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Suspension rings: Why? - 7/9/2008 12:45:42 PM

YoungDom4FSlave

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I've been curious about suspension bondage for quite a while and, while I don't have the facilities to do it at the moment, I figure I can still learn about it.

From what I understand, all you really need are a few ceiling hooks (like those used for hanging chairs, which also serve as a discrete cover for their real use). So my question is, why do you need steel suspension rings that cost a huge amount of money? Are they just to give you more space on which to put rope, since hooks are narrow? Or do you not use the steel rings with ceiling hooks at all and use something else? I know almost nothing about it, so any info would be great. Thanks!

RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/9/2008 1:37:38 PM

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Well, first of all, suspention bondage rings only "cost a huge amount of money" if they are stainless steel. Aluminum ones are less than half the cost. http://www.kinkyropes.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=82

Anyway, as for use ..... your correct. It simply gives you a large area to work from. When you figure a support line from the chest harness, another suport line (or two) from the hip harness, suplemental lines from each ankle, and maybee a line for a cradel for the head, and then figure your using 'folded rope' style on each line so all that is double the number of ropes ..... it all adds up fast and running it through just one hook is going to get the lines tangled.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/9/2008 3:34:08 PM

YoungDom4FSlave

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Thanks a lot for the info. I had always wondered about that. I definitely appreciate the quick response.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/9/2008 7:17:09 PM

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And don't forget to check out your local hardware store for most of the things you need. Shop on line for specifications... then buy locally.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/9/2008 9:37:19 PM

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farm stores, tack shop, hardware stores. Why buy from a bondage shop something that is 50-75% less in the "regular" market. Take a ring that is rated for 600lbs at the hardware store and it is 2 dollars, go to a bondage store that claims it is genuine bondage stuff and bam 20 bucks
Working men have been using every day stuff for ever. Bondage stores have only been around for 10s of year not hundred but suspension has been around for thousands

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 3:32:00 AM

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What he said.

Your average vanilla building store, will be able to speak structural requirements better than a sex shops. Hammocks make a good cover story for the shy.
Any rope based recreational climbers can offer rope and harness tips.

And remember to over-engineer the hard points, since they wont only have to take a static weight, but also momentum, swinging and wear and tear.
Picture someone have a full body thrashing orgasm and not stopping for minutes, then engineer past that.

Think of rope chafe, leather rot, crackes in the metal, loose bolts and unexpected failures, so pick a simple design that's easy to inspect and test.

Screws and nails pull out, so bolts going through to back plates are better. Putting a bolt through a beam, risks weakening the beam, so think about going around it. Make sure to spread any load, as well have excess capacity in case all the weight goes sideways.

Winches or pulleys offer easy height adjustment, not just up, but down to the ground if you need to stop and make harness adjustments.
Shears or large, razor sharp, serrated blades, are a good idea if you want to get someone out of rope in a hurry.
Commercial "panic snaps" work better than trying to lift chain links off hooks or unscrewing shackles in an emergency, but you probably want to cushion the fall.

Learn ground shibari before trying airborne, since people squirm and their skins get slick with sweat (if you do it right), and shifting knots risk cutting blood supplies (DVT), air supplies (3mins = brain damage) causing nerve damage, and that's before you get to hangmens drops from faulty panic snaps.
Learning on the ground is less riskier.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 8:19:05 AM

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~sigh~ This again .....

The same arguments came up last time suspention rings were talked about. And from the same people too. http://www.collarchat.com/m_1705359/mpage_1/tm.htm

Le tme explain this again -> Size matters.

The stuff you get at a hardware store or a farm shop is going to signifanatly smaller in diamater than rings used for suspention. The largest diamater I have ever seen at a hardware store is 2 inches across. If that is the dimater you wind up working with, you might as well skip the ring totaly and just work off the hook.

Everyone seems to get caught up nitpicking about strength rating. suspention bondage folks love to argue this topic. It just goes with the teritory. But strength rating is totaly beside the point here. Its size. If I am trying to run 1 dozen or more ropes through a 2 inch ring, I dont give a flying crap if it can support 17 tons. 2 inches across is not going to be enough working room for the ropes and they will get tangled.

Before suspention rings, people were using caribeners for their hardpoints. Those were only 2 or 3 inches across and in order to get the nessasary amount of surface area for all the ropes people were buying 5 or 6. The reason suspention rings became so popular was that because even though 1 ring was more expensive than 1 caribener, when you added up the cost of all the caribeners you needed to get the same surface area as 1 ring it was actualy cheeper. There wasent any strength rating difrence between rings abd beeners, it was the surface area.

The first time I ever saw someone using a suspention ring was at LeatherRetreat back in 2002. While they were setting up their frame and unloading the toybag they had taken the ring and droped it over their own head and were wearign it like a necklass. That gave them both hands free. Now ~modern~ suspention rings are not quite that large, but they are still going to be a lot bigger than anythign you can get at a hardwaree store.

