Subject: Rebolting report - Verdict
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001

Today I rapped down from the top to get to Verdict, then inspected all the 
bolts.  The direct start that Clint added has two 3/8" Rawl 5-pieces and 
those looked like I didn't want to mess with them - looked fine in good rock 
(actually the second looked a little sketchy with no washer and a bit 
beat-up SMC hanger, but I knew I probably couldn't pull it without a lot of 
effort).  The next 4 bolts were 3/8" split-shaft compression bolts (with 
threaded heads & nuts), and so I replaced all that I could - took the whole 
day to do just 3.  The rock is better than I've drilled at Pinnacles before 
and the 6" glue-ins are definitely overkill in the good rock - 3" of the 
rock would have to break out for failure to occur with 3" glue-ins (possible 
in poor Pinnacles rock, but not going to happen on the better stuff).

The third bolt is annoyingly far left and hard to clip, but that's because 
that's where the original start came in.  I pulled the bolt with not too 
much trouble, and the rock and the hole appeared sound.  The bolt was 
slightly compressed (much better than the ones on Mammary Pump which were 
not even slightly compressed).  I expanded the hole (trivial for the length 
of the old hole), then drilled another 3"+ in.  Then went on to the next 
bolt, since you do all the glue-ins at once to avoid wasting glue.  
Super-thorough cleaning of the hole is mandatory (3/8" nylon brush, 1/2" 
nylon brush, 3/8" wire brush, lots of blowing - can use a blow tube at 
first, but need to keep moisture out, so last while you use a bulb).

The fourth bolt was stupidly placed so that it severely cross-loads any 
biner over a big edge.  Also, this was the bolt that had fracture lines 
spreading from it in the rock.  The only good rock that didn't also 
cross-load was a slightly overhung face about 14" up and 5" right from the 
old bolt, but still easily within clipping distance from a jug.  Even there, 
a long sport draw might see some problems with the ledge, but a short draw 
will be free-hanging.  The 6" hole took probably 45min-1 hour of drilling 
time.  Definite overkill there, a 3" glue-in would have been totally bomber.

The fifth bolt was a bit cratered underneath the bolt and not in the 
greatest place - until you started tapping the rock with a hammer and 
realized that it was the only spot around with halfway solid rock.  Pulled 
that bolt with a lot of effort, mainly because the surface was so non-flush 
that I had problems with the claw hammer and the 3/8" tuning fork (which we 
made from the end of a crowbar a long time back, it works OK, not the 
greatest design for pulling).  The hole ended up like it started, with a big 
crater below it, but with the shape of the eyebolt of the glue-ins, it was 
not much of a problem, and anyway you're talking about the last 1/2" and the 
other 5 1/2" of the bolt will be more than enough.  Drilled that one out 
with less effort because the rock was not as good, but still about 25min of 
hammering.

Rapped down, using the 4th bolt as a directional (overhung), and placed the 
glue-ins while jugging up (the most important single thing in placing 
glue-ins is making absolutely sure that you don't tap them or move them 
during the setting period, so you place them from the ground up on 
overhangs, that way the rope and you don't hit them).  They are easy, if 
messy, to actually place.  Then battled out the 4th bolt, which was kind of 
easy since the first 1/2-1" of rock behind the bolt hanger was fractured 
through and just fell out after I started trying to pull the bolt.  
Interestingly, the fractured rock was in the shape of a large shallow crater 
behind the hanger - about 3" diameter and 3/4"-1" deep.  That probably has 
to do with the fact that it was a compression bolt in not great rock and 
also that falls which severly cross-load the biner over the edge also pry 
the bolt outward.

Conclusions: we need to get some 3" glue-in bolts for the best Pinnacles 
rock, 6" is overkill for the great stuff and takes forever to drill if the 
rock is hard.  I think that glue-ins should be the standard for rebolting at 
Pinnacles, a 3" long 7/16" hole is only slightly larger than the standard 
3/8".  However, for the more poor rock the 6" are definitely best.  Also, 
the impracticality and mess of bringing the glue-gun means that the 3/8 x 
3.5" stainless Rawls will probably remain the bolt of choice for most 
Pinnacles rebolting, and of course the glue-ins could never be used for 
ground-up bolting.  I'm going to see if Fixe will make a 4.25" glue-in that 
would let us use a normal length drill bit (I had two hand drills today, one 
with a 4" usable length bit (actually about 4.5-4.75" before you hit the 
drill holder), one with a 10" usable length bit, and the long one is kinda 
squirrely when hand drilling the final inch and a half.

After the last two days, I'm sold on glue-ins as the standard bolt anytime 
there's any question about the rock.  But the cost and logistics means that 
they'll remain the domain of the hard-core rebolter (or the seaside climber 
or soft rock rap bolters).

Might go back to Verdict sometime, but even if that last bolt blew it'd
be a clean fall, and I don't really want to battle Clint's 5-pieces.
The bolt on the original start probably needs replacement, but since no
one does that it's not a worry.

Greg Barnes      Thurs, March 8th