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Inner City
Trad climber
East Bay
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Gary beat me to it...good judgement!
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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I am not sure the double axle design of the Camalot was an attempt to skirt around Jardine's patents, but even if it was, the double axle gives improved range for a given cam which makes them way more versatile(though a bit heavier) than single axle cams.
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clockclimb
Trad climber
Orem, Utah
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+1 for healyje. DMM offsets are the best stoppers I've ever used bar none.
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Vic Klotz
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Campbell Saddle-Wedges should be on the list.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2016 - 01:50am PT
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I'm sorry, but comparing ball-nutz to tri-cams? One mostly useless, one almost too-bomber
I still rack and use ball nuts for free climbing all the time; my tricams on the other hand haven't left the basement since around 1993...
They were great in their time, if they were modded...
P.S. Did have a serious soft spot for saddle wedges, but never replaced them when my original rack was stolen out of my car (pre-ebay).
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MattB
Trad climber
Tucson
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Excellent stiffy! Is that shrink tubing? Any wire? My way isn't so nice, tape and wire or drinking straw.
I'm sure I need to try loweballs a bit more... I've got the three small ones gathering cobwebs in a haulbag.
BTW, what sizes do you end up using most? I know beacon rock has miles of thin cracks... takes nuts better than cams, from the few times I've been there.
We're saddle wedges the first nut with face scoops? The dmm nuts were my favorite, probably because of the scoops, HB has 'em, too
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2016 - 10:11am PT
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Thanks - strip from a pop bottle in the webbing, electrical heat-shrink tubing (careful) and sport tape.
Loweballs: #3 & 4 all the time, take the #1 & 2 on FAs, never use the #5
Not sure one the Saddle Wedge / scoop history - gotta check here with 'NutStory' - Stephane Pennequin or Marty Karabin, they're the historians.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Cams. Without exception. They changed everything.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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The basic handjam.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Cams for rock climbing and the modern screws for ice climbing.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Denver CO
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Brilliant idea healyje, I learned to climb with floppy tricams at the gunks, with a shaft like that they would be great pro. Maybe even make a comeback although I think people would still see them as obsolete. But once you get a tricam set, you just know it can't come out.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Nuts, cams, bah!
Sheep chocks are the wave of the future.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Cams for rock climbing and the modern screws for ice climbing.
It's an interesting exercise to take an old style screw (old Salewa or Chouinard) and a BD Express to a block of ice and compare how hard they are to sink flush.
You quickly gain appreciation for the grit ice climbers from the 60s and 70s had!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2016 - 10:00pm PT
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Don, thanks, just seemed obvious after a year or two of getting frustrated with them in their 'out-of-the-box' configuration.
If cams had seen the same level of pure progress as ice screws they'd fly off your sling or harness, place themselves, bond with the rock at a molecular level, and retrieve on voice command.
The likes of this pretty much put me off ice climbing and made me an early impromptu practitioner of dry tooling.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Joseph, to my knowledge, the first person who thought to modify a wedge-shaped nut on that way is the much missed British rock climber Tom Proctor. In the mid seventies, Tom scooped the sides out of the widest faces of his larger nuts. A strip of the original face was left in place to retain the biting edge and strength.
Then Gaylord Campbell (USA) came in 1976 with the launch of the Saddlewedge, and DMM (North Wales) with the Wallnuts in the early eighties.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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the heck with placeing in a block of ice. get your butt up on Repentance or the last Gentleman and try placeing one of those old chiounard screw and a snarg or two..... that kind of gear will make you a grade 3 climber or a rock climber in a hurry..
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Rankin
Social climber
Greensboro, North Carolina
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1) Wild Country Rocks
2) Friends
3) Tricams
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rick d
climber
ol pueblo, az
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best pin:
1/2" baby. saved my butt more than 25 times and it the penultimate desert anchor.
runner up:
#3 pecker (beak). made kb's and arrows useless
best passive nut:
#3 chouinard curved. I found this piece and it has always worked. I have owned zero other curved nuts.
runner up:
#2 HB brass, countless placements
best camming nut:
bliss/byrne (not lowe) balls. mine are wasted now, made thick arrows useless.
best cam:
1.5 original friend,just like the size.
.....and best piece overall
seismo. WTF was waggoner thinking. porta chin up bar?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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On any given day more trad placements are made with Camalots than anything else...should tell you something.
The best pro, and there is alot of good stuff out there, is always limited by the judgement of the climber placing it and it has been my observation that good judgement is in a somewhat limited supply.
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