The reason suspention rings cost more is because they are bigger. In the last previsous thread Nyckname gave a link to a farm supply outlet selling 4 inch rings. The price was nearly 10 times the cost of the same 2 inch ring. Using the same scale that would make a 6 inch ring aviable from kinkyropes to be $140 and an 8 inch ring from twistedmonk to be $1,400

I write this knowing full well that the only thing people will argue is 'how much weight do they hold'. Usuing the same logic we coudl argue that nobody would ever need a 2,000 square foot home when a 900 square foot apartnment will still have the floor beams hold the same amount of weight. The strength of the floor isnt the issue, its how much room you have to spead out. Likewise, the strngth fo the suspention ring is isnt as important as how much room you have for all of the ropes to spread out.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 9:08:40 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHungryTiger

The stuff you get at a hardware store or a farm shop is going to signifanatly smaller in diamater than rings used for suspention. The largest diamater I have ever seen at a hardware store is 2 inches across.

You've never been to the hardware store in my town then. I'm not talking about a chain store either.

Cali

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 2:13:04 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHungryTiger

Le tme explain this again -> Size matters.

Indeed it does. A couple of weeks ago we did our first bondage demo using a ring instead of biners, and it's really much more comfortable tying. And yes, it's my experience too that it's hard to find rings large enough from vanilla shops.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 2:17:16 PM

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Not everything can be done "on the cheap."

Sometimes you just have to break down and make some sacrifices if you want to do it right.

Very few subs I know feel terribly special when thier tops treat them to "value village" bondage. It says something about how much you care.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 2:19:51 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rafters

Winches or pulleys offer easy height adjustment, not just up, but down to the ground if you need to stop and make harness adjustments.
Shears or large, razor sharp, serrated blades, are a good idea if you want to get someone out of rope in a hurry.
Commercial "panic snaps" work better than trying to lift chain links off hooks or unscrewing shackles in an emergency, but you probably want to cushion the fall.

Whinches an pulleys create unpredictable forces on the body of the person suspended. You can use them, but imo the added risks do not outweigh the added benefits, as they are in no way necessary to suspend people, unless you want them to hang just below the ceiling (which can be quite a dramatic effect). Panic snaps aren't fool proof, and certainly not moron proof. They too aren't necessary. I'd rather recommend investing in proper tying techniques that enable you to do suspensions without whiches and panic snaps, than too invest in unnecessary hardware that might fail or is prone to human error.
Also, I've long been of the opinion that a serrated blade is the best safety tool, but as many venues down here now ban knifes, I've switched to climbing sports rescue hooks - they're safe, created for cutting ropes close to the body, slice through 8mm hem without any effort and cannot be mistaken for an illegal weapon.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 4:52:32 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Leatherist

Very few subs I know feel terribly special when thier tops treat them to "value village" bondage. It says something about how much you care.

Really? I would have to completely disagree here. "'value village' bondage" works for me 100%. As long as my safety isn't compromised, I don't give a shit whether he bought 100% silk magic bondage ropes twisted by sherpas on the top of Mount Everest or whether he picked up a clothesline at the dollar store.

I'm not into BDSM so I can brag to people about how expensive the stuff I buy is. The cheaper I can get something, the happier I am-since it means that I have more money to spend visiting and having fun outside the bedroom with my dom.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 5:45:04 PM

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Just wondering here ..... do you own any vibrators or dildos? After all, just using your fingers is totaly free.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 6:48:35 PM

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FR:
Hammocks, hell. Ask about circus/acrobatic equipment. You can always say you're setting up a novice aerialist practice rig in an unused barn. That way you can also ask about wear under stress, movement, doubled and tripled loads, sudden stresses, effects of sweat on the gear, and so on. And you're still not getting into topics embarrassing either to you or the clerk.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/10/2008 10:29:47 PM

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Well, to throw in my .02 here, I am a welder and a machinist, so I do know a thing or two about what we are talking about here.

I can see why people are aprehensive about plunking down the money for a big fancy ass 304 Stainless suspension ring, It is 50 bucks, If you have no fabrication skills, the argument I would make is well it is way cheaper than a visit to the ER.

Really though anything worth doing is worth doing right. And if you know how to do things, the possibilites are limitless. Testing things with dummy loads is a good idea. 5 gallon buckets full of water weigh about 41 lbs each. if you can put 6 or 8 of em on your hard point and kick em around with out it ripping out or making bad noises, your probably doing somthing right, or you could be like me and just make everything out of carbon steel and weld it out with E7018 or TIG and use things like gussets that reinforce structural lines of force. but I am kind of crazy like that.

Any hardware you get should be quality stuff, look it over, there is so much junk made in china today that you have to be careful. Somthing that has not been brought up that I feel is worth mentioning is that many store bought fasteners are made of low grade steel then galvanised by some commie working for peanuts half way around the world. Often times these coatings can chip and flake off, creating a sharp edge that can cut some one, or give them splinters. Not to mention leaving them needing a tetnis shot badly.

Also, check out things other people have done, I know people love to show off thier creations, get some one talking about what they have built, and they will probably talk your ear right off, get them to show you what problems they had, and where things went wrong, there is a whole weath of information in what others have done wrong.

