Making a rope wrench

Mesquite

Treehouser
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After watching videos of Kevin making wood prototypes it got me thinking. Im going to make one to see if that is the route I want to go. Any input is welcome.

What kind of would wood you use?
What size hole would you make? I'm going to use it on some samson hyperclimb.
 
Doesn't matter much. Hardwood, no pitch, try a 45 degree, slightly oversize hole. Polish the hole with scrap rope. Stiffen the tether.
 

That thread is about making a Rope Wrench from a hinge.

There’s a few different CMI pulleys that allow one to move the sheave to a different hole and use a Rooe Wrench Slic pin, then just gotta figure out a tether. Here’s mine, works great.
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Is the rope wrench slic pin different than the notch quickie slic pin?

Where did you get your slic pen?
 
Yup, very different pins. I believe the pin diameter is different, the pin length is definitely different, the Quickie is for primary life support, so it has 2 separate cotters. The Rope Wrench has just 1 cotter. The Wrench is a part of a life support system, but when used properly, if it was to fail, it wouldn’t drop you, you just wouldn’t be able to descend. The Wrench just takes a bunch of friction away from the hitch. The Rope Runner has double cotters too, if a pin fails on that, the climber falls.


Fun fact; I thought “ Slic pin” was just a neat name, but turns out it stands for “ Self Locking Internal Cotter”
 
Oh by the way, I got 40 or so single cotter Slic Pins that I got from a site’s clearance section, so no returns. They’re too skinny for the wrench, I can check the actual diameter and length. I’ve no idea what I could ever need them for now, so if anyone wants a couple, let me know.

I got a (1/4” I think) D shackle that they fit with, and I think they’ll still fit fine if I drill the threads out of the shackle… still not very useful though. Single cotter means not for life support, and the shackle is too small to bother using it for any rigging application.
 
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If you could please post the width and length of the slic pins that help determine if they will work when ever is convenient that would be fantastic.

I knew I should have bought two pulleys from cmi last week. Fortunately they have free shipping with no minimum. I have really benefited from their cosmetic seconds the past couple of months.
 
That’s right, forgot I sent a couple of those to you. Was having trouble finding my caliper, but they look to match up with 5/16” bolts.

So these pins aren’t going to work for any device or connector available on the market, but if you’re building a wrench from scratch, you could make the hole 5/16”.

A homemade mini-wrench would be cool with a Captain’s Hook or SRT capable lanyard. I don’t really use my lanyard like that, but I’ll keep it in mind. AJ / Moss on the Buzz has a thread going about it, this pic is his, and he’s put a lot of thought and work into various versions of this.
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So thank you for the offer jonny but i came up with something else that should work fine. But in real world, outside of running up and down the rope in my house if it doesnt work out for some reason i will ask you for a slic pin or two.

First pic is showing it in the shortest set up. I found a bolt that was smooth the perfect length and the wing nut makes for quik on and off. With using a slic pin while decending i would assume that the pin would spin. Does it matter if i tighten my bolt to not spin? Will that mess with rope? I bought a small chunk of pvc pipe and was thinking about making something to stiffen the whole thing up but after making it it seems good enough. Every time i advance it on the rope the wrech catches great.

In the third picture its set up in its long configuration which has enough room for a 5-6vt
 

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Spinning vs fixed will probably affect braking characteristics. Personal preference I imagine. I would guess a fixed bollard will technically wear rope faster, but not enough to make a big difference in a working rope. I'd favor ride characteristics over longevity.
 
The slic pin doesn’t rotate under normal loads, the rope is too large to make it spin.
Some diy wrenches, top worked nice the time I tested it, a “what if” project. The bottom is a prototype of a midline attachable, I intend to use it more as just a descender for long drops while using the Sticht, it worked, but intentions are to make an aluminum one.
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wow, the top two are beautiful, is the middle one 100% wood? did you make that wood slic pin?

im assuming that the farther away, where the rope attaches to the wrench, from where the rope slides through the wrench the more force/friction the wrench should have
 
Oak, walnut and cocobolo, with an aluminum stem with some accessory cord cover. The slic pin spins, but the plunger doesn’t work, didn’t want to get that technical.
 
A rigid tether helps a lot.

It helps to get the wrench fully engaged before the hitch grabs tight to prevent hitch lock-up.
 
And without the pulley, the wrench wouldn't engage as fast or well? I thought it would be the other way around, but I can see that happening.
 
Bummer, none of my pulleys can be turned into a wrench, but I was able to test that there can be a lot of friction still from just the pin while the pulley still turns.
 
The pulley was to reduce the drag from two fixed bollards/pins when ascending. The ensuing loss of one bollard didn't affect the descent performance very much, so it was ok'ed. This harkened from the days of floppy tethers and setting the bollards to self engage without the spring/rubber addition to the the stiff tether ala roperunner.
 
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