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#17760 - 01/18/06 06:26 PM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: talus]
Mark Heyman old hand Registered: 12/23/99 Posts: 1123 Loc: South Jersey (Pinelands)	how you handle the hot parts doesn't matter. you still have to grab the hot part to place it in the quench solution or to lay on bench top to air cool So, if I want to continue working on that cam, which one am I going to do? Quench sounds faster to me. imo if you are really concered about your cams send them back to CCH or have the braze joint x rayed. I don't trust CCH at the moment so sending em back there would be out of the question. X-ray? Think I'll just stick to another brand for a while. As I posted earlier CCH has created a scenario where the older more tested your Aliens are the better you might feel about using them. The few I have are app 10 years old. But, I won't be purchasing any new this year as I expected to do. Edited by Mark Heyman (01/18/06 06:38 PM)
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#17761 - 01/18/06 06:40 PM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: Julie]
MarcC Carpal Tunnel Registered: 07/10/00 Posts: 3532	Quote: Personally, all of my Aliens have already proven themselves, so I'm not going to do anything with them. How? They've all held significant falls? You've vigorously bounce-tested every one? IMHO, climbers should not have to be a gear manufacturer's QC department. Aliens are not so significantly better than other cams that we need to put up with CCH's manufacturing defects or their defensive arrogance (read CCH's initial response for reference). _________________________ - Marc
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#17762 - 01/18/06 07:22 PM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: talus]
Timbo addict Registered: 12/23/99 Posts: 694 Loc: Delaware	Quote: the braze bond is weak and should fail under a low force. take this with a grain a salt though, some braze strength may be stronger than others depending on the time it took to actually place the part in the quench. This is the crux of the matter for those with Aliens who "have tested them several times already". If the braze is either good or bad and will alwys fail under a small load (if it will fail), then no problem. If you have fallen on them already, they are probably fine. But if there are degrees of bad brazes, that fall that generated 300 N may not have generated enough force to cause failure, but if your next fall generates 2000 N, will the braze fail ? So, my question: is this an "all or nothing" failure or would there be failure at various load limits, depending on the individual cam. If the "dimple" ID is valid, I suppose it really does not matter. TS _________________________
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#17763 - 01/19/06 03:32 AM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: MarcC]
quanto_the_mad Carpal Tunnel Registered: 05/14/02 Posts: 2623 Loc: brooklyn	Quote: Quote: Personally, all of my Aliens have already proven themselves, so I'm not going to do anything with them. How? They've all held significant falls? You've vigorously bounce-tested every one? Heh heh... until now, all the cams on eBay are advertised as never having been fallen on. Now the only Aliens that will sell are those that have held falls! _________________________
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#17764 - 01/19/06 03:36 AM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: MarcC]
schwortz enthusiast Registered: 09/10/03 Posts: 308	so i guess no one here wouldve been a bad ass pioneer back in the day... when people had homemade gear, or ropes and pitons that only sometimes didnt break, or some whackass ice hammer that some weird guys in california made in their garage, or russian ti screws, or cams put together with machine screws and a prayer......
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#17765 - 01/19/06 04:29 AM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: schwortz]
MarcC Carpal Tunnel Registered: 07/10/00 Posts: 3532	Quote: so i guess no one here wouldve been a bad ass pioneer back in the day... when people had homemade gear, or ropes and pitons that only sometimes didnt break, or some whackass ice hammer that some weird guys in california made in their garage, or russian ti screws, or cams put together with machine screws and a prayer...... Oh, I don't know. Do pre-mass-production Friends bought from Ray count? How about the 1/2 size homemade Friends that the Jones brothers were producing? (I think I paid for one of those with a couple of six-packs in the Valley one September long ago.) Or one of the thin tri-cams at Camp 4 that eventually would become Metolius, bought and tested (unintentionally and, um, heavily) on the same day? What I'm suggesting is that buying homemade/pre-production/experiments/prototypes is a far different ball-game than purchasing a mass-produced product from a major retail outlet like REI or MGear, where one expects modern QA/QC and production kinks to have been worked out. _________________________ - Marc
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#17766 - 01/19/06 04:58 AM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: MarcC]
Mark Heyman old hand Registered: 12/23/99 Posts: 1123 Loc: South Jersey (Pinelands)	so i guess no one here wouldve been a bad ass pioneer back in the day... buying homemade/pre-production/experiments/prototypes is a far different ball-game than purchasing a mass-produced product from a major retail outlet like REI or MGear, where one expects modern QA/QC and production kinks to have been worked out. Ditto to the latter, and the firts has little to do with the second. Lastly If I made my own gear I'd know how much confidence I would want to instil from it's use. Edited by Mark Heyman (01/19/06 05:00 AM)
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#17767 - 01/19/06 05:50 AM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: Mark Heyman]
rg@ofmc Pooh-Bah Registered: 12/25/99 Posts: 2420 Loc: Poughkeepsie, NY	so i guess no one here wouldve been a bad ass pioneer back in the day... when people had homemade gear, or ropes and pitons that only sometimes didnt break, or some whackass ice hammer that some weird guys in california made in their garage, or russian ti screws, or cams put together with machine screws and a prayer...... It is one thing to use gear that isn't rated and quite another to use gear that is rated but doesn't perform at the indicated rating. In the first case you know you are dealing with something whose reliability is unknown, but in the second case you have certain expectations that inform your judgements. I have used both types of gear, but I didn't climb the same way with them. It is one thing to choose to be a bad-ass pioneer, and quite another to find out after your ass is broken that you were one.
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#17768 - 01/19/06 02:18 PM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: rg@ofmc]
GymClimbingPoser enthusiast Registered: 03/20/01 Posts: 285 Loc: Logan, UT	Quote: It is one thing to choose to be a bad-ass pioneer, and quite another to find out after your ass is broken that you were one. Well stated (as usual) _________________________ GymClimbingPoser
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#17769 - 01/19/06 03:00 PM Re: ALIEN FAILURE [Re: schwortz]
quanto_the_mad Carpal Tunnel Registered: 05/14/02 Posts: 2623 Loc: brooklyn	I've made backpacking gear, but only use it when I'm going solo. If I die due to gear malfunction, I can't sue myself. If that failure kills someone other than myself, then I'm liable for that failure and the death, and it's really not worth the risk; we live in a very litigious society. I still dabble with homemade gear to appease the pioneering spirit within me, but the fear of getting sued has quenched the desire to use it. _________________________
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