In reply to J Piotrowski:
I’m fairly certain I used an Edeldrid 11mm static line (it’s in the cupboard under the stairs and I’m not going ‘burrowing’ for it now!) It was white with black flecks in it - I think standard to distinguish it from ordinary climbing ropes. I also had an ordinary 9mm perlon climbing rope as a safety rope, useful spare line alongside - also useful to stop you spinning round under overhangs.
I had a chest and sit harness, plus wooden sit seat (essential for hanging in space for any length of time at all) - superb when you had it set up right. You could sit up there all day, like sitting on a garden bench in space. Croll ascendeur and Petzl descendeur. (Practise changing from one to the other - there’s lots to go wrong … practise somewhere close to the ground!) Jumar on left in diagram I think was on the same static line above everything else. Extra ascendeur strapped to boot. I developed this system over many months, with lots of advice from Richard McHardy (single rope access expert).
Below is a very rough sketch of the set up I made at the time, and a shot of me (c.30 years ago!) wearing the kit at the Roaches. Static line just visible in bottom L corner.
The camera, btw, was a very expensive 6x9 roll film camera (120 roll film) which took 9 frames at a time, IIRC. Or maybe only 8 (god, my memory is hazy). Very tough in those days when you had to wait to the next day to see the results, or if anything had gone wrong technically with the shots.
I’ve looked up the technical details of the camera now: Horseman Super Wide 612 with a 6 x 9 roll film back. (I had five roll film cameras in all: 1 Hasselblad, 2 Fuji 6x9 roll film rangefinder cameras, one Fuji GA645 autofocus camera and the Horseman).
Post edited at 21:41