Basejumper.com - archive

In light of the current "discussion" on this site.
I am curious just where people are at with rigging?

I have:
-replaced my brake lines (with assistance)
-made a couple of tailgates
-adjusted various DBS settings
-sewn my own helmet liner from scratch materials
-jumped with lines misrouted
-incorrectly hooked up my 3-rings
-gotten my goggles stuck to my brakes in flight (dont ask)
-almost gotten a double-needle setup to sew 10 stitches without jamming

I think everyone who base jumps should be able to do some basic rigging. I slowly became a rigger simply because I kept learning more and more out of neccesity. that being said, learn to do stuff the right way and get guidance from a rigger if theres any doubt

How did that turn out?

just fine. no one even noticed for about 3 years

What did you do? Would you mind replicating it and taking a picture? I always sketch out about hooking components like this up and would be interested in common mistakes.

I'll try to get some pics out in a few days. It involved backwards facing integrity risers, the grommet on the soft cable housing, and the routing of the retaining loop.

The theoretical failure mode would have involved unintentional release of the riser, though very unlikely. No problems on dozens of jumps.

PM me if I forget by the end of the week

(edit to clarify: it was not my integrity risers that were on backwards, I just described them as "backwards facing" for the benefit of those who didn't know what integrity risers were)

Risers can be made to face away from you,
which is standard on SKY rigs: Regular.

Risers can be made to face towards you,
which is standard for BASE because they
do not have a hole through the middle,
hence stronger and the name: Integrity

Risers can be sewn into the harness and
this is called Integrated, which is used
on your SKY reserve, pilot bailout rigs,
and some custom BASE containers.

So my question: if you installed a set of
risers with 3 rings incorrectly, then were
the strips of pile for your toggles facing
away from you??

Haha no but I laughed out loud picturing what you described :)

My error was far more subtle than anything like that and I guarantee >98% of people would not have given it another glance.

(I see why you read my post that way, that is not what I meant.) Hang tight for some pictures ppl

Colm,

From what you wrote I assume that you mean you put the grommets in reverse order when you fed the release loop through them and then the yellow cable through the release loop. I have attached a pic from the APEX DP manual to show the correct assembly.

So is my assumption correct you reversed the grommets?

Edited to attached picture...

just wanted to add that while not common anymore, integrity risers do exist on skydiving containers as well. i put several hundreds of jumps on them early in my skydiving career, and also my first malfunction and cutaway. they're not totally black death. i only bring this up because i've had recent discussions with people about how to some people, hooking up BASE canopies to student rigs with integrity risers being a "bad idea".
and that is just silly.

or he put the loop through the middle ring. I have seen that before

Good sleuthing! Saved me the effort.

OK what other brain-child moves have others done?

I allowed myself to get too excited about a new quarry we were opening, and I made a rigging mistake on the static-line we did.

I tied a loop in the middle of my bridle and tied that point to the anchor with break-cord. But then I farked up and tied the break-cord at the end of the bridle to the loop in the middle of my bridle, instead of tying it to the anchor. The first factor was the excitement and not reviewing my work. The second factor was that our anchor was black webbing and my bridle was black, so nothing immediately stood out as wrong.

So I jumped...and luckily the first piece of break-cord did the trick.

I landed and began to gather up my gear, and that's when I thought to myself, "How the hell is there a piece of in-tact break-cord still attached to my bridle?" And then I actually began to tremble a bit when I realized what I'd done.

Had that first piece of break-cord failed prematurely, I would have been relying on a 46" pilot chute at the end of a 4.5-foot bridle, on a 190-foot static line.

~ Chris

Yep, definitely agree, have jumped them with SKY and BASE
canopies, hell I knew some guys who always had them on
their SKY rigs for a while, word was they were really popular
in France I think...

But yeah definitely air worthy and fine for either sport.

One of the arguments for them in SKY was since many
packers drag the rigs, the white loop, gets abused, and
the white loop is the weakest link in the 3-ring system.

The only argument I heard against their use had to do
with slow speed malfunction, minimal drag, and needing
to manually yank on the risers to get them to separate.

I have no experience with that, I only have 6 cutaways,
5 of them were tandems, but all of them with regular
standard 3 rings facing away style.

It appears split 50/50 of jumpers that can maintain and repair their own shit and those that just jump and pack but leave repair to others.

Curious if those that don't do rigging work are new base jumpers with skydiving mentality toward who works on gear.

Not entirely true. Not necessarily black death either. But simply tossing reverse risers on any old rig can result in a 3 ring failing to release.

Because they were originally designed or at least heavily promoted by Parachutes De France.

That was actually more of a reason for BASE jumpers. The reason they were invented for skydiving was to combat the spate of riser failures at the grommet on type 17 mini risers. Has anyone actually seen type 8 reverse risers built by a skydiving manufacturer?

Correctly assembled rigs shouldn't have this problem. It is only a problem when you place reverse risers onto other random rigs that then ends in fatalities. Another interesting fact is that the reverse riser actually has less mechanical advantage than standard risers. Not a big problem in BASE but does mean the white loop takes more load.

I may be wrong but my understanding was that the harness geometry is different on the Parachutes de France gear. I thought the D ring was higher up on the shoulder which means the reverse risers are more likely to unlock if you're cutting away from a high-speed mal.

Putting reverse risers on a skydiving container not designed for them may mean that they might not release and have to be cleared manually.

