The past couple days I spent some time up at Lower West to shore a couple things up. The anchor above Sticks and Stones is not really useful as a rap station for any who wish to use it as such. The bolts are bare which makes a rappel not really desirable. The anchor now has links and rings to facilitate a rope.
Last Saturday I climbed Steel Feathers and noticed the last bolt was missing a hanger. So I came a few days after to put a hanger on it and discovered the bolt was a spinner. Many times we refer to a bolt that has a loose hanger as a spinner, but this is not necessarily correct. A true spinner happens when the bolt’s mechanical effect is compromised and attempts to tighten or loosen the bolt spin the entire anchor assembly in the hole. Effectively the bolt isn’t functioning properly. So I set out today to replace the bolt.
In this case the best method for extracting the bolt was to try and pull the bolt out enough to re-engage the sleeve/cone to then be able to loosen the nut. From there it would be possible to spin the bolt in the hole and grind down the sleeve(s). In this case the bolt never got to a point where it wouldn’t spin. In fact, I was able to extract the bolt solely with a hammer and a funkness device! This bolt has now been replaced with a Bolt Products 6mm twisted leg bolt donated by the ASCA.