Raumer s.r.l. produce the article 720 TAP since many years and the article has a hardening treatment that allow to perform the manual drilling operation without having the cutting edge in the front of the anchor damaged. So this allow to perform holes even on hard rock avoiding to have to use mor than one self-drilling anchor to perform the hole.
Recently a potential defect was found and this defect is mainly detectable in the installation phase of the anchor when some crack that need to happen during the cone insertion stage instead of stopping at the end of the groove; extend towards the body of the anchor reducing the resistance and the holding capacity.
The root cause of this issue is due to the fact that the grove on side cannot be opened to allow the drilling operation but when the cone on the back expand the anchor (especially on rocks not very hard and/or compact) it generate a crack that instead of stopping at the desired location where the groove end it continue on the body of the anchor.
This effect is amplified by the material hardening treatment. In the past a lot of investigation has been done to prevent this issue but we have come to the conclusion that the design itself is too much sensible to small variation on the material performance after the thermal treatment.
Hence we have decided to implement a design change to prevent this phenomenon entirely.
The new design will be available on the market by July 1st.
On the meantime we kindly ask you to not use this anchor and if you have in your possession and not yet installed you can refer to the shop where you bought and ask for replacement or send directly back to Raumer s.r.l. – Via delle Prese, 13 – 36014 Santorso (VI) Italy and we will send back to you the correct one once available. Since you will have to bear the shipping cost we will add for you more anchor art. 720 New to compensate the sustained cost.
There is a specific lot more affected by this potential issue which has been sold on the market from June 2023 to November 2023 and this batch is traceable by having a opaque anti oxide treatment (B in the picture below). The one sold on the market, commencing Jan 1st 2024 have a more shiny finishing ( A on the picture below) and they are not affected by the problem. In any case Raumer srl is will to replace also this with the new design due to a substantial increase of safety
We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused but we always stand on side of safety and support our client and the mountaineering and caving community.
Santorso, 17/05/2024
Raumer s.r.l.
