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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 12, 2007 - 01:00am PT
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I fell into one these babies through an ebay auction of pins and had never seen one before. I thought it was an absolutely fabulous and burly pin design crossing a Lost Arrow and a Bugaboo. I would say a bit heavy for carrying for traditional purposes, but as fixed pro a pretty stellar piece that would be likely to last damn near forever.
It looked brand new and I wanted to get more so emailed CMI and got a reply from Kris Kirk saying they haven't made them in 30 years and didn't even have the tool dies anymore. Bummer. Looking closer through my recent purchases I also came across a CMI Rurp with a right angle bend in it that also looked like an interesting design. I suggested he license/sell the design to someone willing to put them out again.
Any of you old dads remember these? If anyone has any they'd like to part with let me know as I'd love to get a couple of more.
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Majid_S
Mountain climber
Bay Area
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Feb 12, 2007 - 01:05am PT
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The first two look like new
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2007 - 01:08am PT
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Yep, but the middle one is thirty years or more old.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 12, 2007 - 02:02am PT
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Well that cmi 160 in your photo is basically a medium medium length lost arrow. The angle head like the knife blade actually inhibited it's use in certain placements. The lost arrow was superior in it's design due to it's universal head. No right or left angles on the head to get in the way of obstructions
The angle heads were good for stacking pins because the head like the lost arrow would not get in the way.
The best pins were the original hand forged units. Very mailable. Some of the first machine forged production knife blades that came out were very brittle and we blew the heads off them in just a few blows.
In layman's terms, those mass production knife blades were a pieces of sh'it compared to the hand forged original models.
Just like a nice hand forged sword for cutting off peoples heads.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2007 - 02:11am PT
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Werner, are you saying you blew the heads off of the CMI's or production machined pins in general? Hard to imagine whacking the head of one of these. And I assume your saying the bugs suffered from the same issue of not being able to place it in all placements due to the angled head. Thanks for your comments.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 12, 2007 - 02:14am PT
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No we were wacking the heads off the mass production Chouinard knife blades. They were inferior to the hand forged units.
Oh yeah the bugaboos had the same placement problems due to the angled heads.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Feb 12, 2007 - 09:31am PT
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Well now we know why Werner has gone through so many partners!
Ya know, W, most of us just get mad, curse a little, get through it, separate the gear fairly, and move on.
Buzz
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Feb 12, 2007 - 09:41am PT
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healyje- those CMI pins were a regular part of my rack in my wall nailing days back in the late 60's and 70's. I think they were a little less money than the Chouinard pins. I sometimes liked the CMI "crack tack" better than a rurp, also, for certain placement, usually horizontal.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Feb 12, 2007 - 10:15am PT
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Nice photos Healje.
Yeah, these CMI units were heavy as hell when you racked up a bunch of them. And the regular pins were very tough. And as Wern says they had their advantages and disadvantages. I think I still have some, but probably because they often did not make it on to the rack due the issues.
But CMI also made hammers, indestructible awesome ones, really. I still have #102 of that model; bought it new in the mid 1960's. It is a metal handled unit. I will attach a photo when I get back to my other house where all the old stuff is stored. After I accidentally dropped my wood-handled Chouinard hammer on the Salathe, fortunately I had the CMI unit as a backup and continued on worrying the whole time about having only one hammer left. That wooden handled unit fell from Broad Ledge, reached the ground near some friends. They returned it to me after I got back to camp. In fact I am thinking that that might have been our very own Roger (??). At any rate the wooden handle was actually broken by the huge fall.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2007 - 11:54am PT
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Peter, please do post a pic of it - would love to see it.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Feb 27, 2007 - 06:34pm PT
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So as promised, here is my hammer collection, going all the way back to CMI hammer #102, second from left, and the other units all Chouinards from late sixties to mid seventies.
