Basejumper.com - archive

Hey everyone!
I bought a set of clamps similar to these ones:

http://www.campingmaxx.org/...10/images/Clamps.jpg

but I'm a bit worried that it may cut the canopy since the edges are made of hard plastic instead of rubber like these one:

http://media.popularmechanics.com/...clamp-6-470-1008.jpg

Has anyone been using the top one? Have you had any problems?

Thanks

the top ones are going to poke holes in your canopy resulting in a spinning death malfunction!!

the bottom ones are available at ANY Home Depot and are better.

They will work fine, and won't be any more likely to damage your canopy, but personally I find the second type easier to use.

that's actually what I meant to say.

I actually borrowed a canopy for a little while and the owner used/loaned me the same plastic clamps. You could definitely tell where he had been clamping the canopy. There where little micro abrasions and holes all over the clamp points. New and used with care I'm sure you'll be fine, but clamps tend to get tossed around and it was the light bits of damage to the clamps that was snagging the holes in the material.

Fine in a pinch, but I would get the Metal/rubber ones when you get a chance.

The metal ones will do that too, especially if you get the cheap ones and wear through the rubber caps, which exposes a metal edge that can tear at your canopy.

rather than clamping the fabric, I just clamp the tabs right at the canopy...

These seem to be the best

1" Heavy Duty Spring Clamp <=== small


2" Heavy Duty Spring Clamp <=== large

never buy clamps that are too small. they can be forgotten in the packjob. it happened to me once prior to a building jump and i counted my tools, realizing one was missing. i left it on the canopy above the a-lines. count your tools. among newbies, realize that serious riggers add neon colored flags to every tool used, to minimize rigging mistakes.

or, just don't use clamps.

there like crutches, they only help when something is broken.

It's fun to pick up one of your friends clamps and wait till he unpacks and say 'oh, here it is.'

From my experience I would say your best bet would be these.

These work well too.

I find that the tabs can easily slip out of the clamp if you use the clamp as a handle to tension the lines. For this reason I prefer to sink the clamp as deeply as possible onto the fabric itself.

Human beings use tools to complete tasks for a number of reason. The tools can make the task easier, or faster, or more consistent, as just a few examples.

I can easily pack with no tools at all (that's how I first learned). But I prefer to use tools for the same reason I prefer to use a hammer when driving a nail--it makes the task faster, easier and more accurate.

I frequently encounter jumpers who seem to think that packing without tools is some sort of test of their masculinity, as if the only tools a _real_ man would need are his enormous genitals. I find this rather silly, but perhaps that's because I'm not man enough to understand.

you say prefer. it is simply a preference.

but i don't see anyone packing with clamps doing it faster or easier than someone who is proficient at packing without them.

my point is, if you learn to pack without clamps proficiently... you will never NEED clamps, as they are unnecessary. also, you'll never find yourself on an object with a dumped packjob saying, "damn, i don't have any clamps, guess i'll have to climb down".

has nothing to do with masculinity for me. it's just simplicity. i don't need to pack an extra suitcase full of tools like some people choose to. but, to each their own.

I haven't had any big issues with clamps slipping. And I do use them for line tension. But when I pull the clamp for line tension I grab the fabric right in front of the clamp or pinch the side of the clamp that pinches it tighter rather than grabbing the handles that open the clamp... No issues so far doing this

Tom: your quote "I prefer to use a hammer when driving a nail--it makes the task faster, easier and more accurate."

this is a ridiculous comparison and inaccurate metaphor. One can't drive a nail with bare hands, a tool is a necessity. This is not the case with parachute packing.

Ours are completely contrasting philosophies when it comes to BASE jumping. I prefer to keep things as absolutely simple as possible. Less to mess up. less to try to remember.

Yours is the most excessively complex and over-thought pack job with many many unnecessary tools.

Similarly, I see your students over thinking the parachute flying part too.

I am sorry for being critical.

If you use the clamp as a handle to tension the lines, just simply reach a littler further down and grab the fabric just past the clamp if the clamp is on the tabs.

JT, it's always good to hear your thoughts. i saw Tom pack with 8 clamps and i thought man, that's a recipe for disaster for anyone who packs in poor lighting or might be fatigued, drunk, distracted, etc. which makes me think, i wonder if there are any base fatalities from leaving a clamp in the pack job. I agree, simplicity is the key to performing well in any endeavor. i could pack without clamps in really dry environments with moderate winds, but i was only able to do this after working semi-periodically with a master rigger at his loft in houston for 2 years. for a long time, i just used 2 large clamps when i was packing uncurrent. watching a good packer is like watching a las vegas black jack dealer or a seasoned magician. it only works with frequent practice.

you know, it's interesting that i've made fundamental rigging mistakes after all my so-called experience. it's frightening considering what type of mistakes a newbie would make.

I am proficient at packing with or without clamps, and with or without a whole set of other tools.

I prefer to pack with about 5 clamps depending on canopy size (and however many pull up cords I need to close the rig). I find it faster and easier that way.