Correct.
Edit: I believe some other manufacturers also designed harnesses to accept reverse risers but it was not the norm. The higher chest ring is also found on some accuracy rigs as it gives the jumper a more vertical/less seated position that some prefer for the view on landing.

Thanks for weighing in with the specifics!

So the location of the big ring that is permanent on the harness
affects both the position of the jumper post deployment and the
compatibility with reverse risers; lower it is the worst reverse
risers work, higher is better since there is room for the rings
to pass through each other and release, correct sir?

My repairs stop at specialized equipment. If I can do it with a needle and thread, fine. (Shortening lines, fingertrapping, etc.) but while I'm sure I could patch a basic canopy hole, I don't have any sewing machine at my disposal, and I didn't my think hand sewing is a prudent fix there.

not much. i have built all my own tailgates and closing loops, have modified my brake settings and toggle fingertraps.

i have recently sewn an audible pocket with snap button on the outside of my skate helmet i use for skydiving, and my next project is to cut out the chinstrap webbing and replace with either a mini-2 ring cutaway system, or just a soft cutaway system similar to WLO toggles using some yellow cutaway cable, in case of a camera snag

im also going to be building a few bridals and my first stashbag.

luckily, my roomate has all industrial grade sewing machines, including a zig-zag, harness machine, and a few others that i dont know exactly what they do. so ive been learning how to sew.

see attached picture to become insanely jealous =)

Correct. If the harness ring is too low the middle ring on the riser can get held in place by the front of your shoulder. It doesn't take a lot of effort to hold a 3 ring in place. Just like it shouldn't take a lot of effort to clear it either. But most jumpers will have pulled both the magic handles before they realize there was ever a hang up.

I hear floating pins are the new trend.

Years ago I was at the PIA Symposium when Bill Booth was asked his thoughts on integrity risers. He did not like them and said that while eliminating the grommet might appear to make the riser stronger, the grommet area is not where they were seeing riser failures. He also said that the reversed orientation could possibly cause the rings to not release under some set of circumstances, but I don't recall the specifics.

I'm not slamming integrity risers, just passing along the info.

Walt

That is a great set up. Would love to have access to a loft. I just have a walking foot juki, looking for a bar tack machine now.
Got into my own repairs when I had a canopy out of commission for months waiting for the repair.

Find a nice zig zag machine ( I love my singer 20u) and youll be able to do almost anything youd ever need to. Bar tackers are super nice, but quite pricey.

Do you mean so that you can essentially do a bartack using straight and zig-zag?

So far I haven't used the zig-zag stitch for anything else.

I made the horrible decision to take on a way-too-big project as my first real sewing project. I bought a singer 4411, made a chalk-bag and a simple hammock so now I'm making a 37.5sq ft model 7-cell. I didn't have patterns so I chose my own airfoil (GOE 481 A) and crawled inside my BASE canopy for a while with a pencil and paper (skipping the bottom-skin span-wise load tapes). I got a mirror cut for hot-knifing and have all my patterns cut out and one cell built! I've had to re-do things multiple times, but I'm learning a hell of a lot from it. I'll visit the DZ's loft at the end for bar-tacking the line attachment points.

If I ever finish the damn thing...AND if it actually flies...I'll put some RF/wireless controlled servos on the control lines to be able to steer it.

Yes you can essentially do a bartack. A bartack machine just makes it easy and consistent. It's challenging on thin lines but not so tough on webbing, container, and other parts. It requires zero use of the reverse.

An easy type of bartack doesn't even use a straight stitch.

- Perform the zigzag stitch
- Pick up the foot and move the material back to the beginning without cutting the thread.
- Set the needle onto the material for the first stitch to make sure you don't slam the foot with the needle (you'll only do that once)
- Sew right back over the top. Sew it directly over the extra thread that occurs from the end of the first zigzag to the beginning of the second.

Take a look on a Vector (any will do) and look at the stitch that holds the mudflap to the main lift web. That's the stitch I'm talking about. They, and many others, use that stitch extensively.

Do some practice patterns so you don't over stitch the material.

well then, I think I will look for a zig zag instead of bartack

Make sure it is heavy enough to get through whatever you plan on sewing. 20Us are fine for lines but start to struggle zig zagging on several layers or binding and such.

No double needle?

+1 on the 20u. I have one and have done a shitload of gear work on it.

Walt

I put a tiny mark on one of the machines.

Any recommendations on harness machines? I have seen the class 7 singers but was looking for one with a jig attachment. Just wondering if anyone out there has a newer machine model they like

you are correct tim! i couldnt see the mark though, can you make it bigger? i still havent used the double yet. im focusing on learning the zig-zag/straight stitch. it used to scare the shit out of me because the point at which it engages is ultra sensitive, but now im getting better.

also, what im being taught doing a straight stitch is to basically do it one way very slightly, go back the opposite way to "lock" the stitch, then commence sewing, finishing in the opposite manner. that probably doesnt make any sense explaining it that way....?

JJ good times!

Ok, now I'm a little envious. Congratulations on having a nice setup!

No doubt! We are super lucky to have VH1, aka Shrund, aka BigMattyB as a homey! Better "rigging BASEment" than most sky lofts.

I have a Pfaff 3336 Bar Tacker and a meta 20U53 clone at the moment. Need to spend a bit more time behind