When I dropped my wooden handled hammer on the Salathe wall solo off of Broad Ledge a couple pitches above El Cap Spire, I fortunately had had the sense to pack a second hammer, the CMI unit. I think I bought it when I was in high school, maybe 1964-65. One of the Chouinard units pictured might be the actual hammer that fell 2000 ft, with a new handle that Chouinard may have replaced as warranty .
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Larry
Trad climber
Bisbee
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Feb 27, 2007 - 08:49pm PT
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I think I'm going to sell this and a bunch of other pins on ebay soon.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2007 - 09:15pm PT
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That's one of the CMI Rurps - nice, mine is quite beat up or I'd have posted a picture of it. Do you have any of the other CMI pins?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 27, 2007 - 10:35pm PT
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That would be a CMI Cracktack if I am not mistaken and a coveted item. I just traded for two #21's and am stoked to have them. Tiny joints at the back of micro features are supersolid since you can use the offset eye (a 1/8" ss cable loop works like a charm). RURP's are a fabulous tool but unless you bend the lower eye out of plane; not the ticket for tight inside corners.
CMI pitons are stiffer than BD and have the eye on the opposite side of the blade. Though rare in my experience, thin expanding flakes are much more reasonable to deal with if you have the ability to create eye contact against features that face either direction. Eye contact is everything to arrest blade shift and allow the bodyweight fun to commence!
Maestro Braun is entirely correct when he praises the knifeblades of yesteryear. The old roll forged Chouinard knifeblades (with no lightening hole) and the CMI thin blades are like gold if you have to have tip pressure. The modern BD Camp KB's begin to buckle long before the sturdy steel of yore! The moral of the story is don't squander those old ones and keep an eye on both sides of the flake.
If anybody comes accross a rack of CMI pins stamped CC please let me know. Charles Cole had one stolen from the base of Half Dome while working on the Queen of Spades and would be keenly interested in some resolution I'm sure even at this point.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 28, 2007 - 01:10am PT
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Peter, somehow missed the hammers post - cool! I'll have to point Kris Kirk at this thread again. I still think he should get those pins back in production or someone should. I can imagine Charles would like them back even today given how burly they are. If anyone has some of those babies they'd part with give me a shout and I'll gladly make you a good offer for them.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 28, 2007 - 02:01am PT
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Well, a scrounge through the ironbag and viola! Cracktacks!
I have several #21's that are quite distinct in thickness and taper as the medium sizes shown. The longest is #22 and presumably the shortest is #20.
Sort medium #125 and long medium #150.
On the lighter side, two titanium Latok Blades and a handmade titanium piton that I cleaned out of the Salathe presumably Russian made.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Bump for titanium Jello memories.......
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 29, 2009 - 02:42am PT
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Did you ever snag those CMI's, Peter?
Left-handed bump.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 29, 2009 - 09:27am PT
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Stevie, I'll look in a couple of hours, I have to go to breakfast with a friend. I see I have to repost the hammer photo too.
Okay, back.
Sorry for the quality of these photos, they are from my cellphone as my nikons are down in Santa Cruz right now. First off, reposting the hammer collection: three old Chouinard hammers and a very old and rare CMI hammer, all on my glass desk. The whole collection is from 1963 to 1972. The CMI hammer is what I finished the Salathe with after dropping the hammer just to its left from Broad Ledge. It was recovered and re-handled by the factory---the original wood handle had of course broken falling 2000 ft. the CMI hammer is so old you can see where I semi-trashed the handle BODYRAPPELLING, the rope burning into the upper part of the plastic/rubber. I am thinking maybe 1964.
note the CMI hammer is #102, a real heirloom:
Then, new here are two shots of a CMI bugaboo style piton at bottom plus two really crude looking (I think) Longware tanks. One left handed one right handed! Not totally sure on the Longware, though, there are no stamps on either of these monstrosities.
and
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 29, 2009 - 12:23pm PT
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Peter- My goof. I guess that you weren't looking for CMI's as much as Joe is. You already have a stash by the sound of it!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 29, 2009 - 12:55pm PT
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And while we are at it, here is my rurp collection. The top row is all ugly Longware units. They were heat-treated really high, hard as hell and hideous, clumsy little things. Some are bugaboo-style, some vertical style. The row below is all Yvon's semi-useless rurps that ended up more as jewelry, truth be told. And the bottom one is a rare CMI!
