Front	Rear
Top	Bottom

Technical Details

I bought my Toucan from Mountain Gear in 2006. I acquired another from Premiere Consignment, LLC on eBay in 2018.

The body of the Toucan consists of two forged aluminum side pieces riveted to a center rib formed by two pieces stamped from 1.9 mm. sheet aluminum. Each side piece creates a 14.3 mm long, 15.8 mm. wide rope slot between itself and the center rib. Five depressions on the outside and three on the inside of each side piece lighten them somewhat. The central rib pieces are flat except at the outer top end, where they flare slightly to better define the rope slots. The other end of the slot has a 20 mm. I.D. hollow rivet fitting through holes in the central ribs and a pivoting keeper arm. The keeper arm has a large, roughly D-shaped attachment hole. A spring-wire on the keeper arm tends to force the keeper away from the main central ribs, should the two be pushed together.

One side of the central rib is stamped with "TOUCAN" outside the side piece, and with a climber icon and up arrow inside the rope groove on the side near the keeper arm. The other side of the central rib has a similar icon and arrow in the corresponding place, and outside the side piece has "Simond," "min 2*Ø7.5," and "05578." One side of the keeper arm is stamped with two arrows pointing to the D-shaped hole and "0 kN" between them, while the other side is stamped "Pat. Pend."

Comments

The origin of the name "Toucan" is rather obvious: look at the photo.

The Toucan functions as a normal two-slot belay device. In this case, one clips the keeper arm hole with the same carabiner that the rope bight(s) passes through. The slots are longer than the ones found on most Sticht Plate Belayers or Tube Belayers, so it does not provide as much friction. The slot size is similar to that on the Cassin #217 and the Kong Gi–gi, two guide devices. The Toucan can also work well as a guide’s device, using the round hole to attach to an anchor and an auxiliary carabiner to set up an autostop belay (as done with the Kong Gi–gi).

The connection between the keeper arm and the main body appears weak, and the "0 kN" stamp supports my observation. I am surprised that there is no counter-indication in the (quite sparse) directions that came with the Toucan. My advice is to treat the keeper arm as a no-strength component.

Warning: Never support a person or an important load from the keeper arm hole!