Your guide to the perilous waters of the internet

6-29-09

Just drove back into Tacoma yesterday from Yosemite. I did most of the night driving, while Craig did much of the day driving. We left Yosemite at 7pm and arrived in Tacoma at Clint's house 18 hours later around noonish. A couple of times we had to sleep for an hour in rest areas as neither one of us could drive. Craigs driving got weirder and weirder as he got tired. Going through northern Oregon he put on some very angry sounding screaming heavy metal and began weaving in and out of traffic at 80 miles an hour. I considered telling him to stop being an idiot, but didn't want to ruin the great trip with an argument. He was very skillful at it, handling the car with confidence, but it was not smart. I try to cut young people some slack as I was young and dumb once, and did many very, very stupid things.

I'm too tired to give a day by day break down, so I'll just tell a short funny story about a conversation we had Friday evening on a belay ledge. Crystal and Craig had swung leads up Jam Crack, 5.9, Sunnyside bench, Yosemite. We had just thrown our rappel lines down and I was the first one to rappel. Earlier that day we had climbed the first two pitches of Reed's Pinnacle Direct 5.10a and we were all tired and loopy.

• "Ow! My right arm hurts. I'm not sure I can do this rappel" - me
• "Dude, are you OK? You should put your prussik on for safety." - Craig
• "I'll just use my other arm, I've got two arms you know." - me
• "I wish I had two d**ks. It would be so cool to have a spare. What would I do if I screwed one up?" - me
• "Boy, you could have some serious fun with that!" - Craig.

That was such an unexpected, and hilarious remark by Craig that I was in hysterics all the way down the cliff. Crystal and Craig are fun people to hang out with. They are both very mellow, and have a great sense of humor.

Sue and I had arrived on the Friday, the 19th of June after a 17 hour drive. I had to stop and sleep for an hour in the Mt. Shasta area at 3am. We started climbing at Swan Slab but didn't have energy for much. We slept at Sweetwater just West of Hardin Flats/Berkeley campground an hour out of the park for two nights. Now that I've watched the system at Camp 4, I'll do the crash routine next time, then sleep at the booth in the am.

Clint and Craig arrived the next day, Saturday, and followed us up Regular Route 5.6 on Sunnyside Bench, which I will never repeat as it is not worth the horrendous walk off. Sunday we climbed at Swan slab again and met Heather, Mark and Crystal. I met Heather Hartman and Crystal B. last Christmas at jtree. It was fun seeing them again.

Sue was climbing very strongly but couldn't do more than a few pitches a day as her back hurt. She is such a talented climber that it is very sad that she can't climb more. I'll write more later.

6-12-09

Tried to sleep earlier but couldn't. Work has been rough. It's finals week and I've not got a moments rest. The students are finally being students and taking their studies seriously, instead of missing classes and ignoring me. Most of them are there, and now they suddenly want to try to understand what they should have learned weeks ago. I'm the only one who can figure this stuff out and I'm in high demand. I guess that's why they call it teaching.

I've climbed the last 4 weekends out of 6. I was supposed to be in Leavenworth with the hardies trad class but I bailed. Never again will I sign up with the hardies. I'm done with them. I have more than enough partners from the gym. I turned down a weekend with my best partner to climb with them. We could have done some hard routes, and had some great times, but no, I was over there volunteering to teach beginners who are too timid to just go out and teach themselves like we did.

I'll mentor my friends, but I won't teach in groups. Teaching in groups means published schedules far in advance. I'm an opportunist. I go with the best and friendliest people I know who are available that weekend. Screw long range planning!

I climbed at the gym with Chris twice last week, and twice this week. Plus, Chris and Fletch met me and Clint and Craig at 38 Monday night.

I've been hanging out at a couple online forums lately: www.facebook.com and www.cascadeclimbers.com. Since I'm too busy to write a bunch of stuff here I'm going to post directly from those forums below so you can see what's been on my mind. I have tons of grading to do, as well as overdue paying freelance work.

There are probably others who know more, but sometimes you can find industrial machines on Craigslist, just make sure you can find parts and probably pay someone to clean and tune it. Those really old Singers can also do the job and can still sometimes be found at Goodwill and the like. Most industrial machines do one very fast straight stitch and not much else, look for one made for strength instead of speed.

If you find something heavy duty but portable let me know, I need something that fits in my apartment without room for a whole table setup.

For cam slings you'll need a bartacker, but really I'd just pay the $3-4 each to get them reslung by someone with a computer controlled machine for consistency and reliable stitches. Some home machines and a few others will do a zig-zag stitch which is very handy for repairs and can also be used to make a sort-of bartack which works well for repairing gear, chalk bag belts, etc, but i wouldn't use it for life support.

