Still no references I see. (There are none Hound!) Just a blank avatar who spends their day walking on the beach and then returns home to spew totally non-supported propaganda on the internet!

Got it.






BTW: There is a basic and valid reason why these skeptical "crusty old men" you so harshly speak of, are still walking this planet after decades of seeing "ground breaking ideas" come and go over the decades and still accomplishing amazing feats in the vertical world.

Interesting note, don't see em, these great plastic nuts, even being considered as an option by these guys. But what do they know.....

EDIT: Late not... just got off the phone with these guys and asked if the great plastic nuts are to be included in this upcoming review. I got an immediate quick laugh then, a "no".

You can make your own decisions, or can have them made for you by rangers, guide book and climbing magazine authors.

There are leaders, and there are followers.

Waiting to see ALL of them raving reviews and refs from the world over... Post em and I will do the hours of work that is required translating em.





Here are ALL three found on Google:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88T49YAUYlM
(Lots of yacking about how inexpensive they are and no actual test action)

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/gear4r ... 7026062__2
(Which you have already referred to and the last two pages reflect some of the same based skepticism that has been noted right here btw)


And the one the OP posted.
http://www.arrampicata.info/attrezzatur ... 4rocks.asp



EDIT: Late addition. Here is a great page for you history buffs. These guys have some other Gear history stuff that is well researched and has plenty of good beta. N'joy!

The Nut Story

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cnzuI4fsMs[/youtube]

Just found the next generation of these Plastic Nuts.


Is that you Hounddog proudly holding em up and displaying them for the camera? Say it aint so!




Appears they will come in a venue of different sizes and colors as well:


http://www.your-nuts.com/default.asp

Their guarantee:

All of our products are very hard and extremely weather resistant.
Our products are solid colored, should you ever drag your balls, the color remains consistent.
The bright colored balls are made of the same ABS type of plastic material, developed by NASA years ago.
They are then vacuum metalized with the bright colors added to a heavy, clear epoxy urethane spray, two coatings.
The bright shiny balls are then air dried and sprayed again, and baked again for a very nice durable finish, as we require.

Sorry I didn't even read the whole thread, but I actually don't know why on the face of it protection placements made of plastic are so bad? They can do incredible things with the material now. We recognize that a good knot in a sling can serve as a stopper in a crack (for example the Elbsandstein crags in Germany only allow sling protection like this), why does the idea of a plastic stopper get so much scorn? Maybe it's how it was presented or something...

I'd definitely want UIAA/CE marks, all that kind of stuff, naturally.

I'm with mvs: UIAA/CE cert'd? Sure, I'd use 'em if they were on a friend's rack. I wouldn't go out and buy any to save me weight since, really, I could stand to lose a few pounds myself and plastic nuts aren't gonna suddenly make me a hardman.

The thing that gives me the heebie-jeebies is that they are already selling them WITHOUT the certs. "We're working on it" doesn't inspire confidence.

myfierceblackhound wrote:

Rob wrote: a standard set of Stoppers is pretty manageable already, and bomber, which I can't say about nuts made of plastic, which could deform or slip

While I agree with much you post Rob, I'm curious about your statement that they could deform and slip. Have you used them and personally seen this to be the case? Is there a test out there that I'm not aware of that shows that these stoppers deform more under load than their steel/aluminum/brass counterparts? More importantly, what the difference in deformation between all these materials is in a given type of rock? I haven't seen that evidence but would be very interested in looking at it if you wouldn't mind posting it up.

Likewise, I am not aware of any tests on how these things perform under use, or how long they last? All plastics have a life expectancy ya know?

For example, one of my main concerns is Environmental stress cracking of the polymer plastic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmen ... s_cracking

Given enough time, most polymers will form cracks. Unlike metals, plastics do not have a regular microstructure because they are made of long-chain molecules. Even so-called "crystalline" polymers are largely amorphous tangles with islands of regular stacking (called "spherulites") embedded in them.

http://www.stress.com/plasticstier3.php?pid=219

Here's what it looks like:


And according to gear4rocks: "The slight elasticity of the polymer holds position better than traditional aluminum stoppers."

That elasticity is what makes plastic slide really well against rocks, and why imo, the small nuts may squeeze through a constriction.