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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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May 27, 2014 - 08:34pm PT
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More than a well deserved bump, I found a few more Chouinard carabiner mysteries.
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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May 27, 2014 - 08:38pm PT
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On the left is the carabiner on the cover of the 1982 Chouinard catalog. On the right is my 1982 (I believe) light D locking carabiner. The 1982 carabiner is easy to spot since it has two sleeves covering the gate which make up the locking device. All of the other locking carabiners have only one sleeve creating the lock. The machining on the gate takes the place of the second locking sleeve. Looking at the knurled sleeve on both carabiners, the catalog carabiner shows a spiral that stops midway down the locking sleeve, all of the other locking carabiners shown on this thread shows full spiral sleeves like the 1982 carabiner on the right has. All three of the locking carabiners shown in the 1982 catalog have half spiral sleeves. Also note that the right carabiner has a sleeve stopper added on top preventing the sleeve from turning too much upward. Does anybody out there have a sample of this half spiral sleeve carabiner?
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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May 28, 2014 - 12:41am PT
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Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
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Jun 30, 2014 - 10:50am PT
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First Run Alcoa to add to this awesome thread!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jun 30, 2014 - 01:21pm PT
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Cool - finally a more solid confirmation of the "nameless" version,
like Larry Hamilton's.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2014 - 01:29pm PT
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Very nice catch Roots! Thanks for giving me permission to also post your photos at the top of the first timeline post on this thread.
Did you get any owner history that you can share, with this very early Chouinard D?
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Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
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Jun 30, 2014 - 01:38pm PT
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Right after acquiring a few of these, Steve contacted me to tell me the good news (re: first production run). Steve - would you mind relaying the back story on the manufacturing of these Alcoas?
What I can tell you about the seller is that he had intentions of opening a gear shop in Patagonia. He started to collect some gear for his store, but he wound up staying in the US and the gear sat in his storage unit all this time.
I didn't find out when he was planning on opening the store, but the items were pretty much late 50's-60's.
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Jun 30, 2014 - 07:14pm PT
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Roots shows the first Alcoa carabiner Model I. Observing the gate bottom of the Model I, it has a rounded design to the gate allowing the hinge to open freely. The advertisement in the 1960 Dolt catalog shows Chouinard Alcoa Model III carabiners having a rounded design to the gate bottom also. So my question is: Where do the Alcoa's with the flat bottom gates fall into this line up? Are the flat bottom gates Model II's? Why would Chouinard have the perfect design, then go back to a basic design, then go back to what he started with and call it a third design?
I - Alcoa no "Chouinard" curved gate bottom
II - Alcoa and Chouinard Flat gate bottom?
III - Alcoa and Chouinard curved gate bottom
Is there a model IV?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Back in the late 1950s Tom Frost was just starting to spend time at Tahquitz on the weekends. Yvon's sales style in the beginning was out of his pockets and car trunk. On one such trip, Yvon fished around in his knickers and handed Tom one of the first run of Alcoa carabiners.
Tom looked at it carefully and told Yvon that it must has been made in Europe as "such things weren't made here and besides that where's your name? Of course Yvon knew very well what he could or couldn't do and didn't need to listen to me."
This was a pivotal moment and likely the last time that anything leaving Yvon's hand would be without name or attribution.
Realizing his oversight Yvon had CHOUINARD ground into the second die lot which explains the rather faint and ghostly nature of the result.
The way this sort of business was conducted is that Alcoa invested in the dies to make the carabiner bodies and Yvon would then place an order for them. Once a certain number of bodies are die forged then the die needs to be retired and a new one fabricated. Usually small design improvements are incorporated into the drawings for the next die set. Each new generation of Chouinard carabiner (new die set) was usually eagerly announced. The Model I & II in the Dolt catalog are likely both from the first die set though the results are distinct.
This first order was likely fairly small as Yvon didn't have a lot of capital to throw around and the result is the rarest production Chouinard carabiner around. These are the first nameless Alcoa biners that I have seen and give the story a verifiable starting place historically.
Similar carabiner shapes were being produced in Europe at the time in both steel and aluminum so I suspect that Yvon had something to show a draftsman by way of example to create the drawings that are necessary to produce the dies to allow production of his first carabiner.
By the mid 1960s Tom began to moonlight on his aerospace engineering career to begin producing the drawings necessary to allow many of the classic hardware items to be produced without nearly so much time spent profile cutting each workpiece by hand. Imagine cutting Bugaboo pitons out of thick alloy sheet steel with a bandsaw and you will quickly grasp the leap in efficiency.
Tom joined Yvon in Chouinard Equipment full-time by 1965 and we are still using most of the designs that came from this amazing collaboration.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 12, 2014 - 09:26pm PT
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Bump for the original by an Original...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 16, 2014 - 01:02pm PT
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Bump for the good old days...
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Ney Grant
Trad climber
Pollock Pines
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Feb 17, 2015 - 12:42pm PT
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This thread got me going through a set of old Chouinard carabiners and I noticed one that didn't seem to be covered in the thread. It looks like a pre-1968, not stamped Alcoa, only Chouinard, but with the number 071 stamped onto both the gate and body. Maybe he was putting serial numbers of them for a while?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 17, 2015 - 01:03pm PT
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The 071 was definitely added by the owner and not original to the die or manufacture. As I mentioned up thread, the dies would be replaced every few years depending on the production volume and each new die would potentially carry some subtle improvement in shape or design.
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Ney Grant
Trad climber
Pollock Pines
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Feb 17, 2015 - 01:17pm PT
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OK. I considered that but I didn't think someone would stamp on the gate as well as the body. 071 seems kind of strange too, but very possible someone numbered their carabiners at a time when they were more dear.
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Feb 17, 2015 - 02:45pm PT
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I posted this photo on some other thread. Probably belongs here. I picked it up at the base of Queen's Throne on Shuteye Ridge.
Edit:
Got to looking at it. There are no marks on the other side and no load rating.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 17, 2015 - 06:09pm PT
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Those two carabiners look to be pre 1972(edit) and I would say Banquo's looks like the more recent of two successive die lots by the slightly more prominent nose at the gate closure and smaller but cleaner hinge pin details.
Ney Grant's earlier version has conspicuously more peening and the appearance of having fatter hinge pin stock.
Carabiner finishing usually gets cleaner and more refined with time and better tooling and production methods.
Both of you guys take a photo of the nose area with the gate open please. What we are likely to find is an L shaped notch which is a bit deeper on the later version approaching the configuration of the 1968 modified D carabiner with the prominent nose and deep notch for the cross pin.
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Feb 18, 2015 - 08:13am PT
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The finish isn't anything like we see today.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2015 - 08:57am PT
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Regarding the last few posts of carabiners that are only marked CHOUINARD. Those carabiners date from 1968-71, per the attached photos and the timeline established earlier in this thread.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 18, 2015 - 01:40pm PT
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Thanks for the correction and I went back and edited my previous post.
I get the 68 and 72 versions confused. The "new" Chouinard carabiner isn't the load rated Salewa version except in my overstuffed noggin and I associate the later flat version with the 72 catalog when it was later. My bad...for lack of referencing.
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Ney Grant
Trad climber
Pollock Pines
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Feb 19, 2015 - 08:45am PT
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Here is the notch on mine. Looks very much the same to me as the other.
Since Banquo used an original Chouinard nut to hold open his biner I used an old Chouinard belay device on mine.
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