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iamthewallress
Aug 11, 2003, 11:55 PM
Post #26 of 30
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Registered: Jan 2, 2003
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I guess I meant..."How many of you climbed on homemade gear because you had to...because most if not all climbing gear was homemade."
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crag
Aug 12, 2003, 12:53 AM
Post #27 of 30
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Registered: Jan 29, 2003
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In reply to: "How many of you climbed on homemade gear because you had to..."
I tried taking old seat belts scavenge from junk yards and then sewing them in to a sit harness fashioned after Chouniard's original sit harness. Using an old sweing machine from an awning company we tried several stiching techniques but never really got comfortable with our craftmenship.
But hey, anything was better than a tied Swiss Seat.
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thegreytradster
Aug 12, 2003, 8:32 PM
Post #28 of 30
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Registered: Jul 7, 2003
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Started out by modifying a Bell Telephone issue linemans hammer into a piton hammer. Think it came from my uncle.
The British Mag, Mountain had a big influence on us in the late 60's early 70's. It was about the only climbing rag available in SoCal then except for Off Belay which was considered by us the mag for Sierra Club old fart types.
We supplemented our meager rack of pins with aircraft hydraulic fitting nuts and other odd pieces of metal added to slings and soon found that they more got in the way than anything else.
I had a job melting down shot up planes that came back from Nam as well as misc. machine shop scrap. I soon collected an assortment of Aluminum hex bar stock scraps in various sizes and made several sets of nuts in a full range of sizes from about 1/4" to 2". The next year (72) Chounard came out with hexentrics and I had a better job. I got some store-bought nuts and gave the homemade ones to Tobin.
Made some nut tools from motor cycle tire irons also, before any were commercially available.
The common wisdom is that the switch to nuts was driven by some esoteric drive to a higher ethic. It was more cost and ease of use as well as a generational thing, (the old guys used pins). A hammer was $16.00, a big deal to a dirtbag climber when gas was 0.25 cents a gallon. It also was heavy, always in the way and falling out or tangling at the most inopportune times. Nothing will make you want to lead more than seconding someone that over-drives all of their pins.
On the shoe thread;
The kletterschuh to have in the late 60's was the Kronhoffer. They edged like crazy but wouldn't smear for S''t! The leather toes also had the habit of wearing thru before the soles wore out, (probably more a matter of our poor technique). We found that a little fiberglass cloth and surfboard resin made a decent rand.
I later went on to RD's but was to stubborn/cheap to go to EB's those were an order of magnitude better.
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unabonger
Aug 12, 2003, 9:37 PM
Post #29 of 30
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Registered: Aug 8, 2003
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I once used my bic lighter and piton hammer to forge a sky hook from my wedding ring. I alternated hooking and free moves for half a rope length and then pried out a wisdom tooth with my nut tool, slung it with my kletter shoelace for my first pro in 87 feet. I stuffed the dry socket where my wisdom tooth was with chalk.
When I got down from the wall after 2 weeks I used a flint arrowhead to shave my beard. That's not exactly climbing related but I still carry that sucker in case I have to cut my partners free ala Vertical Limits type accident.
Alternatively, what climbing gear have you used for something besides climbing? I opened a can of beans with my harness buckle once.
UnaBonger
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Deleted
Oct 6, 2003, 2:07 AM
Post #30 of 30
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this [i:b3fd0b7cd2]one[/i:b3fd0b7cd2] time, in [i:b3fd0b7cd2]band[/i:b3fd0b7cd2]-camp ...
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