I teach students a pack job with a set of other tools, including line tensioners, because in my experience it is easier for a new packer to get a good pack job by using those tools. I also prefer this because in my experience it is easiest to learn to pack with the tools, and then remove the tools from your packing technique as you gain experience.

The students I've seen trying to learn a no-tools pack job fro the beginning (and I was one of them a long time ago) are almost alway overwhelmed by the fabric management issues and end up with substantially worse pack jobs than students using the tools. In almost every case that I've worked with students trying a no-tool pack job, after we've used tools, they opt to use the tools because they can control the pack job more easily that way. After they are comfortable packing, the majority of them scale back their tool use to just a set of clamps (between 4 and 6 usually), and whatever pull-up cords are appropriate for their rig.

I sometimes see experienced jumpers who are "mentoring" new jumpers and seem to enjoy making things harder for the students (by, for example, insisting that they pack with no tools), when the student would learn faster and more easily by using instructional aids in the learning process. This strikes me as very silly, as the point of instruction ought to be to convey information and skills in the most efficient manner.

Fully agree, and not sorry.

Pull up cordS as in more then one... Your gonna have to explain that one to me. You can only pull on one at a time anyway???

I leave the pull up cords in the loops until I am satisfied with how the pack job is sitting in the container. I have accidentally popped a pin once (and seen several other people do it as well) while shifting the rig around (I lifted the rig up and discovered I had my foot on the bridle). It takes less effort to fix that mistake if I still have the pull-up cord in place (because then the pack job hasn't fallen out onto the ground).

Also, I find it less disruptive to the pack job if I insert the pull-up cords before I position the canopy into the pack tray, because that way I am not digging under the packed canopy to find the closing loops. It's simpler to do this if I use two pull-up cords.

Now I see how people have left pull up cords in the loops.

People leave Pull Up cords in the loops because they dont pay attention to the pack job! Whether it is they forgot about it or were drunk, distracted or whatever. Not because they used 2 pull up cords. Count your tools!

It also sucks when your mate borrows a clamp and doesn't tell you. Finished the pack job, counted tools and noticed I was missing one clamp. Opened the pack job up looking for it for him to walk back up to me laughing.
Wasn't that funny....

Bitch say what? see fo yo self

ya well you should see me pack with no pull up cords

i dont always pack parachutes, but when i do, i prefer no clampys.

i pack just as fast and just as clean without clamps.
so personally, i have no need to keep track of any extra tools.

to each his own...
i know one time a jumper came to houston to do his first antenna, fresh out of tom's FJC
he used 12 clamps, and several stakes, and bungees.
it took him over an hour to pack, and on the jump that evening, he had a perfect 180 on a pca.
its was on a guyed antenna, and there was about 15 mph wind.
he literally took 4 seconds faced off with the tower before giving input to turn away. luckily for him it was windy enough to keep his ground speed at 0.

I don't use pull up cords either! Can you say "velcro".

No clamps and no pull up cords = learning how to pack a velcro rig with out clamps.

Yup! Velcro is this is the easiest set up to learn to pack with for sure!

Could have had something to do with the PCA being one of the slowest airspeed deployment methods of all, thereby allowing his canopy to torque into the wind once it was out of his container dangling by the bridal as he was falling to linestretch. Especially since we are basically using a series of seven windsocks tied together with strings underneath them. If he had taken a delay and gotten his airspeed above that of the wind he may have had a different opening.

All of that being said I feel like the pack job is one of the smaller contributors to heading performance. I'm amazed that they open on heading at all.

And I packed with no clamps the other night and it took me slightly longer because I have a slippery as crap hardwood floor, and the thing was shifting everywhere. It looked nice when I was done... but until I live in a place with carpet I'll stick to using 2-4 clamps just because I'm lazy.

yay Tom Aiello!! he's a joke and his fjc is the same.

Isn't that the truth. When I see stills of canopies at certain points of the deployment sequence, I'm amazed that anything good can result.

you must have misunderstood me.
the 180 had to have been a direct consequence of toms fjc.
noone from any other fjc has ever gotten a 180!

if you use childrens plastic hair barretts you can pack m in the canopy and they will just pop off... plus its cute on opening.

really... I think people should just pack how they feel they should... clamps or none... as long as you do the same thing every time and count your tools then what the big deal? personally I dont see how I could possibly use more than 6 clamps on a packjob to help... I use 4 or 5... I have packed without m, but I feel its neater with them and I feel mor confident that things arent moving on one side when I am working on the other.

It's all semantic blockage.

RE: darkvoid's bare wood floor

Buy a cheap rectangle of carpet from
one of the big box stores and when
not in use roll it up for easy storage.

Or if you have the funds buy a nice rug,
which will really tie the room together

My garage has painted concrete floor,
which is also slippery, but I have two
rugs, small one for the rig and a large
one for the canopy.


RE: velcro rigs

I have owned 2 velcro rigs and 3 pin
rigs and honestly I have no idea why
people say velcro is easier to close.

I take a strip of loop (soft part of
velcro) about the length of a pull-up
cord, attach to the top flap and the
bottom flap, it holds the canopy in
place so I can use both hands to
set the shrivel flap in place and it
is easy to remove.


