Introduction

Have you ever been in a situation where you are rigging a line and you were scared that if you remove the front pin from your Alpine WebLock 3.0, you might drop it and lose it forever? Well, below I will discuss three ways to tie your front pin to the weblock so that this situation will never be an issue.

Tying The Cord to the Pin

First off, you will need to acquire some small cord that will fit through the small hole on the handle of the front pin. The best size you can use is 2mm diameter cord, which is readily available at most hardware stores and/or craft stores in your area. Some simple string will work for this purpose. I am using 1.75mm dyneema cord that I found online.

The best way to secure this cord to the front pin is to use two knots: one on either side of the hole. The reason why you should use two knots instead of one is so that the string can rotate freely as you spin the front pin. If you have a single knot, your cord will get heavily twisted as you pre-tension your slackline. The way I do it is I make a simple overhand knot at the very end of the coord, then insert the other side through the hole. Now I make another overhand knot as close to the handle as possible. So now you should have something that looks like the picture below.

Method 1 - Attach Straight to AWL Body

Looking at the AWL, you will notice that the body is significantly smaller towards the anchor hole. This is a great place to tie our front pin off as it will not interfere with the webbing, nor will it matter what connector we use with our AWL. I tied off the cord using a simple bowline knot.

Method 2 - Attach To Pin on 7/16" Bow Shackle

Another way to secure the pin to your device is to attach it to the hole in your 7/16" Bow Shackle. This method works great because it serves two purposes: allows you to to not lose your front pin, and allows you to not lose your shackle pin (provided you only remove one at a time). I tied off the cord to the pin hole using a simple bowline knot.

Method 3 - Attach to Cotter Pin on Van Beest 5/8" Bolt-Type Shackle

The last method I would like to mention is for when you use a Van Beest ⅝" Bolt-Type Shackle with your Alpine WebLock 3.0. I have attached it to the round part of the cotter pin that comes with this shackle. This method will also prevent you from losing the cotter pin during rigging, which is a very common issue given its size. Do not attach the cord to the hole on the bolt on the shackle as you will not be able to remove the bolt. I tied off the cord to the cotter pin using a simple bowline knot.