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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Actually, since most of my walls have been FAs or clean ascents I have done very little stacking along the way. Leeper cam hooks changed everything.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 26, 2017 - 09:20pm PT
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OK, I found three of my old blades. Unfortunately, I don't have a camera at this time so I can only describe them. One looks like the small one in the 1968 catalogue posted by Fritz. The one I described as about two inches long, an inch wide, flat and rectangular, with a hole in one thickened end, is stamped Holubar. The third is interesting: it is flat, very thin, rectangular with a half inch extension with a larger hole where it thickens slightly, but no 90 degree bend. It's purely a vertical pin, with no markings. Quite pretty, in fact. If I get a camera I'll post pictures. I'm guessing this last one must have been an early Chouinard experiment.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 26, 2017 - 10:56pm PT
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John,
If the photos below match your pitons, you may not need to find a camera.
earliest(?) Chouinard horizontal style knifeblade, from March 1960 Dolt Hut Catalogue Supplement #2
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=727870&tn=20
(thanks to Joe/guido)
Holubar knifeblade, photo by Steve Grossman
Chuck Wilts style knifeblade, photo from Yosemite Climbing Association
Chouinard vertical knifeblade, photo from March 1960 Dolt Hut Catalogue Supplement #2
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 27, 2017 - 02:07am PT
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When good knifeblades go bad...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 27, 2017 - 07:23pm PT
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Bug eaten...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 27, 2017 - 08:01pm PT
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The Holubar one is the one I have. The no. 206 in the last photo is like the last one I described, but mine has different dimensions, a longer blade and more attractive with the extension and hole closer in. Would look good on a necklace. Thanks.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Apr 30, 2017 - 06:29pm PT
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It's very hard to get a complete picture from just one image.
To me, it looks as if there's a pretty poor weld on the inside of the bend to the eye. A welded knifeblade would definitely an amateur garage job. Possibly a one off prototype. A picture of the bend from the outside would confirm or deny my guess.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 30, 2017 - 06:56pm PT
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Man, my knifeblade collection has the living snot beaten out of it. The thin ones deform fairly easily with the crack. They could be really bomber if the crack was deep. If not, you tied them off, and they could still be really good..for aid.
A couple of the pics back, one looked like they had been put through a roller. There were several obvious steps down in thickness. I've done this in metal working class with softer metals. It must have been rolled when it was still glowing and soft.
The bent clip in hole was necessary if it was in a corner. That flat sucker would have been hard to even tie off if it had been placed in a corner.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 30, 2017 - 07:56pm PT
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There is no weld on any production Chouinard blade.
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Gilroy
Social climber
Bolderado
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I agree but does that mean all Chouinard knifeblades are 'forgeries'? :)
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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some more questions -- apologies, but my generation doesn't know anything about pitons. Pretty much anyone under 30 has no experience with these things
q1 -- Orientation. I asked above about orientation, and someone answered (paraphrase) that the usual orientation is vertical as opposed to horizontal. Follow-up question -- is there an up/down orientation? i.e. do the eyelets tend to be in the high or low position upon placement?
q2 -- Clipping. There are two eyelets. I guess either one is clipped. Pictures would be nice to see.
q3 -- Cleaning. On a big wall I guess the cleaner just whacks on it upward, side to side, whatever, until it's loose enough to extract. Or maybe use a funkness device while wearing safety glasses (hopefully). Is this accurate? I know these things sometimes get welded and are left fixed. In an alpine context, is it as above (whacking on it with a tool)?
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Question one and two: The Bugaboos and knifblades with two holes can be used as a horizontal and a vertical piton. In my experience if the piton fits it is used regardless of what orientation it was meant for or listed for by the manufacturer or other.
Question three: Yes
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Another bit of arcane nomenclature: Piton Keeper
You youngsters will never know the powerful and manly feeling of a steel hammer swinging from your waist. It's heyday was the rise of the proletariat, the triumph of the Proud Worker.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Especially when heading for Sickle Ledge...LOL
So why did you forsake that manlyfest destiny for a chalkbag and some shorts then?
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the_dude
Mountain climber
anchorage, alaska
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I just climbed a route in Alaska that hadn't been climbed before. I found a big cache of Japanese gear from a 1978 attempt, including a sh#t ton of pitons.
All of these orange pitons had "Evernew" stamped on them. They were like any other basic piton of their era. We took 15 or so with us and used the sh#t out of them on the way up the route.
Has anyone ever seen one of these pitons around America before? I think it was a Japanese brand.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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the_dude, I have been in touch with more than three hundred persons during the past twenty years but, unfortunately, none of them has been able to tell me if there were (if there are) manufacturers of climbing hardware in Japan, specialized in nuts and camming devices. I only have an old and heavy “wall hauler” stamped “made in Japan” in my collection and the company that made it, Alpine Top, seems not to be in the business anymore. In 1985, when visiting Chamonix, I bought a Friend extractor made or marketed by Miyazaki (?).
So, the_dude, were there nuts in the Japanese gear that you found in Alaska?
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the_dude
Mountain climber
anchorage, alaska
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Well, we sure as hell didn't see any, but there was a lot of ice surrounding that gear, so it's very possible there was a whole plethora of gear that we didn't see. Cool find none the less and we definitely used the hell out of about half of those pitons!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Very cool find!
Evernew is definitely a Japanese outdoor gear maker that I first became aware of for their cooking gear and headlamps. I don't think that they could compete with European hardware very well so you don't find it in the US very often.
Hope is another Japanese gear maker. Lots of their Alpinist ice axes were imported and sold by outfits like REI. Not so much of their other hardware shows up here.
In the 1970s Japanese expeditions were very numerous because their economy was doing well so I would suspect that these companies got into hardware to meet that demand alone.
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