring and the Collinox are metric, but you can use cheaper, easier-to-find standard drill bits rather than metric ones. Petzl suggests substituting a 15/32-inch bit for the 12mm one needed for the Collinox, and a 11/16-inch bit for the Ring's 16mm one. (Note: glue-in bolts are the only ones you can substitute standard for metric bit with - you must use the manufacturer's specified metric bit with a metric mechanical bolt.)
As an alternative to the Petzl ring anchors you can round up your own threaded, forged eyebolts from a bolt-specialty store. The industrial eyebolts we tested were 1/2 by 3 1/4 inches. The bolts we purchased were galvanized, but they are also available in stainless steel for about twice the price. These eyebolts, also tested with capsule glue, held a little more than the Petzl ones in soft rock, but because they are also short, they still weren't as strong in pull-out as the longer threaded rods.
If you use industrial eyebolts be careful to get forged, not the much weaker cast eyebolts, and check the manufacturers listed strength, which, by convention, is usually only about 25 percent of the actual breaking strength. Out eyebolts listed a 2500-pound working load, which, in theory, means 10,000 pounds ultimate strength. To be safe, get eyebolts at least this strong. Don't get welded or unwelded eyebolts either. You never know how good the weld is - and the unwelded ones can straighten under body weight. Only use the forged eyebolts with threads extending at least halfway up the shaft; smother shanks won't let the glue stick to them.
Half-inch forged eyebolts require a 9/16-inch diameter hole. To let the eye recess slightly into the rock, drill two vertically aligned grooves on the outside of the hole.
No matter which glue-in system you use you need to follow strict placement recommendations to insure a strong glue-to-rock bond.
1. Drill the hole to the dimensions specified by the manufacturer. (With glue-in bolts you always drill the hole larger than the bolt rod.) If you drill the hole too small or too large you'll wind up with either too little or too much glue in the hole. In either case, the anchor is weakened.
2. Clean the hole thoroughly. Glue bonds with whatever it contacts first. If this is dust or water, than you are in trouble. Blow the hole out first with a blow tube, and then scour the hole with nylon brush made for this use. Don't use a wire brush, which will polish the inside of the hole (glue doesn't stick to smooth surfaces as well). Finally, blow the hole out again with the blow tube; if dust keeps coming out, keep cleaning.
3. When using cartridge glue fill the hole about half full, run a bead of glue down the rod, and then hand twist the rod into the hole. Some glue should flow out of the hole as the rod goes in - if it doesn't you don't have enough glue in the hole and will have to pull the rod out and squirt in more.
4. With capsule glue make sure you set the threaded rod with a power drill set in the hammer mode. You can't twist threaded rod by hand and pushing the rod in manually won't properly mix the glue and the hardener. Hammer eyebolts into the capsule and then spin the bolt at least 25 times by hand - a cursory twist or two isn't nearly enough to mix the glue components.
5. Once you activate the glue, place the anchor as quickly as possible and then leave it alone. Don't jiggle the anchor during the first eight hours of drying - disturbing the anchor during this time will break the glue bond
6. Let the glue dry for at least 24 hours before loading the anchor. In our tests, bolts cured overnight were twice as strong as those that we let dry for only eight hours.
7. Glue, especially capsules, has a short shelf life. Check the expiration date of any glue before using it, and don't use a capsule if the glue inside doesn't flow.
8. Use the threaded rod supplied by the manufacturer for the glue system you're using - similar-looking rod from the hardware store is much weaker. It's especially important that you don't use blunt-ended cartridge rods to mix glue capsules, which must be mixed with a pointed or chisel-end rod. (It's OK, however, to use the pointed capsule rods with cartridge glue.)
9. Align eyebolts so the eye sets vertically. Placing the eye horizontally increases your chances of accidentally coming unclipped, and lowers the bolts shear strength.
Gluing mechanical bolts
We recommended in part one of this article that you not use externally threaded sleeve bolts. Still, the Hilti 1/2-inch Sleeve Anchor (you can't use the HSL and Rawl Bolt with glue, as it will clog their threads) used in conjunction with the Hilti C-100 adhesive, is a popular bolt at several soft rhyolite climbing areas in New Mexico.To test this set-up we placed five, 1/2-inch Hilti Sleeve Anchors in our softest concrete block, then set an equal number in the same block but filled the bolt hole half full with C-100. One day later, after the glue had time to cure, we pulled all 10 bolts to failure and found the glued-in bolts had pull-out strengths of about 3000 pounds compared to the non glued bolts' 1800 pounds.
Although this jury-rigged system sounds strong, you are still better off using a real glue-in bolt, which is over twice as strong as a glued-in Hilti Sleeve Anchor. Furthermore, if you let the glue harden slightly (this can happen in a matter of minutes) or gum up the bolt threads with the glue, then the expansion sleeve won't spread, and you'll have an anchor that is weaker than if you never used glue in the first place.
If you insist on employing this risky method, make sure you use Hilti C-100 glue (other glues don't stick to the bolt as well), and the Hilti 1/2-inch Sleeve Anchor, which is the only one we found with large enough cut outs in the sleeve to let the glue bond to the inside of the bolt. (Again, don't use glue with the Rawl Bolt, or the Hilti HSL, or with any other non-glue-in bolt including the wedge bolts - the glue will prevent these anchors from expanding, and will cause them to fail at below-normal loads.)
