Front	Rear	Left	Right

Technical Details

Artyom Babin (Артём Бабин) sent me this eight in 2024.

This descender is cast from a stainless steel alloy. It is 121 mm. tall, 69 mm. wide, 31 mm. thick, and weighs 381 g.

There are no markings on this descender.

Comments

Артём called this a descender and it can be used as one, so that's how I classified it. It resembles the Chkalov Aviation Plant Wedge (and to a lesser extent the Cassin Logic, Edelweiss THE 9, and Krok Classic 9) so perhaps I should have classified it as a belay device.

Cassin warns against using the Logic as a descender, and I can see arguments for avoiding using the Karepin as a descender as well. In particular, the rope tends to wedge in the V-shaped portion of the opening, stopping the descent. While this is safer than free-falling, it is unreliable as a safety and inconvenient when activated unintentionally.

More to the point, there are better devices in the Karepin's size and weight range.

Although they appear to be made from the same material, a magnet shows that this descender was not cast from the same alloy as the Lev Petrovich Karepin figure eight with ears. The eight is strongly magnetic, while this descender is almost nonmagnetic. Based on its density (~7.7 g/cm3), I've tentatively identified the alloy as a 400-series stainless steel.

History

This descender was made by Lev Petrovich Karepin, a well-known Russian inventor, engine builder, and master of artistic casting from the city of Omsk.