I have one of these:
http://www.sailrite.com/Ultrafeed-LSZ-1-Walking-Foot-Sewing-Machine

It will sew through anything that you put under the foot (about 1/4").

With a little adjustment of the tension, you can get nice bartacks in thicker fabrics. It can handle the burliest of threads. I've used it to make haulbags out of 42oz VCP.

The machine comes with a decne tcase and is about the same size as a normal sewing machine.

I would like to get a servo motor for mine. It would give me instant start and stop.


Some bigger machines:

http://www.seattlefabrics.com/machines.htm

I don’t have a specific recommendation for a machine but I will second the vote to send out your stuff for professional bar tacks on items that you trust your life to. Bartacks are made by bartack machines. They are notoriously finicky and would be a waste of your money since that’s all they do. You can get something close to a bartack with a zigzag stitch which is fine for most items (think packs, etc.) but for stuff like slings/harnesses I would send them out on occasion and not mess around.
Getting a good industrial machine that works fine for home can be difficult. Most of them go straight and must faster than you need. If you do go that route I’d look for one with a servo motor. I’ve tried out the ones at Seattle Fabrics and they seemed to work pretty well. They are new though and will run you $1200 or so.

There was a good thread on the taco a while back...the google machine delivers:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=560592&tn=0&mr=0

Markwebster, here you go.....

I was looking for a beefy sewing machine last year. After extensive research, I got a Singer Slat O Matic Rocketeer for $10 off craigslist. It is the last all metal singer made before they came out with plastic ones. You can find these on craigslist any week.....

I have yet to find fabric that my Rocketeer will not punch through. It punches through 3 layers of ballistic nylon like butter, not to mention 2-3 layers of fairly thick leather. The old singers run like freight trains and you can find people practically giving them away!

You can read about them here http://www.geocities.com/possumjim/xhtml/collect_sewing_500a.html
http://www.singer500a.info/index.htm

Best Bang for the buck hands down.

I make packs for a living. I probably have the most machines of anybody who visits this site on a regular basis, and I definitely have opinions. Your mileage may vary, etcetera...warning: long ramble ahead. I would say that since this is related to my business, I certainly have a conservative approach. I have never nor will I ever make life support or protective gear. There are just too many variables...

If you're talking life support, don't do it.

No offense, but since you've got little to no comprehension of what you're doing, it would seem to me that you'd be smart outsourcing life support stuff. Make some packs, make haul bags, make tons of stuff, but I'd really consider leaving life support stuff alone for awhile or for ever. Have fun, don't create situations where you're wondering if you're going to kill a friend.

As far as I know, you don't use Nylon in outdoor life support bartacks, you use bonded polyester. Polyester has significantly better resistance to UV degradation and to salt. Polyester is about 90% as strong as nylon and doesn't go bad in the sun. I believe that most climbing stuff is done with T-70 (aka 69 aka E) weight bonded polyester thread, with some T-90 thrown in. It's more than strong enough for our systems.

I have reason to believe that the best machines for doing bartacks on things like cam slings are actually not computer controlled but instead mechanical cam machines (some do have computer controlled feed systems, but that's another story). Mechanical cam machines are significantly more robust and regular than computer controlled machines. For manufacturing, you have got to be able to test, prove and retest your manufacturing systems, and mechanical cam machines are way better at that.

As an aside, the average bar tack machine has something in the neighborhood of 500 rotating parts. Richard Moore got into building tools because of his work making sewing machine tooling for the Singer Sewing Machine company...if you have any idea who he was, it's pretty remarkable. If you don't, let's just say that Moore and his son Wayne invented machining in the millionths of inch tolerance world. Like 25 millionths of an inch over six feet and incomprehensible accuracy like that...

Taking a well maintained, accurate mechanical cam machine and your polyester thread, you next determine needle type and needle size that you'll be working with. You now know that the maximum working temperature of the bonded polyester thread is 212 degrees fahrenheit, so you do some quick tests and figure out you need a thread cooler. When you use a regular bar tack machine -- like the ones at my shop -- we can easily be running up to 200 degrees by the end of a set of tacks. Obviously, since it's your life we're talking about, you'd want to stay way below that, say below 150.

Getting my drift? It looks like a nice little stitch, can't be that complex, well...

Mechanical cam bar tackers with the appropriate parts start around $1800. You should buy them new for life support stuff. You can pick up an old electronic bar tacker starting around $2k. They start new around $4,500 and go up to around $100,000 for the really cool ones. You can also spend a couple of tens of thousands of dollars on platen tables, presser feet, attachments, and the whole set of tools that accompany real machines.

