Safety gear. Which brands are worth the money.

[mudnut]

I finally ditched the old surf fishing rod blank for a Kings sand flag. For the most part I am happy with the quality of the unit, except for the quick release fittings at the base. These are just repurposed air hose fittings, but they have a very loose fit. I don't think it will last for any great length of time.
Considering the ARB unit is nearly double the price, when the fitting finally breaks it will only cost $20-30 to fix.
While in the store, I had a look at a couple of "complete" generic brand recovery kits. Most were missing vital components such as snatch blocks or hitch fittings.
I imagine plenty of this stuff will be bought by inexperienced people as gifts for beginner off-road enthusiasts.

What is your experience with name-brand vs generic safety and recovery equipment. What problems have you struck. I have had one snatch strap loose integrity after one recovery. All the stitching began to unravel.

[PeeBee]

I have only ever purchased recovery gear with tags and ratings to an Aust Standard, and from a company that I am able to contact by phone with questions or issues. ARB,TJM, George, Kaymar, there are a heap of them, I think the cheap stuff gets marketed in kits to disguise the quality in all honesty. I also look after the gear and chuck it when it gets sign of wear. I also buy gear rated for the loads, so as the truck got heavier I purged the lighter stuff. I am still a believer in the rated steel shackles and use the synthetic look shackles as well, just pick where and when I use each as they have different properties and strength and weaknesses.

[mudnut]

TBH the strap I mentioned was obtained when I first bought a 4wd Corolla in the nineties. Long before joining the forum, I had no idea what I was doing, and used the towball as a recovery point on several occasions. I shudder to think what might have happened if a little more force was exerted during recovery. Back then, info was pretty scarce and my fault for really not trying to learn beforehand. That is why I opened this discussion, in the hope beginners will see it. Your post highlights the right way to obtain recovery gear, @PeeBee.

[Cuppa]

I finally ditched the old surf fishing rod blank for a Kings sand flag. For the most part I am happy with the quality of the unit, except for the quick release fittings at the base. These are just repurposed air hose fittings, but they have a very loose fit. I don't think it will last for any great length of time.
Considering the ARB unit is nearly double the price, when the fitting finally breaks it will only cost $20-30 to fix.
While in the store, I had a look at a couple of "complete" generic brand recovery kits. Most were missing vital components such as snatch blocks or hitch fittings.
I imagine plenty of this stuff will be bought by inexperienced people as gifts for beginner off-road enthusiasts.

What is your experience with name-brand vs generic safety and recovery equipment. What problems have you struck. I have had one snatch strap loose integrity after one recovery. All the stitching began to unravel.

I have never been keen on buying anything from Kings, which despite the apparent popularity of their gear I have always considered cheap disposable rubbish suitable only for short term use. However I recently wanted a new sand flag, & convinced myself that with such a basic design there was nothing they could stuff up with one, so like you I bought a Kings sand flag.

It has only served to confirm my long held view of Kings gear. Like you I have discovered the crappy very loose fit of the quick release fitting. The fitting is cheap & nasty, it's design with just a little more metal on it would be fine, but imho it is cost cutting beyond practicality. An extra 2 cents of metal in the right place would have made it fit for purpose. I now have a sand flag requiring tying up to make it useable which totally defeats the purpose of the quick release fitting. It will be the only & the very last thing I buy from Kings! I wish I had kept the sand flag we had on the Patrol - It was also a quick release design & worked perfectly. (From 'Roadsafe' I think)

If you find a solution to the wobbly fitting (other than tying up the flag 'pole') please let me know. What is your $20-$30 fix? I'm not convinced that a new fitting will suffice unless you can buy (& fit) the fitting on the pole itself, as well as the other half. Let me know if you think this is do-able.

As for recovery gear I recently splurged out on all new gear for the OKA, replacing heavy D shackles, snatch blocks & snatch straps with all rope gear from Saber. Only metal is the alloy rope ring & the alloy replacement for the winch hook (which takes a rope shackle). The rope shackles, with the exception of the one the alloy ring runs in are all bound with a material (Technora) which makes them suitable for 'traditional' recovery points with square edged holes. The Kinetic rope replacing a snatch strap is said to have more stretch & to be more effective than a flat strap.
Although the gear is all necessarily bigger & heavier than we had for the Patrol the change reduced our recovery gear weight (not including the winch rope as the winch came with rope not wire cable) by more than half as well as making it a lot safer to use. I haven't used any of it yet so can't speak from experience, but I did find Saber good to deal with. I sent them a list of what I wanted rather than buying a 'kit' (because the kits included stuff I didn't need) & requested a discount. They asked hat I phone them to talk about my use to ensure I received the appropriate products, which I considered good service (ie. not just selling whatever they could) AND they gave me a discount of around $200 compared to the the sum of individual prices. I feel ok about the quality of the gear.

[Cuppa]

If anyone is interested I have the following for sale. Well travelled but never used.

Rope shackle (Roadsafe brand) Rated for 9000kg
Snatch Strap (Black Rat brand) Rated for 12,000kg.

$100 for both (+ postage if needed). Can pick up near Ballarat.


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[PeeBee]

Yes, Sabre is another one I have in my armory.

[MudRunnerTD]

TBH the strap I mentioned was obtained when I first bought a 4wd Corolla in the nineties. Long before joining the forum, I had no idea what I was doing, and used the towball as a recovery point on several occasions. I shudder to think what might have happened if a little more force was exerted during recovery. Back then, info was pretty scarce and my fault for really not trying to learn beforehand. That is why I opened this discussion, in the hope beginners will see it. Your post highlights the right way to obtain recovery gear, @PeeBee.

The information and anecdotes relating to TowBall recovery was not even a thing back then mate. Snatch straps were a new invention then too. The whole concept of Kenetic Energy recovery was witchcraft. You would need a big pool of middle aged blokes that were 4wdriving in the 1990 to find 1 bloke that did Not use a tow ball! It was standard practice.

If you are in the market for some gear mate i can certainly make up a package for you with 4.5T shackles, ARB Snatch strap only 1 or 2 pulls old and an ARB Winch extension strap that is brand new never unrolled. Also an ARB Snatch Block, maybe 2 and put it in a bag for you. Yell out mate and i can send you some pics. I have moved on and now have a 20T Kinetic Rope i have never used and a full kit of soft shackles, Spare winch rope i use as an extension and 3 large snatch rings. I did have the kit listed on FB Market place but got dicked around a couple of times so just removed it. Happy to look after you Craig, im never going to use it again.

[mudnut]

Thanks for the offer, Darren, but I have a pretty good kit. I only need to get the light snatch block for dyneema rope, and another winch rope to replace the current one. It has a heat blemish from moving an extremely heavy log. I will learn how to make soft shackles and keep the rest of the old rope as an extension. A pair of Maxtrax is on the list too.

I see that a lot of Yanks have mostly abandoned the snatch straps in favour of the kinetic rope.

I used the new flag at Swan Lake today. I found a layer of electrical tape reduced the movement at the base quite a bit. I wonder if a plastic dip might work a bit better