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hammerhead
Mountain climber
Eastsound,Wa.
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Mar 29, 2018 - 09:08am PT
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This is a great thread! The level of both design and manufacturing ingenuity is impressive.
One thing I haven't seen so far are plastic nuts.
My high school climbing partner went on a trip to the Alps in 1969 and one of the pieces of gear he brought back was a big plastic [nylon ?] nut ,
It was bright yellow , shaped like a wide tapered wedge with a red webbing sling made for a placement in about a 2'' crack or pocket.
I can't recall the manufacturer , but I remember that it was stamped with the name and logo of one of the big name gear makers in the Alps, Stubai, Cassin or ?
Anyway ,we left it fixed during a retreat in the rain from the West Face of Guye Peak near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington in 1970. Maybe someone bottied it or it's still up there.
Anybody else see or use plastic nuts ?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 29, 2018 - 09:14am PT
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West Face of Guye Peak
Wow, the Wayback Machine is crankin’! 🤪
I can see plastic Forrest nuts in my basement, if I want to.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 29, 2018 - 09:38am PT
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The blue plastic Forrest Foxhead and large Peck black nylon nut are the only two that I have in my collection but Meastro Pennequin has a bunch in his so wait a bit and he will likely share what he has.
The trouble with plastic is cleaning the things once they have been fall loaded.
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Roots
Mountain climber
Redmond, Oregon
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Mar 29, 2018 - 10:24am PT
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Dug this up last night...looked at the receipt from 2001 and I paid less than $3 for it. Boy has the market changed.
Thank you for solving the "G" stamp mystery!
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Mar 29, 2018 - 11:11am PT
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One thing I haven't seen so far are plastic nuts.
I think all of the examples of synthetic nuts are shown in the Nutsmuseum collection, but here's one for this thread:
Mammut Bicoin / Bi-Keil #3. circa 1968 or 69 IIRC. This is the largest of the three sizes they made.
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hammerhead
Mountain climber
Eastsound,Wa.
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Mar 29, 2018 - 01:39pm PT
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^^^
That looks a lot like the one I remember.
It was shaped like it was formed in a bread pan, tapered on all four sides but shallow in profile, not tall like a Stopper.
The West Face of Guye Peak was sort of like a mini version of the Eiger Nordwand to our young fevered minds. It was usually wrapped in bad weather, very steep and foreboding with crappy rock, and obscure route finding with all our little epics in view of the highway below.
On one attempt, my friend Garen and I were climbing with his dad, Bob. Garen and I were both about 16 at the time.
Garen led a difficult bulge off a mossy ledge . Bob tried to get up the pitch but couldn't do it ,even with a shoulder stand from me[ ouch ] It started to rain hard so we bagged it , rapping off the single plastic nut. A large rock was dislodged by the rope and hit me square on the helmet and bounced off my pack before falling into the clouds.
Not long after that trip , I broke my back in a fall and took about a six month break before I went back at it.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Mar 29, 2018 - 01:48pm PT
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Among the Carabin museum nuts below are Mammut and Krok plastic nuts.
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ClimbingOn
Trad climber
NY
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Mar 29, 2018 - 03:19pm PT
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Here are a few more examples of Gerry pins. I had thought the G stamp was the owner's mark, as his last name began with a G. The above posts solved that mystery for me. I just realized that I had promised Steve a picture of these a year ago and spaced on it - sorry!
Also part of the same set are two pins with the letters RB on one and WP on the other - any thoughts on these? They surely belong to the same time period as the Gerry pins. Climber's initials or something else?
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Mar 29, 2018 - 05:44pm PT
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Hammerhead! As mentioned by Steve Grossman, U.S. climbing gear maker Bill Forest made some plastic nuts. I owned one in the early 1970's, as per these photos of two in our combined racks at the Bugaboo trailhead in Sept. 1972.
Closeup.
The blue plastic was hard, but not nearly as hard as metal. In 1974, on a new route in Idaho's Selkirk Mountains, I set one in a jam crack I was climbing. After deciding the next move was above my free-climbing limits at the time, I clipped a webbing etrier into the nut & stepped into it. After two steps up, as I was fishing for another jam, the nut popped & I took a short but scary fall, I missed landing back-first on a ledge 10' below me, by about 2". The rope stretch popped me back onto the ledge in a sitting position, & at age 23, I said: "Wow! That was lucky!"
When I examined the plastic nut, it had a sharp gouge down one side, where it had torn loose from a feldspar crystal, under just my body weight. I quit using plastic nuts.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 29, 2018 - 05:52pm PT
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Never trusted them. I’m a full metal jacket kinda guy. I never qualified to carry Bill Forrest’s
lunch but I knew the difference between plastic and metal! 😉
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Mar 29, 2018 - 09:42pm PT
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On the shelf is three plastic Hexes made by Altitude Equipment - Australia. The yellow and red Poly-Hexs are usually on my rack, I love them! The problem is if you fall on a plastic nut it becomes welded in place and very difficult to remove.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Mar 29, 2018 - 11:28pm PT
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Mar 31, 2018 - 06:18am PT
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When I first discovered The Manta in the Wild Country catalogue 1994 I immediately planned to get it as my new working descender. I have always loved beautiful climbing gear and the Manta seemed to be made like a part of a modern plane. Its three-dimensional geometry was very innovative for a figure of eight. I waited to find it on the market but, unfortunately, it was never marketed. When I visited the Wild Country factory in May 1996, I asked Mark Vallance why this awesome descender never hit the market. If I remember well it was rather expensive to produce and a bit too heavy. I asked if I could see at least a prototype or the sample that was shown on the catalogue, but Mark Vallance was unable to find anything to show me…
Here, again and again, I would like to express all my gratitude to Marlow for generously and very kindly completing my range of the 1994 Wild Country belay devices. This prototype Manta is truly an impressive addition to the collection!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Mar 31, 2018 - 07:50am PT
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Nutstory.
It's great to see your collection of Wild Country 1994 belay devices completed. It's also cool to see the difference between the Manta prototype and the Manta in the catalog. The prototype is more slim.
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Mar 31, 2018 - 08:50am PT
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"The Hand" looks a lot like the new device from Edelrid, the Ohm, allowing light belayers a significant safety margin belaying heavier climbers. The Ohm obviously has a much less aggressive profile inside allowing for assisted braking and limited slip, whereas the Hand would need to grip positively.
K
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 31, 2018 - 11:33am PT
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Donc très esthétique!
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Parfait Steve, votre français est excellent ! Merci pour votre "post".
Joyeuses fêtes de Pâques !
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CrustyOldYoungGuy
climber
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Apr 19, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
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slush pickets? mud stakes? wind chimes?
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Apr 19, 2018 - 12:10pm PT
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my french suks so do me english, but my 'merican is above parYes, Those are tent pegs
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Back in December Marlow posted a photo of a Leeper nut tool that I never knew existed. Six months later a second one surfaced and I was able to get it for the museum. pre 1980s for sure probably Ed Leepers first nut tool he created.
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