Had a thought for another dead man today.
Since not all anchors are good or best for all soil conditions, another dead man design might be desirable.
In particular, I was thinking that the washer dead men might not work too good in rocky soil. For rocky soil a solid, pointed cylinder would work better.
Ideally, I want to use the same 1/4" TI driver for the second dead man also.
So the following design occurred to me:
The design uses a solid steel cylinder with three holes drilled in it, one end cut off on a diagonal, say 45 deg. and the other end ground to a point.
One hole is 1/4" diameter and drilled on the cylindrical axis. The 1/4 driver is inserted in the hole to drive the dead man.
One hole, at the mid-point between the ends and slightly above the cylindrical axis is for the anchor line. By being slightly above the cylindrical axis, it should be better to pull the dead man horizontal.
The last hole is for the retrieval line and through the cylindrical axis and at the shoulder of the pointed end.
Using steel for the dead man, it might be beneficial to hammer the slanted end point to make a slight spur to enhance the ability of the anchor line to pull the dead man horizontal instead of straight back up.
I think the retrieval line would be absolutely necessary here, since a steel dead man, say 1/2" diameter, would be heavy enough that carrying more than 2 would not be desirable. I'm thinking a dead man 3" tip to tip would be sufficient, but that is based on total ignorance on my part. Since the dead man would be retrieved, the anchor and retrieval lines would probably be steel cable with loops and crimped ferrules.
It may be that AL could be used for the dead man. Don't really know.
Either steel or AL, the only real challenge I foresee in making the dead man would be drilling the anchor line hole off-axis.
Any problems with this design. I think it's probably pretty close to what you have been doing Xexorz.
Bookmarks