QC LAB: RE-SLINGING CAMALOTS AND C3S

One of the most common questions we get at Black Diamond is regarding reslinging our Camalots, Camalot C3s and Camalot X4s. Gear doesn't last forever and eventually your cams will need to be reslung.

GENERAL

Contrary to popular belief, climbing gear does not last forever. Plastics and textiles aren't as durable as metals, and need to be inspected and possibly replaced more often. Check your cam slings, and if they look beat, send them off for replacement—preferably to the manufacturer. General guidelines for replacing slings on cams are as follows:

With occasional use: slings should be replaced every 5-8 years
With frequent use: slings should be replaced 2-5 years.

Of course, these are just guidelines. A brand new cam sling could get dusted after one pitch if the sling ran over a razorblade granite edge and got sawed back and forth while jugging or something. Remember it's every individual climber's responsibility to check their gear often, and when it doubt, throw it out.

Camalot and C3 sling design

The previous generation of BD Camalots had a cast stainless steel tailpiece. There was a nice big surface area with a smooth radius. The webbing went through this and was sewn in a single loop. When we redesigned the Camalots in 2004 we wanted to make them lighter and also allow more surgically precise when placing. Hence was born the current thumb loop. One of the challenges came when adding the sling to the mix. The deformation of the thumb loop under load is significant. I dug up the following photos from when we were developing the new Camalots.

Camalot thumb loop under load.]

Just sewing a loop of 11/16" SuperTape (as was used before) didn't get us to where we wanted to be strength-wise. Why? Because when the Camalot was loaded during testing, the cable pinches down, and ultimately cut the webbing at loads less than we were happy with (gunnin' for 14 kN but only getting about 10 kN). Same with similar-width Spectra.

[During ultimate testing, the cable pinches and cuts a single layer of webbing (Spectra in this case).]

We also noticed that during drop testing, the cabled thumb loop would get tweaked under standard Indian Creek whipper-type loads. And no one wants to throw down significant dough on a brand new cam only to have the thumb loop formed into a "V" after just a few lobbers.

So we determined that having the double layer of webbing was substantial enough to get us the strength we were after, didn't cut the webbing and produced less tweakability (engineering term) of the thumb loop.

[A double layer Camalot sling doesn't cut under ultimate strength testing.]

And for those wondering, yes, we also experimented with the extendable sling design and found that when the sling is extended the cams not only failed at lower loads, but the thumb loop was damaged more easily.

[Tweaked vs. non-tweaked thumb loop after similar falls (loads).]Basically, in all cases the perceived benefits were outweighed by our strength and durability requirements, therefore we went with the sling configuration you see on the current Black Diamond Camalot line.