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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Aug 22, 2007 - 04:31pm PT
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Alan Humphries is one of them. Some of my WBs have an AH stamp on them.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Aug 22, 2007 - 04:34pm PT
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NoOne: Destroy? I'm talking about non destructive testing in real world conditions... like on my vacation next month...... Whaddya scared of?
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Aug 22, 2007 - 04:38pm PT
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I'll hook ya up Russ..I'll bring my Faliens out with me next time I hit the tree and we can pull the hell out of 'em.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Aug 22, 2007 - 07:13pm PT
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Please tell me there's really beer in the Pepsi can...
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Aug 22, 2007 - 07:28pm PT
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I knew I had that piece hanging around...here are some shots of it.
You can see why I didn't like it...the thing was permanantly umbrella'd like this. Functionally, it works okay, but the action of pulling the trigger sucks. Not a cam stop in sight. I'm pretty sure this effect got worse over time, as I can't believe I would have bought the thing like this...
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treeman
climber
mule city
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Aug 22, 2007 - 07:36pm PT
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John MacMullen and maybe Kyle Copeland, and a guy named Brent?
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hlehmann
Trad climber
San Fernando Valley
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Aug 22, 2007 - 10:06pm PT
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I remember that on some Autumn weekend in 1985, Todd Skinner & Company had gotten hold of a bunch of original TCU's from Metolious and were hoping to sell them along the Carriage Road at the Gunks. All it took was a quick "Psst, Buddy... check this out" on a busy Saturday morning, and before noon their entire supply was sold out. I think they got $20 or $25 each for them; I don't exactly remember. All the rich yuppie climbers that had bought some were running to try them out on the thin, horizontal, Gunks cracks. Friends, with their solid stems, were typically tied off with 5mm Perlon or Kevlar to keep them from breaking over the horizontal edges in the event of a fall ( I still have my original Friends tied off this way, and I haven't been to the Gunks in almost 20 years). These new-fangled TCUs would not only fit into smaller cracks than the Friends, but their flexible stems would prevent them from breaking during a fall.
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N0_ONE
Social climber
Utah
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Aug 23, 2007 - 02:31pm PT
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Russ, you can only have it if your going to pull it to failur then tells us what happens.
I've carried as an extra but never placed it. It's got some big dents in two of the cam lobes, and I don't know how far it fell from.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Aug 23, 2007 - 03:26pm PT
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The first time I saw a TCU was at the Leap.
We were on Mega Force when we watched this scrawny couple walk up the gully towards us. To our surprise, they meander over to Silly Willy Crack, a discontinuous crack that's impossibly thin looking.
Even more to our astonishment, this whiff of a guy starts leading up, and making great progress. Of course, it was Suzuki and his wife. He showed me his secret, tiny camming units. He had a set of 'em. They looked funny.
"How hard is that crack?"
"Oh, very hard," he said as he looked up. Recalling the sequence, he said "Five twelve move...five twelve move, five twelve move. Five twelve move..." He was mentally going over the moves.
Two days later he sent the 2nd: 5.12d
Who made the first, fat fingers and all?
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JohnnyMac
Big Wall climber
Carbondale, CO
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Aug 24, 2007 - 11:20am PT
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HA! Thanks for sending me the link Matt! And thanks Deuce for posting the pics ... I got a huge laugh seeing these again. Brings back a lot of good memories from Flagstaff. Wish I was still that skinny (I'm in the black T-shirt). :)
Miss all you guys!
 JM
Oh, btw ... I still have all my TCU's and Sliders!
KC isn't in any of these photos. Haven't heard or seen him for years. Hope he's still kick'in out there somewhere.
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drljefe
climber
Old Pueblo, AZ
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Mar 14, 2009 - 12:33pm PT
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Bliss baby!
I had no idea WB was dunzo until recent partners were trippin out on my rack, and my key chain.
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Mar 14, 2009 - 12:44pm PT
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I got lots o WB TCU's on my rack. Love the purple and blue's
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seamus mcshane
climber
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Mar 14, 2009 - 02:05pm PT
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I have four WB's and they are still as good as ever.
Silly Willy was done first by Bill Price.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 14, 2009 - 04:10pm PT
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I still have these three in service.
The oldest in the house are these two from Mimi's rack.
The one on the left is rustic enough to be original run!
The first consistent runs had the center wire cluster and no anodizing or Wired Bliss stamp.
The next run was tricked out with side wires, stamp and color coding.
The cams also had subtle grooves for a better bite.
I never had a problem with these fantastic cams!!!
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hobo
climber
PDX
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Mar 14, 2009 - 07:44pm PT
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Mike. , by "new", do you mean metolius? On pitch 5?
Alex
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herm
Trad climber
Bishop
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Mar 14, 2009 - 08:31pm PT
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I remember doing Cinnamon Slab at Smith in '83 and watching a guy send Karot tots with a bunch of these crazy homemade things he said he invented. It was the first time I even heard of any cams that were not friends or Tricams. Never had I seen such a blank [looking] face lead with such aplomb, before then.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Mar 15, 2009 - 06:34pm PT
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rarely saw WBs, but one week when Donner Summit came on the scene, JB Tribout, Bobby Bensman, Didier R.(sp?) were all there busting moves left and right.
In the parking lot below Snow Shed wall, this guy in a van is selling WBs, chalk, etc from his the sliding door of the van. I think I've posted this before. Anyways, he has this goofy styrofoam wig stand bungie corded to his passenger seat.
didn't see too many after that as either right before or after metolius started selling the TCU units.
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froodish
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Mar 16, 2009 - 04:57pm PT
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A number 2 Wired Bliss ball nut, purchased out of a van in JT sometime in the 80's:
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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Mar 17, 2009 - 12:25am PT
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I too had a few of these in my possession as well in the day...
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 17, 2009 - 01:08am PT
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My whole rack of cams for years was "Wired Bliss". They got so worn and used Coz one day saw them and freaked out and got me a new rack of camlots to support the mess I was using as protection.
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