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Scott Cole
Trad climber
Jackson, WY^
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Mar 29, 2009 - 01:32pm PT
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The best thing about the CMIs' was always the different sizes and tapers. They were enough different than the Chouinards that they sometimes stuck where the others wouldn't, somewhat like sawed-off angles. Good to have a few on the rack, but they always screwed up racking because the were opposites. I have about 50 of them left.
Scole
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 29, 2009 - 01:49pm PT
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Nice assortment of tacks, Peter!
I wouldn't be so quick to diss the RURP though! The main reason that so many ended up on keychains is testimony to the Ultimate Reality which most everybody studiously avoided Realizing! LOL
The RURPS were hand finished for many years so that 4 or 5 different thicknesses could be employed. When dealing with straight-in bottoming seams, they are still the ticket,IMO.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 29, 2009 - 03:21pm PT
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I'd still happily buy any CMI pitons / rurps folks want to part with...
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Double D
climber
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Mar 29, 2009 - 05:20pm PT
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PH..."Yvon's semi-useless rurps that ended up more as jewelry"
I dunno, I thought they were kinda bitchen myself.
(-;
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 29, 2009 - 06:09pm PT
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Can I have that Ultimate Reality Super Sized please? LOL
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Rokrover
Trad climber
SB, CA
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Jun 25, 2009 - 06:44pm PT
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This fine CMI hammer was bought in Australia nearly forty years ago and saw little use after we soon embraced clean climbing. Later it was shamefully relegated to pounding stubborn mechanical assemblies apart on a variety of vintage vehicles. The blue elastomer handle became hard and slick some time ago so was taped over. There is no identifying number stamped anywhere I can see.
Sorry about the image - the host changed the address
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jun 25, 2009 - 06:54pm PT
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I am not getting an image Rokrover
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hoipolloi
climber
A friends backyard with the neighbors wifi
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Jun 25, 2009 - 07:52pm PT
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i have one or two of these (from my Dads gear)
is this one? can't remember, dont want to dig it up...
this is it here off center to the right. (edit, maybe not, nevermind)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 26, 2009 - 09:34am PT
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Yep, that one on the top is a CMI. Nice.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 26, 2009 - 10:37am PT
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CMI's are easy to spot because they are right-handed while Chouinards are left-handed. The two or three thinest sizes are very desirable if you find yourself on delicate technical expanding flakes. Eye contact to prevent rotation without overdriving is much easier if you can deal with fragile flakes that face either direction.
Chouinard blades are good for left-facing, left-angling shingles while CMI's make right-facing crispies far easier to deal with. The CMI's are also far stiffer than the modern Chouinard KB's since I think that they used chrome nickel instead of chrome molybdenum steel. The older Chouinard knifeblades (no lightening hole) were rolled to form the taper and consequently had some forged and drawn character which made them stiffer than the punched and ground modern equivalent.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Scott Cole wrote:
> Good to have a few on the rack, but they always screwed up racking because the were opposites.
Steve Grossman wrote:
> CMI's are easy to spot because they are right-handed while Chouinards are left-handed.
Usually the CMI eye is opposite the Chouinard, but not always.
The only specimen I have seen where they are on the same side is the piton Joseph posted to start this thread!
I wonder if this was an early or late model - maybe they decided to become more compatible with Chouinard?
Or maybe a fluke, if they bent the eye on the blank in the opposite way.
