Stopper	Short Stop

Overview

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Stopper
(#1485)

Front	Rear

Technical Details

I made my Stopper in 2016.

My Stopper is 211 mm. tall, 38 mm. wide, 6 mm. thick, and weighs 102 g.

I milled this Stopper from 6061-T6 aluminum alloy plate. The eye is 14.3 mm. in diameter. The slots are 56 mm. long and 14.3 mm. wide.

Comments

The Stopper is an old design developed by John Cole and John Patten, and illustrated in the July 1981 NSS News (Dave Hughes, 1981. "An Interview with John Cole." The NSS News, v.39, #7, p.3). John explained the Stopper as follows:

"One idea that we had was called the Stopper, and it involved reversing the role of the brake bars and the carabiners in the double brake bar rig."

Bill Walden displayed one at the 2016 NSS Convention. He provided the following description:

Bar with two slots must have been used in conjunction with two carabiners used as brake bars. It is light at 10.5 oz -- bar+2 REI carabiners.

I photographed Bill's and later made one for myself, scaling the dimensions from my photo. The weight difference between mine and Bill’s is not what it seems - Bill included the weight of the carabiners when he stated 10.5 ounces.

There is no need to use two carabiners - the slots spacing allows using a single carabiner oriented vertically to serve as a brake bar for each slot, as John Cole described. The carabiner may shift a bit, and the user should ensure that if it does, it shifts so that the rope moves toward the spine of the carabiner.

Overall, this is a nice historical curiosity, but not something to adopt for serious caving in the modern age.

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Short Stop
(#3122)

Front	Rear

Technical Details

I made my Short Stop from Gary Storrick in 2016.

My Short Stop is 122 mm. tall, 36 mm. wide, 6 mm. thick, and weighs 61 g.

I milled this Short Stop from 6061-T6 aluminum alloy plate. The eye is 16.1 mm. in diameter. The slot is 57 mm. long and 16 mm. wide.

Comments

The Short Stop is another old design developed by John Cole and John Patten, and illustrated in the July 1981 NSS News (Dave Hughes, 1981. "An Interview with John Cole." The NSS News, v.39, #7, p.3). John explained the Short Stop as follows:

"The Short Stop was like half of a stopper. This necessitated fabrication of an aluminum frame that looked like a big chain link and then clipping in a carabiner with a loop of rope inserted through it. By twisting or sliding the carabiner, the rope would change its contact geometry with the frame and, hence, control the rate of descent. It works OK when properly sized, but I doubt that it will ever be tried again"

John, of course, did not count on my obsession with trying descenders.

I added a separate carabiner hole like the one on Bill Walden's Stopper; otherwise, the Short stop would look too much like my Figure 0 (a less serious device that was used with a Figure 1 instead of a carabiner).

My Short Stop gives about the same friction as a single carabiner with brake bar, which is not enough for my taste. Lightweights may like it more than I do.

This is another nice historical curiosity, but not something to adopt for serious caving in the modern age.

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