the wedges and slips sliding in grooves 44a in cam plates 44 which are attached to the secondary wedges connect the wedges secondary wedges and slips and provide sliding contact of the vertical and inclined surfaces conversely a small upward force on gripped pipe sufficient to cause upward movement of inserts 42 and slips 41 on the secondary wedge will lift arm 47 on recess flat 41d to pivot around pin 46 and compress spring 48 the secondary wedge cannot move upwardly on the wedge as outer secondary wedge shoulder 40d is contacting wedge shoulder 36h after about 0 70 inches of upward slip movement on the secondary wedge upper and lower inclined slip surfaces 41b will contact the inner secondary wedge upper and lower inclined surfaces 40c further upward movement of the slips will move the slips inwardly along secondary wedge surfaces 40c causing teeth 42a to penetrate into gripped pipe and grip the pipe tighter as shown in fig1 when upward or downward loads on gripped pipe are removed or the slip assembly is not gripping pipe springs 50 push down on the arms or lift the secondary wedges and slips to be realigned on the arm lower surface returning the slip systems to mid neutral position as shown in fig2 and 8 when pipe loads up or down are sufficient to cause automatic operation of the grip tightening slip systems increased outward forces resulting from increased inward forces on tighter gripped pipe are transmitted through slips secondary wedges and camming segments pressing the outer camming segment surfaces 31c into ring segment grooves 21c frictional forces generated between these contacting surfaces acting through the radial distance to the center of the pipe are great enough to prevent the.