Trango
Jaws
I bought my Trango Jaws from Nomad Adventures in 1997.
The Trango Jaws is a grooved belay tube. It is forged from aluminum alloy and then hard anodized. Mine is 60 mm. long, 48 mm. wide, 113 mm. high, and weighs 78 g. The slots are 33 mm. long and 15 mm. wide. The top of the Omega oval carabiner that I use for comparing belay tubes sits 9 mm. below the ends of the slots. The keeper is a stiff plastic-covered cable.
One side of my Jaws is stamped "TRANGO ITALY" and "PAT.PENDING."
The Trango
Jaws is just like many other devices except for one little difference,
but that difference makes it a much better device than any of
the others. The special feature is the teeth. First of all, if
you don't need them, turn the device 180 degrees and they are
out of the way. On the other hand, if you want more friction,
then the teeth provide it. This is the device of this size and
weight that I feel comfortable rappelling my 9 mm. haul line
on, with the others, I never really felt completely in control
(to be fair, I haven't tried this on the the Omega
Pacific SBG or the Simond
Cubik). The extra control provided by the Jaws is well worth
carrying the extra 15 or 20 grams.
I borrowed the following paragraphs from Trango's web site:
Jaws stops better than most belay/rappel devices. The addition of the V notches really grabs the rope, assisting in slowing down the fall. In lab tests using a UIAA drop tower, an 11 mm. rope, an 80-kg weight with a fall factor of 1.2, and a clutch holding the rope with a 50-lbf slip threshold, we found the following results:
Pyramid/ATC/Tuber style devices 16" - 20" slip, no rope damage GriGri 1" - 3" slip, no rope damage Jaws 6" - 8" slip, no rope damage Jaws allows you to adjust the rope friction during a rappel. By flipping the rope out of the notches and over the side plates at the start of a long rappel, you can reduce the friction the device gives you at the start. When the rappel begins to speed up as you get closer to the ground, flip the ropes back into the notches to slow it down.
You must rig Jaws correctly. It's not symmetrical so you need to be sure the notches are on the brake hand side of the rope, not on the side which goes to the leader. Also, because of the additional friction provided by the device you'll find that the beginnings of long rappels can be a bit jerky. The solution is to allow rope to slide through by varying the angle of your brake hand rather than just letting rope slip through. On low angle slab rappels, turn Jaws around so the notches are on the anchor side and your brake hand is on the smooth side.
The Edelrid Lotse, Salewa Tubus, Singing Rock, and Zero-G G-Wedge are essentially the same device.
BelayTube700.html/070408
©2007, Gary D. Storrick