I highly unrecommend the sailrite machines. What's your budget? How often will you really use it? Sailrite sells machines that would never be used in an industrial setting to folks getting in over their heads.

I'd really recommend finding some local community college or similar and taking a sewing class. Get some time on a plain jane straight stitch machine and see what it can do. It's the classic case of operator skill versus machine ability. Learn to sew well and the machine won't fail you.

I'd really recommend getting a needle feed machine with an electronic servo motor and control box if you can afford it. If you're going to use it a lot, and you can find one and afford it, get an automatic trimmer machine. It would probably cost you between $1,000 and $2,000 for a used machine like that, but without computer control or the trimmer, it'd be less than a $1,000 -- there appears to be one on seattle craigslist for $700 right now. For what you want to sew, it will help alleviate your relative lack of skill.

A servo motor, as somebody else wrote, is substantially quieter, more energy efficient and more controllable. You can throttle down the maximum speed on most servo motors to allow you to sew at a comfortable max. As you get better, open up the throttle. I like sewing around 2700 stitches / minute, while most of my sewers like being around 3500. It's rare for my interns or my non-sewer employees to be comfortable much over 1000. You can buy a servo motor off ebay for a hundred bucks or so.

An electronic control box does a ton of things. Since I've already written too much, let's say that one feature is to start the first X stitches at a slow speed. It help make you sew straight lines like a pro. Most electronic control boxes come with servo motors. I think that a good electronic control box and servo motor combination is probably about a $1,000.

The trimmer cuts the thread. You reach the end of the seam, you do something, and the threads are cut. Perhaps it sounds simple, but if you're spending a lot of time on the machine, you will fall in love with this feature.

I'd recommend a needle feed for a few reasons:

You're more likely to find 110v electronic machines. 220v3phase is a pain in the butt. Avoid it.

It's much easier to learn to sew with a needle feed. Learning to sew with most walking foot machines is kind of like learning to drive a tank. It will be easier for you to control what you're sewing and easier to keep things straight with a needle feed. There are some mellow walking foot machines, but they tend to be significantly more expensive -- the very nice Mitsubishi LU2-4710 walking foot machines retail for something north of $5,000.

Another reason is because of the relative ease of getting feet and attachments for needle feed machines over walking foot machines. With industrial machines, a lot of the things you want to do are semi-automated to make it easier. You can afford these parts for a needle feed or a regular drop feed machine. For example, I just bought a couple of different feet for doing the topstitch where two pieces of fabric come together. For our needle feed machines, I bought the four I wanted for less than $50. For my walking foot machine, one foot was $350. I'm going to make sure our production will really really benefit before buying the second one.

Oh, btw, for repairing stuff, you really want a cylinder bed machine. Think expensive. Think advanced sewing skills. Also, the old Singers that Richard Moore developed the tooling for can sew through 1/2" plywood. They are amazing. I was just playing with one with 348 weight thread sewing together two 1/2" strips of plywood yesterday. Talk about sewing through your finger...

I think making your own gear is a ton of fun, and a really good hobby. If I can answer any other questions, go for it, but we're super busy these days and I don't get too much time in front of the computer. We have office hours twice a week at our factory down here in Portland, and you're more than welcome to swing by and check us out.

But please take my advice to heart...get John Yates to resling your camalots. Don't do it yourself.

Hey now, don't bash the sailrite too much. It's not meant to be an industrial machine. It's for hobbyists who want some horsepower but don't need to run the machine for 8 hours a day.

If I were starting a business I wouldn't get a sailrite, but I'm not. I'm just playing around.

howdy,

if you've got any questions about machines and sewing and all that, please do feel free to ask. My answers might not always be want you want to hear, but i will tell you what i believe to be the truth. I didn't mean to offend with my long long post about machines, and hopefully i just got you some good information. If you ever find yourself down in Portland during the work week, please don't hesitate to stop by our office.

Also, consider trying to give Tom Bihn of Tom Bihn a call and ask if you can tour his factory just to see how stuff is made...You should also try giving John Yates a ring. He's forgotten more about this stuff than just about anybody else in the business. Be warned that when John says something is "easy", he's talking from 30+ years of experience.


However, when you wrote:

Quote:

I trust myself and my common sense better than some blue collar slave working for peanuts. I'm a perfectionist, and it's my life at stake.

I've got to give you the following reality check:

1) No experience. That "blue collar slave" probably has over 10 years of experience sewing industrially before they got their job manufacturing life support stuff. Then they got hours of training and skill development.You've got none of that. No offense, but you couldn't pass the basic test to get the job. You might be a perfectionist in other areas, but you've got about 15 years of practice to get to their level of performance. They are making a ton of money for the sewn products trade.

