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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Dec 14, 2010 - 01:26am PT
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I want to add something to calm the masses... No funds have been dispersed at this point. I am holding onto all orders and all funds until we have a complete and satisfactory answer/outcome to the issue. This will make it much easier to accommodate any refund issues if necessary.
I fully trust Theron and his advisers. Once I have the thumbs up then I will disperse funds.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Dec 14, 2010 - 01:28am PT
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Strider and Mighty... Give me until the AM and I will post what I have been planning. I had this in my back pocket for a while because I didn't think the holster market was worthy. Maybe it is or maybe it isn't... let's see!
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Strider
Trad climber
one of god's mountain temples.... ಠ_ಠ
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Dec 14, 2010 - 01:44am PT
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Can's wait...
-n
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JBC
Trad climber
Tacoma, WA
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Dec 14, 2010 - 02:06am PT
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A holster like the old DOLT one, correct? That can be accommodated. I will post more tonight/tomorrow...
Add another interested party to the list - one would have thought you would have learned your lesson with the hammer project! LOL
Jim
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2010 - 02:13am PT
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Just hang in there with us folks - let's hear what Theron finds out from the pros before anyone gets crazy. As it stands from what we know now from all our testing the cracked heads are cracked and the good ones are good with the serial numbers / D5 head stamp being the culprit in the bad ones. We only had a few crack so there are still hammers for all.
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Captain...or Skully
Big Wall climber
leading the away team, but not in a red shirt!
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Dec 14, 2010 - 08:32am PT
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My trust is in Theron. His trust is in his advisors. Good enough for me.
Hammer on, man.
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HighTraverse
Social climber
Bay Area
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Dec 14, 2010 - 12:41pm PT
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In Theron we trust.
'nough said
I don't even know him but others vouching is good enough for me. I ain't worried
Gonna twist Karodrinker's arm 'bout Lava Falls next time I see 'im.
Munge....looks like the hook placement to end all hook placements. What's the worry?
Good to see a D5 doing it's thing.
Now back to byte bashing
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Dec 14, 2010 - 01:14pm PT
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THREAD DRIFT...
Many a year ago I had a DOLT nylon/plastic/LexanŽ holster as seen below.
This holster was fantastic as I never had to struggle to get the hammer back in its home. Just place the handle near the holster and it seems to fall back into place. The same can not be said of a leather/web holster after some time; they just get flaccid like an elderly gigolo.
I suppose the one drawback I found was the holster did not flex in chimneys/wedgie spots. But then again, the hammer in those spots was never a bag of feathers against my hip either.
So... For a while I have planned to remake the DOLT holster that I loved so much. The only change might be to lengthen the back piece so the hammer hangs an inch below the hip rather than right on it. Dolt ended up doing the same thing. Now it seems there are enough hammers out there that it might make sense to move the project forward.
What say ye? Is this an item with a market, albeit tiny.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2010 - 01:21pm PT
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The JRat holster - now that's style and looks good with lycra.
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Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
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Dec 14, 2010 - 02:01pm PT
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Thanks for the due diligence getting these right guys.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Dec 14, 2010 - 02:14pm PT
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Had a couple of Troll plastic hammer holsters. Much preferred over fabric. Easy in and out. These days I just clip the hammer up close to the shoulder sling with a biner. Keeps it tucked in near me better, and, a little higher than on a harness.
Yeah, those Dolt holsters were nice.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Dec 14, 2010 - 03:26pm PT
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The problem with selling any holsters today Simon is that gear loops usually work, and most harness's won't let you thread a holster onto it where you would want it to be. If I clip a few extra biners to the gear loop, my Metolius Waldo wall harness loops will work great for a hammer. Without the biners, the hammer falls out, with them, works great.
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T Moses
Big Wall climber
Paso Robles
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:23am PT
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Sorry for the lack of information in the last week. I have been super busy working to get this problem all figured out. I absolutely cannot ship any hammers until I have it all worked out. I have sent samples to four seperate companies for their professional opinions.
The Forge said it was heat treating. Any flaws should be on the parting line (the perimiter of the head where the dies close together)not around the stamping area on top of the head.
The independant tool and die maker said it was most likely the stampings (serial numbers). All cracking occurs in the quench procces of heat treat and no further cracking should occur. He and the independant heat treater recommended a stress test that I performed (detailed later).
The independant heat treater said that 4340 steel is sensetive to scribe lines and stamping. I wish I would have known that a month ago! I've done a small amount of heat treating myself and have a lot of heat treating done. I have dealt with 4130 (in the same family of metals) in large quantities (cam hooks, tomahawks, logan hooks, etc...). I stamp those with my logo and have yet to have one single one crack. Parts won't randomly crack a few months after treatment. If it doesn't have a crack in it yet it won't get one.
