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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2008 - 03:00am PT
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John, I'll get them archived on to a DVD as time allows, but if you really don't want them back then they'll go to Ken Yeager, Marty Karabin, or Stephane Pennequin - to one of the collections where I know they'll have a shot at long term survival.
Hope all is well down under. I suspect Theron and I will have some questions for you once we get rolling...
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Sep 30, 2008 - 03:41am PT
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somehow I don't really think they'd be worthy of keeping, but it's nice of you to say so.
Good luck on the final steps. Here's the deal in a nutshell: when you get the forgings from the forger, you want them in as soft as state as possible. Sometimes forgers will do a heat treat as part of the process, which is bad in this case due to the finishing work that still needs to be done. It might be because its easier for them to quench and do a quick anneal rather than.... ? I can't remember all the details about the forger's heat treat and the specified anneal right now. Because you have to mill the front face, grind off the taper on the sides, and most importantly, drill the carabiner hole with a 9/16" drill (methinks). If you have anything but the softest anneal from the heat treater, you will have a much harder time doing this work.
After all the machine work, of course, you'll have to get them heat treated properly. Have you decided if you are going with 4130 or 4340? The first A5 hammer batch (red handles) was 4130, the second (yellow handles) was 4340. Both have pluses and minuses in terms of a finished product, but to be safe, the more expensive 4340 is probably better because you have more latitude for a good hard heat treatment in the end.
cheers
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2008 - 05:09am PT
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John, yeah, that notebook is a chunk of history.
I did notice you seemed to favor the 4340, but that's all a bit out of my league and I'll leave that up to Theron who I'm sure will have a question or two for you as well.
Interesting drawings of the various clamping jigs...
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tooth
Mountain climber
B.C.
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Sep 30, 2008 - 07:24am PT
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Interesting.
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T Moses
Trad climber
Paso Robles
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I agree tenatively on the 4340 for having a larger usable (for our application) heat treat range. I have been using and stuying 4130 and 4140 most recently for Mineral's beak project. Good stuff, but expensive.
Thanks for the reminder on specing out the full annealing after forging. That could play havoc with the secondary machining processes.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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deuce--
did you really throw away all those notebooks and materials? that would be a shame. if you still have stuff left over from the A5 period, you should consider donating to one of a number of places. I don't know how much safe space Ken has for paper storage, but I would think that at least DVDs would be nice to have there, if he wants them.
The Henry Hall Library at the AAC has a large archival collection with a little bit of decent storage.
The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley is the best public archival library in the western US and has all the Sierra Club Archives as well as the Norman Clyde papers and is looking to build a collection of California and western-US related designers and manufacturers.
Donations would be tax-deductible. If you have stuff, you can email me with the details and I can set up the contacts.
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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Feb 17, 2009 - 02:17pm PT
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Bump for status
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2009 - 02:24pm PT
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I received the box of John's original material and documentation from Conrad's admin Pamela Hainsworth back at the end of September and then a new big software project and political hell took over my life until a couple of weeks ago. On recently going through all his old invoices I discovered we'd been working with the wrong handle plant in trying to locate the original handles. I now have a call into the correct handle plant's manager.
Ended up barking up the wrong tree because these companies had been sold and consolidated with others and without the original invoices neither I nor the [wrong] plant manager could track the handles down or realize it was entirely the wrong plant. At least now we have a bunch of the original handles and can just send them one which is a big help.
I also need to ship all this stuff down to Theron as well...
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Feb 17, 2009 - 08:00pm PT
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Wow! And to think that my hammer sat in the middle of nowhere for no reason for half an eon…
What a freakin’ joke. No wonder this hammer project has gone nowhere and will go nowhere…
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2009 - 08:18pm PT
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Well, Minerals, sorry you feel that way. My hammer got taken apart to replace yours. Neither Lewis, the plant manager, myself, or Theron had the slightest idea we were talking to the wrong plant until we got the original invoices of John's. Those invoices got shuffled around and buried for several years as A5 went to Conrad, then to Northface, and finally Black Diamond. As I said, I only got them last fall right at the start of a big work project.
Yeah, it's going real slow, but it's still going. I'm the sole breadwinner around here and trying to run a business of my own (and climb occasionally, monitor Peregrines, etc.) - again, sorry to bum you out with the glacial pace of things.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Feb 17, 2009 - 08:26pm PT
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Humans................................
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2009 - 08:55pm PT
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Must just be what happens when a guy who hasn't even done a wall is more interested in these hammers than those who have...
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Feb 17, 2009 - 10:22pm PT
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This should inspire you.
John's hammer used on the Trango Tower and many of his Yosemite ascents. It is still very usable.
Ken
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DJMac
Big Wall climber
Bonedale, CO
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Feb 18, 2009 - 06:53pm PT
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This has been a very interesting read ... thanks to you all.