RE: clamps & packing

I have done 42 reserves with 0 clamps.
I have done ~400 BASE pack jobs and
like everyone else who is seasoned can
do it with 0 clamps but I do use them.

If I am packing outside I use 1 stake to
secure the container to the ground and
flat pack.

If I am packing inside I use my dumbells
to secure the container and pro-pack.


RE: Tom A's Canopy Instruction

I took his course, after several days of high
winds the 3 of us in the class got up real early
and did our first jumps off the darkside. His
canopy instruction was really very simple:
get off, turn around, and land on the beach.

Queer Eye for the Green Guy.

I like to use Zebra print carpet

It is a line from the movie The Big Lewbowski

In reply to:

OuttaBounZ wrote:
Queer Eye for the Green Guy.

Donnie you are out of your element!

my damn dog sheds like a bitch (no pun intended), and so I got tired of dealing with a rug. :)

Oh man, "Shut the fuck up, Donnie!"
I can't believe I missed that!

Who the fuck are the Knutsens?

velcro rigs are easier to close because a velcro container accomodates a wider range of pack voume with zero changes to configuration.

With a pin rig, if the parachute happens to be packing puffy due to dry climate or that you are a rookie, or conversely if it is packing small due to humidity or cleanliness; you may need to change two closing loop lengths in order to easily close with proper tension.

With a velcro rig, if your pack job ends up compact you just scoot the side, top and bottom flaps closer to the center of the shrivel flap in order to achieve the nice snug fit, and if it is puffy high volume you just leave the hook side velcro in contact with the outer most part of the flap. All this range, no tools, and you can compress as you go.

thats why.

I'm convinced. Any of you girly boys know where I can order winter boots with velcro?

http://i3.photobucket.com/...msdfurvfuschia-1.jpg

Thank you sir, definitely some solid valid points.

My only rebuttal... isn't replacing a closing loop
still a requirement for earning one's A license?

Of course there is 0 mandatory requirements
for Our Crazy Sport of Cheating Death so I am
forced to remember we are talking about people
who only have a vague notion of finger trapping.

I once had to buy the model that you listed first, and in my experience, the flexible "thing" at the front end is not very convenient to have there. It flips to the outside or the inside and prevents the clamp from closing properly.

My recommendation: The cheap ones with the orange plastic cover that you get at every large hardware store.

Blue skies and clean packjobs,
flummi

Well... Thanks for all the replies. Even those that were a bit off topic (To clamp or not to clamp? That's the question!).

Now back to the topic of clamps available in the market.

As they say, if you wanna do something right, you got to do it yourself so I went to the hardware store to look for something that I could use to increase the tip surface and spread the pressure around an area.

What I got was a washers with the biggest surface I could find and without sharp edges:
http://www.diy.com/...2mm-x-L-50mm-9708801

and a few inches of felt pad to smooth the surface:
http://www.diy.com/...lt-Pad-Cream-9370537

I cut the felt pad and super glued to the washer (fig "loose_washer.jpg"), then I super glued a washers to each tip (fig. "side_view.jpg" and "back.jpg").

Since the clamps pressure were quite strong, I left them pressing a 2 inch book for a few days which made the "springs" weaker.

I've been packing with it and it seems to work very well. The only problem is that since the tips are loose, when you pull the clamps off the canopy they can move back (fig. "bad_position.jpg") and if you let go of it, it will brake (fig. "broken.jpg"). Giving you that well known feeling. (fig "broken_clamp_feeling.jpg"). The only solution to this that I can see would be to drop some super glue at the tips' pivot to stop it from turning backwards.

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone unhappy with the clamps that are available.

Laters,
Sean.

so i didnt read any posts before this so i apologize if this has been said already but why? Home depot sells perfectly good clamps that dont fuck your canopy up and are perfectly acceptable to clamp your canopy. why complicate the situation? i mean... some people dont even use clamps to pack and have the same openings as clamped pack jobs.

I saw a squirrel once

This was all discussed on previous posts.
I started the topic talking about how good clamps seems to be disappearing from the market here in the UK and how I could only find some shitty clamps that damage the canopy. After a while the topic changed to whether or not to use clamps too.

What about packing clamps that can also be used as nipple clamps?

Walt

Looking at the amazing progress of clamp technology, I wonder if it's possible to make an "octopus" clamp - one clamp that clamps in multiple points (4-6). See, storing and transporting 4-6 clamps is a chore: you chain-clamp them to each other, you get this unwieldy cluster that sticks out in all directions and takes precious space in suitcases, yikes! Also, clamps are routinely forgotten in packjobs - people forget to count their tools. With just one clamp, you save time on not having to deal with multiple items and count them. It's also impossible to forget it in the packjob: no clamp after you packed = it's inside.

Just brainstorming here to further the clamp R&D.

my nipples can't survive a clamp-less state

Instread of messing with the washers and felt, just wrap the points of contact with electrical tape. Might not be very classy, but its an easy fix for concerns of abrasions.