NT Custom Saddle Project and other gear

[chad556]

So my saddle project started out with a NT Vi saddle that i got because it was on clearance. They didnt have mediums so I got the small thinking I could squeeze into it. I could not.

That was ok though because I had just been intrigued by New Tribes Nikosi saddle. Dual floating bridges just makes sense to me and I wanted to try to modify my saddle to have a kind of dual bridge system as well. Also those giant leg pads NT saddles have, aside from looking dumb IMO, are total nutcrackers if you take my meaning:hmm3grin2orange: so I had to do away with those as well.

Here is a shot of the bridge I made out of climbspec 1" tubular nylon webbing. Wrapped around twice and then hand sewn with a waxy thread so tough i had a very hard time breaking it with my hands

Here is a shot of my main design consideration, this setup would be super safe because even if the main bridge breaks and fails outright the small webbing link will still hold the delta to you legstraps and vice versa if the webbing link rips apart the main bridge will catch you, giving you(well, me) a sickening scare but still allowing you to reach the ground safely (aka: not in a free fall)

Close up of my stitching work. Its ugly but strong.

And the finished legstraps, note the d-ring belts i sewed on to help keep them from flopping around. They work pretty well but can limit mobility a bit if not adjusted perfectly. (Most importantly no more non-invasive vasectomy action:msp_biggrin

 

[chad556]

Here are some more shots

Double Floating bridge in action:

My saw carrying setup:

Sewn D rings so they don't flop around

The rest of my gear posing for a picture:

All my gear in a 6 gallon storage container

 

[NCTREE]

The question is do you trust your own stitching enough to hang your life from it?

 

[chad556]

The question is do you trust your own stitching enough to hang your life from it?

Well I was nervous at first, but after a couple hours tying into a door gym (how i got the pics of me hanging) I came to realize that those two red bridges would be the last things to break. So yeah, I would trust my life to it. My girlfriend was even brave enough to hang 30' up in it, talk about trust, the highest I had been in it before that was the height of a door frame.

I'm no expert sewer or seamster or whatever its called but i feel like i did a better job than most machine stitched gear I have seen (Not a nicer looking job but a stronger overall result) I used about 6' of super strong thread and about 15' more of regular duty thread to hold it all together. That webbing is made for mountain climbers with a break strength of about 4000ish lbs. doubled over it comes to more like 8000 to 9000 Lbs breaking strength. I bet the bridge on my sequoia would snap long before this one did. And then again even if it did snap I have two in there sharing the load and life support.

 

[Dutch cut]

Stitch Patterns

Your stitching could be improved by using a diagonal pattern, one that crosses the vertical and horizontal threads at the same time. With this pattern you should be able to roughly estimate the strength of your stitching by multiplying the thread strength by the number of stitches. This is the strongest stitching type, stonger than back tacks, according to On Rope. It would be a good read for you if you want to get into more of this.

From your pictures those stitches make me a little nervous, especially how vulnerable to abrasion they will be. Keep an eye on them.

example of diagonal stitching.

 

[chad556]

Thanks for the pic. Great advice also. I was hoping to get some pointers on how to improve it. There is also some internal stitching that holds just the first two wraps that you cant see, I used that to size up the bridge before i did all that stitching and even that little bit held my weight well. I will add diagonal stitches when I get a chance and I was thinking maybe a small screw link between the leg d ring and the delta link to double reinforce that connection. I am all about safety redundancy, its not that I don't trust my gear, I do. Its hard not to trust it when you know that three highly unlikely scenarios have to happen simultaneously to have a true catastrophic failure. :msp_thumbup: now thats what I call peace of mind.