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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Pictures of devices, to follow, all are still Go to pieces that see action as often as any Grigri or Hip belay both of which I also use regularly.:``Below, Robots, these Work great! are the dental floss tamer'sMulti use,Above, Hauling, auto-block,mode.Below rap. mode these have both seen Miles of decent and hauling` The green was new in '97?= New and not nearly as versatile
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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Interesting how the belay devices have evolved. I got into climbing in the mid 80's and I think my first belay device was a Lowe tuber, though I had a figure 8 before I got the tuber. Didn't really pay attention to when figure 8's disappeared from racks but seems into the mid 90's you'd see a mix of devices at the crags.
I'm with Donini on the the hip belay for a second on easy ground. I've never been able to yard in rope they way you can with a hip belay when using a belay device. Aside from the automated gizmo's I think I've used most variety of plates, tube, atc, munter hitch etc.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Oct 20, 2015 - 11:26am PT
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Jumar Pangit was a Swiss manufacturer located in Reichenbach, founded by Adolph Juesi and Walter Marti. Mr. Juesi was studying eagles for the Swiss government and needed to ascend on ropes in order to perform his work, so Mr. Marti developed the ascender for him. In 1958, they introduced the first jumar to the climbing market.
In 1982 I was in Europe on business. One weekend I drove to Reichenbach to meet Walter Marti, the designer and manufacturer of the Jumar ascender. Mr. Marti shared a great deal of information with me about his ascenders while his secretary, Mrs. Baumann, translated. Both Mr. Marti and Mrs. Baumann were very friendly. One of the most impressive things I learned during the visit was that there are many, many variations of Jumar that have not been put into commercial production. For example, I saw Jumar cams with the same "Z" shaped teeth found on the early Clog ascenders.
Gary D. Storrick
The best early Jumar website out there: http://www.storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/AscenderDevices.shtml
I had the pleasure of buying this old tool from an American climber lately - a version of version D when I look at the Jumars on the website above.
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overwatch
climber
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Oct 20, 2015 - 04:47pm PT
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Won't need belay devices once Nanook is through.
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Tse
climber
Athens
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Hello guys.
I recently started a project regarding some gear and their history.
Does anyone happen to know when the first fig 8 developed and by whom or any piece of information about it?
i would be obliged.
thanks
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 8, 2015 - 11:07am PT
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Lots of good information on Gary Storrick's website.
http://storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/VerticalHome.shtml
Gary doesn't provide hard dates but I believe that Clog was the first to commercially produce and market figure eight devices in the mid 1960's. JimT confirmed that time frame upthread.
I wonder if that evacuation system from 1885 ever went into production or service.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 3, 2016 - 03:11pm PT
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Wonder widget bump...
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 25, 2016 - 01:59am PT
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Three later British plate brakes
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Sep 25, 2016 - 08:53am PT
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I was a hippy back then, so it was only right and proper to sneer at Sticht plates and use a hip belay. ~ Ghost
Made me smile. We used chain links some in England in '74. Body belays just make more sense sometimes and it's a useful skill.
"We don't need no stinking Sticht plates!"
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Sep 25, 2016 - 02:57pm PT
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I have it on good authority that climbers active at the Needles (CA.) used chain-links as belay / rappel devices perhaps as early as the late 1950's. A gentleman who keeps a vacation home at Ponderosa showed me what was left of his old gear (not much) including the steel carabiner and large link for belaying.
He said they climbed summits they had to rappel off. Many spires can be climbed by easy 5th class routes. This was in the early - mid 1960s. He said his mentors were 20 years his senior and had been climbing there for some time before then. Of course there's no way to tell when they improvised the belay device, but I bet the old dulfersitz seemed a bit sketchy with the exposure that place can have.
Fred Becky, Dan McHale, and Mike Heath did the FA of the South Face Route on the Warlock in 1970. That's the biggest and most imposing feature of the Needles formations. In their AAJ entries both Becky and Heath mention the discovery of a cairn on top.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Sep 25, 2016 - 03:30pm PT
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While our technology has progressed in many other ways, imagine how much knowledge has been lost since these became less common:
Imagine the contraptions for tightening ropes, loosening them under load, suspending people and swinging them around, etc.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Sep 25, 2016 - 03:44pm PT
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Does a Munter Hitch on a locker count?
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Sep 25, 2016 - 06:26pm PT
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https://store.mysticseaport.org/around-cape-horn-dvd-1028517.html
This is MUST SEE!!! No joke. In one section they're going around the horn, he's way up the main mast with his movie camera shooting down. The entire ship disappears in to the sea and then re-emerges as mammoth waves sweep across the decks.
The entire voyage of this last of the great clippers is epic.
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Barbarian
climber
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Sep 26, 2016 - 08:26am PT
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Figure 8's always sucked. Anyone who uses them is a moron.
Thanks for the compliment, BASE104.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Sep 26, 2016 - 01:43pm PT
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I used to use the small end of the Figure 8 like a Sticht plate, worked great!
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Urmas
Social climber
Sierra Eastside
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Sep 26, 2016 - 04:03pm PT
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I agree about using the small hole in a figure 8 like a sticht. It worked fine. And you could wrap the rope around the stem between the holes to effortlessly hold a hanging climber.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Figure 8's were big, heavy, and made more for rapeller's than anything else. I don't mean to call anyone personally a moron, but I never saw a good climber with one on his or hers rack.
Yeah, you could use the small hole as a belay device, but the simple Stitch Plate was built for that, and totally rocked. The big hole was for 11 mils, and the small hole was for 9 mils. You could even use them with a doubled 9 mil, which the Brits used to like doing.
I didn't like the ones with a spring. The simple plate was excellent for belaying, rapping, lowering out haulbags, you name it. It was super simple and cheap.
I had to bail from the Shield Headwall in a storm once. This required down nailing and a lot of frigging with the haul bag. All we used was a stitch plate, and we made it from the base of the Groove pitch to the ground in about 5 hours.
In the Alps, we used a stitch plate.
I can't stand the tubular belay devices. They don't lock off like a stitch plate will.
Of course now, a gri-gri totally rocks, but back when, the stitch plate was simple and perfect.
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gdstorrick
Trad climber
PA
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Feb 22, 2017 - 05:55am PT
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>> Lots of good information on Gary Storrick's website.
>> http://storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/VerticalHome.shtml
>> Gary doesn't provide hard dates...
Actually, there is a tiny bit of information on my Figure Eights Page:
http://storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/Rappel/Figure8.html
> According to Pit Schubert (Bergunsteigen 3/06), the figure eight was invented by Dr. Max Pfrimmer, a physician who worked with the mountain troopers medical corps in St. Johann, Tirol, Austria, during WWII. Pfrimmer documented his idea for a lowering device in his diary on October 1, 1943. Only in the latter 1950s did Pfrimmer consider using his eight for rappelling. Pfrimmer offered his idea to Schuster’s sports equipment store in Munich, which commercialized the eight in the early 1960s, but without success. The CMI Standard, introduced in 1974, was a major commercial advance, and it established the future of eights in the USA. It is still in production.
> The earliest figure eight that I own is the Fisher, Version A, which appeared in an advertisement in the June 1963 issue of Mountain Craft. The earliest figure eight appearing in the USA that I know of was one was sold for $3.50 in an Adirondack climbing shop in the Summer of 1965 (Bill Craig, Nittany Grotto News, XIV,1, pp.4-5). That eight was made in West Germany, welded from 1/4" [6 mm.] steel rod, was 140 mm. long, and had hole and eye internal diameters of 47 and 35 mm., respectively. This was probably the Schuster’s eight, and it may also be the same as Black's - the dimensions are similar. Various people used eights after that, but it wasn't until after CMI introduced their hard-coated eight, which I first saw advertised in the October 1974 issue of Off Belay magazine, that the popularity of the eight took off in the USA.
Naturally, I'm a bit interested in getting more information
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2017 - 09:32am PT
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Gary- Thanks for joining the discussion here.
Please accept my apology about the comment on the lack of dates in reference to the history of the figure eight. I didn't catch those citations on my first pass through your content. The Clog figure eight wasn't widely imported in the US so your assessment about the impact of the CMI version rings true with me. I need to go and talk with Gregg Blomberg about his work with CMI.
Have you ever talked with Pete Gibbs about the development of his ascender design? Pete spoke at a historical symposium that I recently organized about climbing in the Grand Canyon so I have good contact information for him.
You might find this thread interesting.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2931481/Who-Popularized-The-Carabiner-Brake-Rappel
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