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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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