I still have my original red handle (very used), and the brand new signed yellow handle John gave me years ago (in mint condition).
They are true works of art!
Best of luck to you on the hammer project ... if you can top the A5 hammer ... kudos to you!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2009 - 04:35am PT
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DJMac: "Best of luck to you on the hammer project ... if you can top the A5 hammer ... kudos to you!"
DJ, we're just trying to duplicate it, I don't think there is any topping it...!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2009 - 04:55am PT
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John,
Turns out they closed the Indiana O.P. Link plant five years ago and that was the source of all the confusion even with a copy of the original purchase order. I'm shipping Lewis McNeal, the TN plant manager, one of the original handles we got from Conrad and he said he will just reproduce them exactly so we are finally covered on the handle front. All the delays have been a drag, but on the other hand, steel prices are down from their previously astronomical levels which will know work in our favor as we have Ajax requote the heads.
I'll be shipping all your remarkable documentation out to Theron and I'm sure he'll have a bunch of questions for you around working with Ajax and the heat treating as on reading the whole saga it sounds as though you went round a few times with both vendors to get exactly what you wanted. I'm guessing he'll also have questions about the tooling / jigs for finishing the hammer heads.
I have a couple of questions for you relative to installing the handles. The eye of the handles are pretty tight relative to attempting to slide the head on with the tangs. Was there further sanding/grinding down of the handle eye to accomodate the tangs or is it just a brute force compression that is taking place in the photo below with no further modifications to the factory handle?
Also, I note from a piece of instructions (with art on the back that I believe shipped with each hammer) it appears you didn't install the wedges at the time of assembly, but rather included them for the customer to install after a short break-in period - is that correct? I saw that Norman link had sent some round wedges for you to try; were those cone or ring wedges and did your try them.
And last, the tang rivet. I know next to nothing about metal, that's Theron's provence, but what was that made from? It almost seems to just be from a common nail, is that the case or is it something far more specific (I'm guessing it is)?
Seems like we're finally on the verge and it sounds like Theron is cranking on the beaks and Ed Leeper's cam hooks - he had a batch of both going out for heat treating today. He's becoming a real retro-shop. What a resource for us all.
Hope all is well down Tasman-way.
Joseph
P.S. The young baby across the street from us is named 'Hunter Tasman' and was born there while his parents were working down under for two years.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Mar 27, 2009 - 04:27pm PT
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The tangs were stainless steel strips bent in a vice, then drilled in place, and the rivet was exactly as you suspected, a 16 penny nail, cut then peened. It's purpose is just to hold the tangs in place, so the softness of the 16 penny nails is perfect for peening. It takes a bit of practice to know where to cut off the nails--I recall about 3/16" on either side, then the peening is a bit of craftsmanship.
Regarding the wood handle --no modifications were made (they were custom designed for my hammers)--you want a tight fit, but of course too tight and the wood might get too compressed and split at the connection. Put the tangs and the handle in at the same time, and hammer it in. Then you need a little tool to slightly adjust the angle of the tangs prior to drilling the hole for the 16 penny nail mentioned above.
I found that my hammers didn't really need the wedges, but I included them as people who had previously used the original Chouinard Hammers (which had them) thought they were important, so I included them for people to put in themselves if they wanted to.
Was that all the questions?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2009 - 04:38pm PT
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Not by a long shot - Theron and I will undoubtably have lots more as we go along, especially about the forging, heat treating, and jigs/tooling. Those handle questions just came up last night as I pondered reassembling my own hammer onto one of the new handles from Conrad.
And your answer is what I suspected looking at the picture above - that you spec'd them perfectly so you could just compress them with tangs in place. But it gives one pause and some doubt that that's really the case sitting there trying to adjust the head up and down on the handle to find the right spot where you can get the head, tangs, and handle all going together at once.
I think it was must have been a bit of work/genius sorting out the correct eye dimensions once you understand what's going on and necessarily involved with the assembly process in order to get a really robust hammer with some longevity about it. I also now better understand why you kept stressing to Norman you wanted the highest quality handle he could possibly produce. Sounds as though he ended up a good partner and like he was genuinely interested in your adventures and happy to be a part of them.
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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Mar 27, 2009 - 09:45pm PT
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Sweet, progress!
I've heard soaking the head of hammer handles in linseed oil helps in the assy process. Now if I can just remember where I came across that...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 29, 2009 - 07:57pm PT
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About halfway through scanning all the docs; here's a couple of tidbits. The completed scans will probably go up on four seperate threads for:
OSHP: A5 Hammer Workbook
OSHP: A5 Hammer Design-Assembly Notes
OSHP: A5 Hammer Ajax Forging
OSHP: A5 Hammer Phoenix Heat Treating
[John, I'll be sending you the original hi-res scans on a DVD...]
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