Direct Ice Release By: Steven

Everyone seems very focussed with using ice to make scissors or keys drop. However if you find you then can't get to them or if your circulation has constricted in the meantime, you may be in serious trouble, as you will be if you find they are the wrong keys or you can't quite reach the lock - all the silly little oversights that crop up in your worst case scenario.

 

A far better situation is to use a ratchet pulley directly connected to the ice, which has to be firmly secured in an old sock or something much more substantial than a stocking - something that can resist pulling and tugging with one's full force behind it. When the ice melts, the whole pulley comes free and you can move somewhere else or simply work yourself free at that point.

 

For those that aren't familiar with it, the ratchet pulley is a pulley with a ratchet in it that will prevent the rope running backwards once it is pulled - not unlike a slip knot, but with a little release lever in the pulley itself. It allows you to get in a very tight inescapable bind, providing you can't reach the pulley. It is good for things like self-imposed strappados, the bed spreadeagle, or even some hog ties. This latter can be done with the sock/ice/pulley secured to a loop around the shoulders (not the neck or gag strap) and the rope then going through a ring at the ankles and back to the wrists.

 

In my view this is one of the safest methods around in that you can directly control (pull on) the ice. Just make sure the ring over the ice has nothing to snag on the sock or any other protrusions when you pull it back to undo it (eg catching on clothing etc).

 

 

Added 2012-07-11