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peter.draper

A Cautionary Note about Velcro alignment

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A PSA for your info......

It is very important that you mate the hook and pile completely on reserve brake toggles. I opened this today (see pic attached) and found the container damaged over the shoulder by improperly aligned velcro on the reserve brake toggle. The toggle was slightly skewed leaving hook velcro exposed and this has rubbed on the cordura creating some damage.

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JohnSherman

Good job Peter.

Here is a riddle for you:

When don't you have to worry about the velcro on your reserve toggles damaging your container?



When your reserve brake toggles are attached with snaps and there's no high cycle velcro sharp hooks there that can dig into the cordura??????? ;)

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When don't you have to worry about the velcro on your reserve toggles damaging your container?



Quote

When your reserve brake toggles are attached with snaps and there's no high cycle velcro sharp hooks there that can dig into the cordura??????? ;)



Correct !! They call them "Snap Toggles"

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Be thankful that only your Cordura was damaged.
I have grounded several harnesses after hook Velcro chewed them so badly you could see the damage/weave separation from the un-touched side.

I have also had to patch a couple of canopies that were packed into Softies, after they were chewed by Velcro. The Softie shop eventually made the side flaps 2 inches wider to increase the distance between the hook Velcro and the canopy.

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JohnSherman

When don't you have to worry about the velcro on your reserve toggles damaging your container?



When the technology in the rig is so old that the wooden reserve toggles have a few wraps of safety thread holding them the riser?

When you have a good rigger who takes care to stow them properly?

Kidding aside can you post a photo please? Since I don't pack racers I only saw the innards once and that was years ago.

-Michael

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While I have packed a number of SST/Racers, none were with square reserves.

Do you use that same system ( or similar ) on your reserve risers?



We began supplying "Snap Toggles" standard on our reserve risers about 6 months ago. When it was confirmed by several drop zones that "brake fires" were the biggest cause of malfunctions, something we have believed for many years. There have been no known fires of a snap toggle in the 20 years in service, so we felt it was time to upgrade the reserves.

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I still believe that half of "brake fires" are caused by sloppy packing.
I have stopped dozens of junior packers and told them to take a second look at their steering lines.
I have even packed a couple of "brake fires" for myself.
My short-term solution was to pull down on a rear riser to stop the spin from winding up. The long-term solution was to tug every steering line AFTER I set the brakes.

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Quagmirian

But Roooooooooooob, that won't work if you have a decent toggle hood on your riser. I spotted one like that a few weekends ago.



...............................................................................

Toggle hoods are nice, but if you forget to pull the "cat's eye" BELOW the steering guide ring, those beloved toggle hoods get torn off.
Guess how many times I have re-sewn my own toggle hoods????

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