The heat treater and I were baffled at first why the cracks weren't found right after quenching in the procces. The explaination we arrived at was that the heads are black after treatment. This makes spotting small black cracks a problem on forgings that are by nature slightly rough. The parts went to sandblasting after that and I think the sand dust covered the majority of the cracks up at this time. I hand inspected them before oiling and caught four total cracked heads. After the assembly weekend we found more cracked heads prompting a detailed look at each head. He also said that if it isn't cracked yet it's not going to.
The heat treater sent the two heads I sent him off to a metalurgist for review on the seventh of December. He has not received them yet. I sent UPS overnight five heads to him today. A memeber of the forum offered his connection to a metalurgist and if he had been two hours earlier I would have taken him up on his kind offer. I should hear back tomorrow from the metalurgist.
I stress tested good heads myself by cooking them in the oven at 300 degrees for two hours and then dropping them in cold tap water. This is a HUGE shock to the part and a good indicator of any weaknesses. All the heads I tested passed with flying colors.
Munge established a route at Pinnacles hand placing four bolts.
Joseph absolutely beat all three of his heads up.
I inspected very closely all the heads last night. I used a 10x jeweler's loupe on any even questionable surface. My eyes hurt after all that work.
The indicators I'm getting right now are good to go on the non-cracked heads.
This is a complex subject and I will try to answer any questions and post more information over the next couple of days as it comes in.
Thanks for your vote of confidence Skully, Moof, et al. I appreciate it and strive to live up to it.
It is frustrating to see 110+ hammers that are almost ready to ship just sitting there. I have all of the parts for another 90+ ready to assemble. As soon as I get the good word I will be shipping out.
I'll post pics tomorrow
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Strider
Trad climber
one of god's mountain temples.... ಠ_ಠ
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:32am PT
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Deeply appreciate your dedication to producing a quality product for us.
Cheers
-n
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:34am PT
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Thanks for the work ethic, and for keeping your customers in the loop. A rare treat not seen in today's marketplace.
Best of luck
Mucci
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2010 - 02:06am PT
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In the morning I will post the number of hammers still available. It is getting small...
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froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2010 - 02:48am PT
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Thanks for the updates. I too have faith!
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bmacd
Trad climber
100% Canadian
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Dec 15, 2010 - 02:51am PT
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Thanks for your commitment and dedication to this project Theron, I am very pleased to be a purchaser of one of these hammers.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 15, 2010 - 07:00am PT
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I wanted to add that the issue has been just as much about them being brittle and the edge of the hammer face chipping and injuring someone in the process. That would essentially entail them being too hard, thus 'brittle' and prone to cracking / chipping on some sort of impact. Chipping of the face edges would be a good indication of that.
I came back from Theron's and assembling with three hammers. So I tested them face-to-face as it were, putting one hammer pick-down on concrete sidewalk pieces and beating it with one of the other hammers and then inspecting the faces for chipping. Here's roughly what I was doing only on large chunks of concrete:
And as you can see in the following pics that my aim wasn't good enough to keep the two hammer faces perfectly oriented to one another during the beating and so the sharp-milled edges of the faces and the faces of themselves did in fact get beat. Here is the result - 'rolling' / 'mushrooming' of the edges with indents in the face - all without any chipping:
And in fact I was able to clean up the edge with a flat file and a brief touch on an upside-down belt sander without too much trouble as you can see below:
Bottom line from my testing is that the heads aren't too hard or brittle - we just screwed up going with the serial number idea. Who knew that had the potential to introduce problems of its own? We didn't, and apparently it isn't commonly known outside of those folks with deep expertise in more high-tech / critical heat treating applications such as aerospace.
But to be sure Theron is seeking the opinions of expert heat treaters and metallurgists, as has another person involved done in SLC, and I've also inquired with some titanium casting (finicky) aerospace folks here in PDX. The story so far is what's cracked has cracked and what's good is good. If we hear differently in the next day or two we'll let you know, but that's where we stand at the moment. If that story doesn't change we'll be shipping the moment we get that confirmation.
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PhotogEC
climber
In front of my computer
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Dec 15, 2010 - 09:36am PT
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In this day and age of ubiquitous cheap Chinese made junk, it is beyond refreshing to see the lengths to which Theron and Joseph are going to ensure they're delivering a high quality product.
Thanks to both of you for all of your efforts on this project.
--Eric
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