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adkeditor
Trad climber
Saranac Lake, NY
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 28, 2013 - 08:15pm PT
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Below are two old pitons on Chapel Pond Slab in the Adirondacks, both on a route established by Fritz Wiessner in 1933. I doubt they date back that far, but I'm wondering if anybody can hazard a rough guess as to their vintage.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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May 28, 2013 - 08:19pm PT
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Fritz Weissner, who climbed within 700ft of the summit of K2 in 1939 but turned back to save his sherpa. Without crampons.
Yup.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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May 28, 2013 - 08:57pm PT
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Where's Rich Goldstone when ya need him:-)
Those pitons are pretty old. That would be beyond cool to establish their provenance as being placed by Weissner. Nice shots!
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Wayne Campbell
climber
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May 28, 2013 - 09:04pm PT
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Those look like US Army ring angles, manufactured in enormous quantities during WWII for mountain warfare troops. They were available as army surplus after the war. I don't know if they were made earlier than that. those look older than god!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 28, 2013 - 09:05pm PT
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Man you're takin' me back! I remember girth hitching slings to those rings back in about 1975. I always assumed they were original, from the FA. They looked ancient back then.
Chapel Pond is cool. One time I was up high there and a B-52, presumably from Plattsburg AFB Strategic Air Command flew through the pass low. That was wild.
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Evel
Trad climber
Nedsterdam CO
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May 28, 2013 - 09:06pm PT
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No reason that I could think of as to why those babies weren't placed by Fritz. As mentioned, we need Rich to chime in.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 28, 2013 - 09:11pm PT
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Ring angles are just about impossible to date accurately but that ring blade is unusual in that it has reduced thickness at the connection point.
Sporthaus Schuster was the main sources of imported soft iron pitons but that ring blade looks custom made.
As to whether they were Wiessners originals you would have to try to climb into his head to see if the placements were crucial or not. Most soft iron pitons were not removed if they were really driven well.
Need a match from a Fritz route in the Gunks to nail down the ring blade. Scuz the pun....
Where are you getting "without crampons" GDavis?
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go-B
climber
Hebrews 1:3
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May 28, 2013 - 09:40pm PT
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It looks like the tip of the pin broke off in the top photo, I don't think it was made that way?
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Wayne Campbell
climber
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May 28, 2013 - 10:24pm PT
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Yes, it is an angle with half the end cracked off probably due to corrosion...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 28, 2013 - 10:34pm PT
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I agree. Is this Wayne Campbell The Radwall guy?
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 28, 2013 - 10:44pm PT
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Would fritz have even fixed pins BINTD. probobly quite frugal and would not use many or leave any pins. They do look like WWll army surplus?
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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May 28, 2013 - 11:58pm PT
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Phil, mos of those were likely placed in the 1950s and 1960s. Penn State Outting Club, Dave Bernays from Saranac Lake, and the Canadian-Quebec crew from Montreal are the likely suspects. We commonly saw those in the early-1970s and they were in pretty good shape. Ma Schaffer sold those until she closed the shop in the 1980s. Soft steel pins weathered better than the hard steel pins from Chouinard and SMC.
6 minutes to jog up the slab without ropes...
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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May 29, 2013 - 12:02am PT
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Yes, they look post WWII. I used to use those things all the time. How climbing has changed.
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adkeditor
Trad climber
Saranac Lake, NY
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2013 - 08:15am PT
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Thanks for all the insights. Based on Todd's experience, they date back 50 years or so. Todd, six minutes? That has to be the record.
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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May 29, 2013 - 09:58am PT
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Just a bit of info, as to why old "soft" iron pitons seem to last forever in rock.
The round forged iron ring is made of wrought iron, which is forge welded together. This type of iron, has a very low carbon content, which in some cases approaches zero carbon content. When brought to the forge welding temperature, the orange to white metal is liquid, and emits almost zero sparks, unlike high carbon steel. In this state, a forge weld is much easier to accomplish than in higher carbon steels.
Because of the lack of carbon, these type of pitons do not "rust" away nearly as fast has modern pitons.
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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May 29, 2013 - 12:14pm PT
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If those pitons were actually forged from wrought iron , there would likely be a definite striated grainy appearance to the material as it slowly corrodes . This striation is from the small amounts of silica distributed through the otherwise almost pure iron . The manufacturing process of rolling and forging the iron bloom as it came from the puddling furnace forms these distinctive layers. True wrought iron shows a defined wood grain appearance when it is broken through the section.
Real wrought iron hasn't been manufactured in this country for many years, although it is still available in England in limited [ and expensive ] amounts. It is still the preferred material for some kinds of forged work, particularly outdoors ,for both it's working characteristics and corrosion resistance, but has almost entirely been replaced by modern alloy steels .
Wrought iron [ or any steel ] is not at a liquid state at forge welding temperature but is in a soft, highly plastic state, able to be joined together by the force of the hammer into a '' solid state weld ''. [ think about forming and joining clay or pie dough for an analogy ]
Low carbon ''mild steel '', manufactured in the early parts of the 20th century seems to be both lower in carbon and more homogeneous in composition than a lot of modern hot rolled structural steels. This is what I suspect these pitons were forged from. I have a pile of similar ring angle and blade pitons and all of them look to be forged from low carbon mild steel and not wrought iron.
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Seth
Trad climber
New York, NY
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May 29, 2013 - 01:52pm PT
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There are numerous similar ring pins in the Gunks. On Thin Slabs Direct, for example.
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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May 29, 2013 - 04:01pm PT
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Sheet steel has been around in some form as long ago as when they started to make plate armor [ early middle ages in Europe at least. ] It was probably welded up and drawn out from billets under water powered tilt hammers or gangs of men with sledges. Cutting to shape would have been done with chisel and hammer. Very labor intensive and probably quite expensive for the time.
I'm not sure when the rolling mill was developed, [ 1840 ? ] It probably had to wait until a powerful enough lathe came along to form accurate rolls and bearings. Once the rolling mill came into use, mass production of sheet and plate in all kinds of thicknesses was possible.
Steve Grossman, you should come by sometime and we can forge out some pitons. I'm on Orcas Island, American San Juan Islands. I'm a blacksmith by trade and have the full arsenal of tools. We could document the process as part of the ongoing history of both the sport and the craft.
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