Amsteel Aiders

[J.P.]

Finally placed my order of sticks and rope from DanO Tuesday of this week. They were on my porch this afternoon. What’s not to like about that.

I elected to go with 1/4” Amsteel for some rope mods, but also ordered enough 1/4” to make my own aiders. Question is, now looking at it, should I have gone with 1/8” or 3/16” for my aiders? May be interested in swapping 20ft of 1/4” if so.

Definitely glad I opted for the 1/4” for the rope mod but maybe thinking I went overboard for the aiders?

Went with Resc Tech For LB and Terher and 5.5mm BC for my hitches. Gonna be a fun year.
Jake

 

[bodark]

Personally I don’t like super thin aiders. It feels like I’m standing on dental floss. For that reason I’m still a webbing guy even though I realize there a lighter/more packable options. From a weight perspective you’re not going to notice enough of a difference to amount to anything.

I say just stick with what you have and roll on. Welcome to the boards and good luck.

 

[Weldabeast]

2" webbing is my material of choice for my aiders. IMO the thinner the material the worse they are to use

 

[philsanchez76]

Agree. I tried all amsteel aider and hurt the feet and definitely felt less steady climbing. Now I have 3 step webbing aider with a 4th step added of amsteel. It’s mostly for that first setting of the one stick. The amsteel allows me an extrA 2 feet on that first move.

 

[J.P.]

I guess I’m going to stick with the 1/4” amsteel at least for now. BUT I do plan to add some heater hose or tubing to add stability to my foot when I step into the aider.

 

[Weldabeast]

This is just my opinion and based off what's available to buy, I am in the minority.....
If I'm up in a tree precariously dangling off something, I want that thing to have a wide a step as possible. My sticks have 2" wide standing surface, my climbing stirrups are 2" wide, and my aider also 2". Honestly I wish I would have made my stirrups 3 inches wide or more. The hose will help but it still doesn't distribute the load of ur body across a wide surface area of ur foot...maybe hard sole boots help but I prefer soft bottom shoes. Wearing Crocs or other soft soles go stand on ur amsteel aider for 5 minutes.....gets uncomfortable quick. Now image climb up while hunting and a couple does come in and ur caught in ur aider and u gotta wait them out for a minute before u can either pull up ur bow or finished getting set up

 

[JFin15]

Now I'm using the footloop from my saka mini knee ascender with my bolt aider. Sometime before season ill make another one of the right length so I can unclip once at height and just leave the footloop on. The pic is just an example, not my actual bolt aider

I bought another footloop from Richard's site, climbing innovations, to use with late season boots so you can get these foot loops seperate. I really prefer these over anything else (if using some sort of CAYG aider) because they're comfortable and stay put without being too tight.

If I ever use my Kn/Sw again, I'll incorporate something like this for the foot and splice the rest w/ 1/8 amsteel

The mini biners Richard sells are rated at 4kn which is the most compact I've found with a decent enough rating I'm comfortable standing on.

I could continue using only amsteel no prob but it does make the foot sore if in one spot too long.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[Mschmeiske]

Run with what you got! Thinner might not be as comfy and would wear faster.

 

[DroptineKrazy]

The aiders on my Hawk minis are made of 1/8" Amsteel with fuel line hose on them. I can't see needing anything else considering my foot is on them for about 5 seconds at a time.