Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 09:15am PT
|
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 09:15am PT
|
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 09:15am PT
|
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 09:17am PT
|
The Next person to put on the Bridwell shirt will probably be Ken.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Aug 19, 2011 - 11:12am PT
|
I like how the access guy has the Largo/Michael Jackson, one-glove thing going....
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 03:04pm PT
|
Wednesday surgery was a success. I finally got the agave spike surgically removed from my right hand middle finger. This bad boy was in my finger for over two months. I can't believe I was still course setting at the gym and somewhat climbing using my finger. Bad Flagstaff AZ agave, bad!
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 03:09pm PT
|
Okay let's talk about some Sliders....
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2011 - 03:16pm PT
|
HISTORY LESSON VOL 4
10 slider devices shown. On this round I am looking for name of the Slider and Manufacturer who created it.
BONUS: Name the date they were first sold.
SUPER BONUS: Besides being sliders, what does slider #4 and #5 have in common?
Answers will be reviled this Sunday night just after dinner, AZ time.
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 20, 2011 - 09:42pm PT
|
|
|
DanaB
climber
CT
|
|
|
Aug 20, 2011 - 10:40pm PT
|
#5 is a Rock N' Roller. I have two of them.
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2011 - 09:33pm PT
|
HISTORY LESSON VOL 4 - ANSWERS:
The first known slider is the "Scottie" made in 1946 by George "Scottie" Dwyer. Dwyer was a Welsh mountain guide who used the Scottie personally, but never manufactured the device.
Slider item #1 - Porter Slider (early c1970s - USA) - available in 5 sizes.
The Slider in the question is #5 and was used by Jim Bridwell on the first ascent of the Pacific Ocean Wall in Yosemite CA. Somehow the slider ended up in Jay Fisks hands and was retrieved by Eric Kohl and ended up in the Karabin Museum. The Porter Sliders were created by Charlie Porter and were also called "Stackers" and "Duo Nuts."
Slider item #2 - HB - Cobra (c1989 - Wales) - available in 2 sizes.
The Cobra in the question is yellow #1. Cobras were created by Hugh Banner.
Slider item #3 - Ande - Mini Hard/Split Chocks. (c1990s - England) - available in 4 sizes.
The Split Chock in the question is white #4 and is distributed by Kong Bonaiti in Italy.
Slider item #4 - Climb Tech - Tech Nuts (c2000 - USA) -available in 6 sizes.
The Tech Nut in the question is violet #5 which is the first available set sold in the stores. Tech Nuts were created by Karl Guthrie and Joseph Schwartz who also created the removable bolt devices.
Slider item #5 - Go Pro Inc - Rock N' Roller (c1986 - USA) - available in 5 sizes.
DanaB is correct on #5 being a Rock N' