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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Got this one on Tobin's Dihedral, the Dome Rock Classic...
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jonnyrig
Trad climber
formerly known as hillrat
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Ha ha, yeah, donini, that's why it was a mock lead - his first-, on top rope, with him trailing the lead rope to make him clip something. He only follows me, he does not lead. He probably never will.
And Clint- I meant the type similar to the OP. Single cable in the center, four lobes, etc. I also have tcu's, fcu's, single stem camalots, rigid friends, and a few miscellaneous in the mix. Sometimes on the same rack.
To me, the really important thing is that I place them well, and they do the job. The rest doesn't make much difference because I still climb slow and easy, at the lower end of the scale. At this point in life, I'll settle for mediocrity in most things, and hope if I ever reach exceptional status it will be in my efforts to raise my children well and give them a better life than mine.
Seems quite a few people make efforts at home-built rigid-stem cams. I've got one slightly larger than a #4 where they butchered the cam angle spiral, thus it sits in a drawer disassembled (and here as my avatar). Waiting for some of them to show up here...
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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OK, sorry, I thought your photo was intended as an example of the cams of the initial type (single cable stem).
I agree that most cams are good in a vertical parallel crack in good rock.
It's when the crack gets trickier, harder, or you are trying to leave the ground at Indian Creek with 12 cams of the same size that design differences and weight could make a difference.
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jonnyrig
Trad climber
formerly known as hillrat
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No worries. All my cams came from Ebay, Craigslist, or Mountain Project, and the odd assemblage of what I've got will never be cutting-edge. About all I do these days is drag newer noobs than numero uno around on these old dinosaur cams, sometimes a hex, and a handful of surplus pins that I just hammer back in shape after each use. It's all good for a laugh, especially when I try to complement a really good climber. You'd think I was a touron... they usually do. Ha ha
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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I dunno, Jonny.... Looks like a pretty good fit for just above a 10 degree cam angle. If you've never played with it, the Cam Fitter at Dorringtonclimbing.com is quite useful for these sorts of things. http://www.dorringtonclimbing.com/imagebin/cam_login.html
(edit- In case you're wondering why I had to clip and rotate your pic, the Cam Fitter only works with the lobe facing upper left or upper right)
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MisterE
climber
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Just got off the phone with the Cosmiccragsman - he is still incomputercado.
Thanks to Trundlebum for the tip-off.
He heard about this cam and was curious if it was his. As far as he knows, he is the only person to metal-stamp his gear DW.
Additionally, he said he had a HUGE amount of gear stolen from him in the summer of 1988.
We talked back and forth - I did some research on-line -
and found the timeline for Wild Country that shows the Flexible Friend released in 1988.
http://www.wildcountry.com/about-us/product-timeline/
Dwain remember the Flex Friends being released "late 1987 or early 1988".
Basically, if this is a first generation Flexible Friend, it is probably Dwains.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Looks like a plastic trigger though.
I believe mine may be a first gen flexi friend, not sure.
Edit: not cosmic's!
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MisterE
climber
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Good eye Jefe - the first gen's had aluminum trigger bars?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Nice work on the cam angle, Aric.
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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In response to a comment upthread, I'd be a little leery of buying cams from Ebay, etc. You'll probably pick up some booty cams with unknown history (dropped from high places, stolen, etc.) Check the teeth for flat spots, which could indicate having stopped a hard fall.
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jonnyrig
Trad climber
formerly known as hillrat
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I tend to stay away from soft goods on ebay, thus harness and rope are new, as is most webbing. Cam slings being the exception, and the hard goods are easy to inspect.
I looked at my flex friends, almost all of them are stamped similar to the OP or with a straight number. Maybe a lot number? Anyway, unlikely to be initials.
Going to have to sign in to that cam profiler and play with that. Indeed, the home-made cam came closest to a 10 degree profile, except the lobes are pretty funkified and did not follow the profile as well as the picture you rotated, nor was the axle hole centered. I keep thinking of trying to reprofile them to a 13 degree curve, but haven't the time. Maybe in a year or two.
And as almost an afterthought, with used cams or even with your own after a fall, consider that the smaller the cam is, the more a dent or a flat spot is going to affect the profile.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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@Johnnyrig.. your pink-sling cam pg 1... my first impression was Wired Bliss. Just a guess though.
Dwain Warren cams. He says there are a couple floating around out there locations unknown. Most (not all) are stamped DW or ROK
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Please do play with the Cam Fitter, Jonny... It's quite a useful tool, and was put together ages ago by a guy named John Field, IIRC, to make it easier to spot incorrectly located axle holes on CCH Aliens. It can work several ways, but the coolest is to simply let it analyze the shape of the lobe itself, which will cause it to detect the edges of the curve and then best-fit a log spiral to it with a calculated center point. Alternatively you can manually select a center point and have it best fit a curve to the lobe, or manually define the edges of the lobe with hand picked points (which I did in this case since the graph paper was confusing the edge detection). It's really quite the piece of software, and wish more people knew about it.
BTW, it works best if you can put the lobe on a flatbed scanner, as that eliminates a lot of distortion in the pic. Alternately a pic from arm's length perfectly in line with the axle works ok.
-a.
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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What exactly is the purpose of the lobe scanner website thingy?? I mean what practical purpose would it serve me?
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Well, Batrock, unless you're interested in reverse engineering cams, probably not much use for you. But if you are interested in it, it beats the hell out of hand fitting curves to a cam lobe.
Edit- Here's an example, Batrock.... Ever notice that the axle on an Orange CCH Alien always looked out of place compared to the rest of the sizes? It's because it *is* out of place. This scan was done with hand selected points at the ends of the teeth and a calculated center. The resulting curve calculated out to 16 degrees (as you'd expect for Aliens) and fits the lobe profile very nicely along the entire curve. The axle, however, is quite far from the center of the spiral, which causes the cam to do some pretty funky things in terms of range and holding power.
Can't say if this is happening with Fixe or Totem Aliens, as I've never looked at them. There's oodles more pics (mostly CCH) here: http://www.shariconglobal.com/misc/pulltesting/RSaliens/index.html
Also, if you don't find this interesting, then no, the Cam Fitter is not of any use to you.
Edit x2- oops.... This scan was fitting a defined 16 degree spiral, not a calculated best fit. Minor point given how well the curve fits, but needed to be corrected. Been ages since I looked at this stuff, and misread the settings in the pic.
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chill
climber
between the flat part and the blue wobbly thing
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The angle calculator looks pretty cool. Cam angle is an important design principle and a safety issue. If I bought a home-made looking cam on the interweb (which I wouldn't) I'd be concerned about how well designed it was. This is a good way to check it.
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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So it sounds like there was some pretty sloppy production runs on Aliens BITD. Any newer cams having similar situations? I guess I just never really thought about it. I'll have to dig out some of my older cams and take a look.
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Orange CCH Aliens are the only ones I've ever seen problems with, Batrock. Haven't ever run it on Fixe or Totem, but have no reason to think they have issues.
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jonnyrig
Trad climber
formerly known as hillrat
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Changing the axle centerline would effectively change the camming angle at the moment of contact with the rock, thus instead of a constant cam angle, you might have a ten degree cam angle when fully retracted and a sixteen degree angle when tipped out, or visa versa. That would change the amount of force exerted against the rock. All the more reasmn that smaller cams need closer manufacturing tolerances.
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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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I originally thought this was a old Clog flex cam, but they had black tubing over the cable.
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