The logo also seems to run on the long blade axis on most examples, but it is on the short axis in this specimen.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Polynesian Paralysis
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Peter, in your first posting on 3/29/09 you show two pix of bugaboo style pins. I think the top one in each of those pix is a Chouinard flame-cut Bugaboo. It's the square head and texture of the edge of the eye that lead me to that conclusion. I have several of them that I've post a pic of here:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1104287/Help-with-vintage-pitons
Mine have a Diamond C near the eye on the inside of the blade which might be visible in your lower pic except that the shadow obscures the face of the blade near the eye. Your pin seems to have a Diamond with NO visible C on the OUTSIDE of the bend in the upper pic. Is that a Diamond there?
In your second posting on 3/29/09, your Chouinard RURPS are what I'll call "3rd Generation" but may in fact be 4th or 5th. In one of my pix on the thread linked above there are two RURPs in the upper right corner which I've called "Old" and "New." The Old ones had only a single hole and were very tough. The "New" ones were a tad smaller but were nearly as tough. The ones in your pic were a later model, I believe (I have some of those too.), but they lacked the toughness of the earlier ones and performed much worse that the earlier ones as well, IMHO.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Thanks Boo. Yeah, that is what I was really meaning about the Chouinard rurps I have. Mine are way-derivative---steps away from the practical process of driving the living crap out of a RURP into a seam whereas the older longware and CMI ones still have the brutish nature to achieve real placements over and over again. I like your older Chouinard rurps more; you know you can refine something to the point where it is really pretty but won't put out, so to speak.
I missed your link thread when it was fresh in March. Pilgrims, it has become clear someone has to do a book on our hardware history. Stephane or that guy down in Arizona should.
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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I believe one of the early partners at CMI is Greg Blomberg, who lives the next island over from me. The last time I saw him he had a brand new CMI hammer still in the bag as well as an early CMI metal handled ice axe.
After leading the first winter ascent of Denali in 1967 [ retold in ''Minus 148*'' by Art Davidson ] I think he pretty much gave up climbing and moved to one of the San Juan Islands. He went on to form a company called Kestrel Tool ,making absolute top quality carving tools in the Northwest Native tradition.
The only time I saw a CMI hammer in use was in a local saw shop, being used to set the teeth in circular saw blades.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Oct 10, 2010 - 03:12pm PT
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Well Steve, as you can see from my photos of the hammers, that CMI hammer got the crap used out of it.
Pilgrims, here are some Peck pitons. I think they are rare now. I didn't like them for Yosemite granite and that is why I still have some around a half dozen of them in nearly perfect condition. I bought them from Royal's operation bitd, along with those hideous Peck crackers--- knurled cylindrical nuts, of which I have plenty still also.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Oct 10, 2010 - 04:39pm PT
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> I believe one of the early partners at CMI is Greg Blomberg
Yes, he is mentioned on p.35 of Basic Rockcraft: "Greg Blomberg (CMI)"
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ec
climber
ca
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Oct 10, 2010 - 04:49pm PT
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Those shallow Peck angles are like the SMC ones. When filed to a greater taper they are actually useful in funky stone...just sayin'
 ec
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Oct 11, 2010 - 12:16am PT
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What's the word on this one?
No other markings other than CMI in the same location as the one posted above.
Well used and totally rude.
seems to me this one predates the one with the biner hole?
Mucci
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 11, 2010 - 12:09pm PT
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The Peck pitons that Peter posted above have the curious distintion of being made out of stainless steel! I don't know of any other commercially released stainless pins.
CMI had as many as three hammers on the market at one time. Rich Gottlieb has an amazing CMI display board at Rock and Snow in New Paltz that shows all three as well as the first all metal ice axe available in custom lengths. Terrible design functionally but impeccable craftsmanship!
I haven't seen CMI switch sides on the eye orientation nearly as often as Chouinard/BD. Not sure that I have ever seen a matched pair of CMI blades. I'll check my stash!
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Loomis
climber
Peklo Vole!
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Removed these bolts and piton from a route we are freeing.
Just curious, how old could this piton be?
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| Messages 1 - 41 of total 41 in this topic |
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