Front	Rear

Side	Top	Open for Rigging

Technical Details

Carroll Bassett gave me this ascender in 2023.

This ascender is 102 mm. tall, 98 mm. wide, 57 mm. thick, and weighs 301 g.

This ascender has three rollers and a cam between two 1/8" (3.2 mm.) aluminum plates. The plates are separated by 17 mm. Each roller is 30 mm. in diameter with a circumferential U-shaped groove giving a minor diameter of 21 mm. The roller bearings ride on 1/4-20 UNC hex socket machine screws secured with lock nuts. The cam and axle are a standard Gibbs ascender cam and QR pin.

There are no markings on this ascender, but the QR pin is stamped "AVK 53207."

Comments

When I saw this, I thought it might me one of Robert Mitchell's VersAscenders, but Carroll told me that it is not. Carroll made this ascender to try the idea. We agree that it does not work as well as one would hope, as the cam does not hold as well as it would if it pressed against a solid backing instead of a roller. It was an interesting idea, but I think that the old Lewis With Rollers design was a better way to get rollers at the top and bottom of a lever-cam ascender.

Although this appears to be a close copy, I'm still trying to find an original VersAscender. If you can help my acquire one, please email me.