Front View	Rear View	Side View

Technical Details

I acquired this rack from John E. Weinel, Inc. in 1991. He obtained it while visiting Russia.

This rack is 228 mm. tall, 48 mm. wide, 23 mm. thick, and weighs 280 g. The frame is made from 7.2 mm. steel bent into shape, with an internal width of 21 mm. and a 19 mm. diameter coiled eye. There are five brake bars. The bars are 16 mm. in diameter and 48 mm. long. Allowing 45 mm. for the rope leaves 23 mm. range for spreading the bars.

There are no markings on this rack.

Comments

I consider this rack to be too small for use on stiff caving ropes.

I asked Artyom Babin (Артём Бабин) if he could identify this rack. He replied,

"I think 90% that this is also Boris Laptev. No one else copied the North American racks samples."

The 10% doubt has merit, and so I sent this response:

"I have another rack... obtained from some visiting Soviet cavers around 1992. That one has brake bars stamped with the Boris Laptev logo, so I am fairly certain it is a Boris Laptev rack. It is much larger than… [this] one (301 mm. vs. 228mm. tall), has a welded eye instead of a coiled eye, and has 19 mm. bars instead of 16mm. bars. That doesn't mean that… [this] one was not made by Boris Laptev, but there are enough differences to leave that 10% doubt.

"Both racks made it to the USA at about the same time (1991-1992), so they could be contemporaneous as well. Of course, US manufacturers made different size & style racks at the same time, and Boris Laptev may have done the same."