In all actuality your talking about rigging that if your supporting a female who is height and weight perportionate, your looking at a load that is between 100 and 135lbs for the most part. Doing this really isnt rocket science, just build it right and take your time. Also somthing no one has sugjested in a while is using a chainfall. They last forever when neglected, and they are mechanically opperated, as well they can pick up weights up into the thousands of pounds depending on the model, and they need nothing more than a good eye bolt in the celing to hook into and can be taken down easily.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/11/2008 6:20:43 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MisterBeast
Also somthing no one has sugjested in a while is using a chainfall. They last forever when neglected, and they are mechanically opperated, as well they can pick up weights up into the thousands of pounds depending on the model, and they need nothing more than a good eye bolt in the celing to hook into and can be taken down easily.

They have a great sound, too

The downside is they need clearance... most people end up having to work with an 8-foot residential ceiling height, and a chainfall hung from a ceiling suspension point just eats up too much of it.

Since we don't do rope suspension, i've never really seen the need for a suspension ring... When i had our setup in our last house, i just had 3/8" chain dropped from 5/8" forged eyebolts to the floor, and just used climbing carabiners to hook on as needed. All the body contacts were either Mr. S suspension gear, or stuff that i made myself (and i overbuild the shit out of everything i make... i do a lot of DIY of all sorts, so i've got a good feel for it).

But, add all that together, and it was still pretty damn far from cheap, so...

i also had a big-ass piece of galvanized pipe (forgot where i picked that up) with 3/8" U-bolts (meant for boat trailer axles) running through it to spread out load... Effective, not too ghetto-looking, and it doubles as a chin-up bar.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/11/2008 6:42:37 PM

SNoB

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quote:

ORIGINAL: welikespice

farm stores, tack shop, hardware stores. Why buy from a bondage shop something that is 50-75% less in the "regular" market. Take a ring that is rated for 600lbs at the hardware store and it is 2 dollars, go to a bondage store that claims it is genuine bondage stuff and bam 20 bucks
Working men have been using every day stuff for ever. Bondage stores have only been around for 10s of year not hundred but suspension has been around for thousands

Aside from what TheHungryTiger said, because I agree with him. I just think buying something from a hardware store that says "not for use with overhead lifting or bearing human weight" and using it for overhead lifting AND holding human weight is pretty fucking stupid. Also, have you looked closely at those welded rings at hardware stores? The weld isnt ground down and covered with sharp burs, do you really want your rope rubbing over these? I sure as hell dont. Im sure the person you are suspending will be like "oh yeah, tear your rope up and compromise its strength by using that cheap piece of junk that im trusting my life to."

And please people, dont use panic snaps from a tack shop, they are designed to break! Why would you want that?

In the grand scheme of things, is 50 bucks (for a piece of equipment that will never wear out and you can use with as many partners as you want) so much to ask? In the back of my mind I dont have to think "is this thing going to break and cause my rope bottoms face to smash into the concrete while her hands are tied behind her back?"
titleAnd

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/11/2008 7:04:23 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: SNoB

quote:

ORIGINAL: welikespice

farm stores, tack shop, hardware stores. Why buy from a bondage shop something that is 50-75% less in the "regular" market. Take a ring that is rated for 600lbs at the hardware store and it is 2 dollars, go to a bondage store that claims it is genuine bondage stuff and bam 20 bucks
Working men have been using every day stuff for ever. Bondage stores have only been around for 10s of year not hundred but suspension has been around for thousands

Aside from what TheHungryTiger said, because I agree with him. I just think buying something from a hardware store that says "not for use with overhead lifting or bearing human weight" and using it for overhead lifting AND holding human weight is pretty fucking stupid. Also, have you looked closely at those welded rings at hardware stores? The weld isnt ground down and covered with sharp burs, do you really want your rope rubbing over these? I sure as hell dont. Im sure the person you are suspending will be like "oh yeah, tear your rope up and compromise its strength by using that cheap piece of junk that im trusting my life to."

And please people, dont use panic snaps from a tack shop, they are designed to break! Why would you want that?

In the grand scheme of things, is 50 bucks (for a piece of equipment that will never wear out and you can use with as many partners as you want) so much to ask? In the back of my mind I dont have to think "is this thing going to break and cause my rope bottoms face to smash into the concrete while her hands are tied behind her back?"
titleAnd

Exactly.

I care about people who are gracious enough to let me have fun topping them too much to put them at risk by being a "fucking cheapskate*.

I'd rather pay the price than risk them having to.

Check this out about rings from twisted monk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73gRgfWhthY

And you are not going to find something like this in a "hardware store"-period.

< Message edited by Leatherist -- 7/11/2008 7:24:23 PM >

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/11/2008 8:27:36 PM

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quote:

Aside from what TheHungryTiger said, because I agree with him.

Twice in two weeks?????

Now I know I MUST have fallen into a parallel universe.

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RE: Suspension rings: Why? - 7/11/2008 8:44:11 PM

SNoB

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I can only agree with you because you havent said anything about center marks or buttons

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