setting bolt torque

[Chads93GT]

Climb was a success. we reached the top of the dome and rigged it from the ceiling. The top of the dome resembles Fantastic Pit with a balcony 30 feet lower than the top of the attic, with 3 ways of passage at the top. we will be measuring it this weekend, but missouri has a 100+' in cave drop now, , and the view is......fantastic. Thanks for the tips. it was easy to tell when the 25 lb torque setting was hit as the nut was no longer easy to turn with a 6" wrench, it got really hard.
thanks for all of the advice.

[chh]

sweet!

[MUD]

Good job Chad!

[Jon]

Ok here is your solution. The old style pointer torque wrench, Clamp a pipe that the grip handle just fits in in a wise. take the wrench you will use in the cave and make what you need to attach the drive head of it to the wrench. Set it at an angle you can read it (I'd mark it with tape....easier to see) and practice till you get the feel. A click type can also be used but the main thing is that the torque wrench must only be gripped (supported) by the handle. To add to your "feel" make the pull angle similar to what you expect on the climb and if you can't hang from and engine hoist then stand on a creeper ....makes a difference. A longer wrench may be better as you may be able to do it with the fingers of an open hand, where a shorter wrench might have you pulling with your whole arm which might tend to destabilize your perch.

[Chads93GT]

FYi, THE results were a 120' free fall to the floor of the pit with passage at the top and contact with the land owner via cheap 2 way radios from the top of the dome while he stood on the surface. He wants to dig this open. a 120' free fall sort of makes this the deepest free fall pit in the state of missouri. While that may not seem deep to tag folk, realize what we are working with here. while there are other deeper pits in the area, none of them are a true free fall where you arent touching the walls all the way down. think a mini fantastic pit. It has a balcony 21 feet below the top rig point and an attic which leads off in 3 directions with passages. We are STOKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Chads93GT]

Ok here is your solution. The old style pointer torque wrench, Clamp a pipe that the grip handle just fits in in a wise. take the wrench you will use in the cave and make what you need to attach the drive head of it to the wrench. Set it at an angle you can read it (I'd mark it with tape....easier to see) and practice till you get the feel. A click type can also be used but the main thing is that the torque wrench must only be gripped (supported) by the handle. To add to your "feel" make the pull angle similar to what you expect on the climb and if you can't hang from and engine hoist then stand on a creeper ....makes a difference. A longer wrench may be better as you may be able to do it with the fingers of an open hand, where a shorter wrench might have you pulling with your whole arm which might tend to destabilize your perch.

very handy advice. i will definately use this info next time!1

[PeterFJohnson]

...and contact with the land owner via cheap 2 way radios from the top of the dome while he stood on the surface...

That is interesting. I wonder what the range is for two way radios to penetrate limestone. Seems you are pretty damn close to the surface.

Out of curiosity, did you climb the dome from the bottom?

Congrats on the success.

[Chads93GT]

We were able to free climb to within 100' of the ceiling up a series of short 5' climbs onto large ledges and perches. After that we were able to use a 30' extension ladder which we hauled into the cave years ago to check high leads. We used it to get to the top of the first "pitch" so to say where I had to set 5 bolts to get into an alcove of a massive flowstone with a dead end dome above that. The ladder was then hauled up to this point and then a traverse climb had to be done using 8 bolts to get to a balcony 21 feet below the attic. the last 21 feet was free climbed as well. not an easy climb, but doable, as long as you can get past the fact that its 100' to the floor if you fall ;)

[chh]

the last 21 feet was free climbed as well. not an easy climb, but doable, as long as you can get past the fact that its 100' to the floor if you fall ;)

100 feet of air below you? As long as your protection is good you can fall all day long! It's the ledges that'll break your legs that always make me really nervous. Also, ladders scare the hell out of me. I'm just weird that way.

Congrats on the fruits of your labor. Glad it paid off.

[chh]

Oh, and if you end up digging it open with a machine as opposed to more molecularly reactive ways, be REALLY careful about how you go about that. I mean seek professional council. If you were communicating via radio there's a good chance the machine could end up in the bottom of the pit as well! Think about that.

[Chads93GT]

Well the top of the dome is solid rock; howeever, a crawl way leading away that most likely is intersected by valley erosion is full of breakdown boulders chocked into the canyon passage that the water cut as it receeded away from the pit. Most likely, with enough man hours, we will be able to simply dig our way out of the cave with small shovels, then we would look like ace ventura popping out of that rubber rhinocerous in ace 2.............lol.

But seriously, we dont plan on doing any blasting, we simply want to dig out the natural passage that is filled with dirt and tree roots. We don't need another echo pit (missouri's 127' pit semi swallowed a back hoe when it was dug open by the farmer, not knowing there was a 127' deep pit there.)

[paul]

You may be interetsed to read about the 46-metre (151 ft)-deep access shaft which was dug to intercept the top of Titan, a 141.5 metres (464 ft) shaft (or pit) in the Peak Cavern/Speedwell System here in Derbyshire, UK.

Titan was discovered from the bottom after reading about its existence in old lead mining records. It was climbed to the roof by bolting techniques. A shaft was dug down from the surface to allow cavers a quicker entry into the system to allow for further exploration. The shaft was dug to one side of Titan and a horizontal passage breaks into Titan at a natural calcite and limestone balcony near the top of the shaft. This took over 4 years and was quite a feat of engineering.