Front View	Rear View

Technical Details

I acquired my Miller 1200 rope grab on eBay from Cal Manky in 2007.

The Miller rope grab resembles a twisted, cast bronze Figure-8 descender, but it has a long flat arm sticking off to one side. Overall, the Miller is 250 mm. tall, 156 mm. wide, and 49 mm thick. Mine weighs 715 g. The large hole has a 59.7 mm. i.d. There is a 550 mm. length of 11 mm. manila rope spliced to the large hole, with a snap hook spliced at the other end. The small hole of the "8" is D-shaped, 20.5 mm. along the straight side of the "D," and 25.5 mm. perpendicular to this. The end of the flat bar is bent upward about 25°, and has a 13.8 mm. hole drilled near the end.

One side of the large hole has "MILLER EQUIPMENT CO, INC." and "FRANKLIN, PENNA." in raised letters. The other side has "MILLER ROPE GRAB - CAT NO. 1200" and "PAT. PENDING," also in raised letters.

Comments

Well, this is an interesting piece, and although I can see a few ways that it might be used, I'm really not sure how the designer intended it to be used. At first glance, it isn't even obvious that this is a rope grab. Cal Manky thought it was, in his words, "a type of early rappelling device, as near as I can tell," but the words on the device clearly state that it is a rope grab.

I suspected that this rope grab dates from about 1964 for two reasons. First, it came with a Miller Equipment Company of Canada safety belt with serial number 6/64 - which might be a date. The belt had a metal ring with "MILLER EQUIPMENT CO, INC." and "FRANKLIN, PENNA." in raised letters. Obviously, the belt and rope grab went together. Second, Description 197,382 filed with the U.S. Patent Office on January 21, 1964 shows this device. Unfortunately, there was no indication in the description of how one uses this device, but it did identify the inventors as Canadian, and Canadian Patent #697835 shows how the device is used.

In use, the standing line passes through the small hole and the user ties a half-hitch around the arm at the desired location. There are two things that I don't like about this idea. First, the user must have the end of the rope available to rig in, and second, the device provides no security if the user removes the half hitch, as (s)he might when moving to a new position.