2) No backup. That "slave" has got a mechanic working with them. Every so often, the mechanic does a series of tests on the machines to make sure they're working right. So you do a dynamic load test by throwing something off a building, but what about six months later? Does the machine still work the same way? You've got no backup.

3) No longitudinal testing. Protective gear manufacturers test stuff when they make it, test it again in a month, again in six months...Are you going to be doing that?

4) It's not your life. It's your friends' partners happiness and lives that you are risking. Would you make your own rope? Do you plan all of your falls? I'm not being terribly effective in trying for evocative writing, but think about the consequences of what you're doing. How would you feel if your partner decked because the "good enough" tack you made in a sling eight months ago had weakened without notice?

Every single gear manufacturer that I know personally knows how many folks die every year with their gear. I just make backpacks and in the three and a half years I've been selling them, we've had more than ten customers die climbing. The thing that terrifies me is having something we made fall apart. There couldn't be anything worse. Seriously.

I feel that the responsible thing to do is to ask you if you really are a perfectionist enough to reach a standard where you'll be okay with that risk / reward. If you are, hey, more power to you and it will be a fascinating adventure. This stuff is really, really cool. The machines are fascinating and fun.

Graham
www.cilogear.com
office: 503-305-3858

Jonny Copp, and two others, died in an avalanche in the Himalayas a few days ago.
http://www.coppworks.com/i ndex.htm

I first met Jonny Copp two Christmases ago at Joshua Tree. They were camped next to us in Hidden Valley. When Austin came up with the idea to have a burning man, Jonny heard about it and asked us not to light it until he and his buddy could come over and start drumming. Once Jonny started drumming with his big drum, people started flocking to our campsite to write on the burning man. Pretty soon we had 30 people in the campsite, running around the burning man to the drums, which Austin had made from palette wood.

On New Years eve, Jonny had heard I was THE harmonica player, and asked me over to play a song to his friends. I played Scarborough Fair for them, and they were very moved. He shook my hand afterward, told me it was awesome. Later when the party started hopping, he asked me to play with the drums, but I couldn't do the jazz riffs it needed. Jonny and his 3 drumming friends really made that party. There must have been 60 people around the campfire that night, dancing to the drums.

The next year, (this last xmas) I was walking around the campground, and I saw Jonny and his new girlfriend. He recognized me and gave me a big hug, told me I had to come by his campfire for some music. Once again he had 3 drummers, but he also had 2 guitarists, a guy with a didgeridoo, and a violinist (his lovely girlfriend). Jonny could play everything, including a wooden flute.

I brought over my guitar, my sheet music book and my blues harp. I jammed on the harp with them on a long blues riff to drums and guitar...we made that song last 15 minutes. Then I sang a couple songs on my guitar, and they accompanied me. Compared to them, I'm a really bad guitarist, but they cheered like I was elton john.

There was a wild campfire across the campground, the one with the sweat lodge and the boozers. It was very noisy. Jonnys campfire was like a shelter from the storm. Usually just half a dozen people, drinking a few beers, focusing on the music and the wonderful desert night, staying warm by the campfire. I met his parents there that night, very out dorsy people, they seem at home around the campfire.

The next day, I was hiking around trying to approach "Illusion Dweller". I was lost, as usual, and looked down to the base from atop the wrong cliff and there was Jonny, in a passionate embrace with his girlfriend.
"Hey, what cha doin down there?" I yelled.
"Ah, Mark, I was just kissing my lady."

Jonny never gave any indication that he was a famous climber. He never mentioned what he did for a living, or what he was climbing. He was just a low key guy, totally into experiencing the moment and living life to the fullest.

He gave me his email address so I could send him some pictures of he and his lady around the campfire. When I got online, I found that Jonny was a famous film maker and mountaineer, with numerous first ascents around the world, and repeats of big time routes, like the north face of the Eiger.

He makes his living filming mountaineering movies, and runs, or ran, this website:
http://www.adventurefilm.o rg/index.aspx . That organization just came, or will come to Seattle, I think they might have have booked the Paramount Theatre.
http://www.adventurefilm.o rg/blogs/adventure_blog.as px. Jonny has written for all the climbing magazines, and has been featured in National Geographic.

While I never really knew him that well, I still felt he was my friend. He gave me a bunch of advice about cameras over the course of a some emails. The guy was a complete pro. When I saw was that he had died yesterday, I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes, I knew he was a Himalayan climber, which is a deadly sport, but he seemed so alive, so vital at Jtree...for that all to be gone...jtree won't be quite the same without him. I'm gonna miss that guy.

http://www.websterart.com/ html/jtree2008.html
http://www.websterart.com/ html/joshua_tree_2007.html

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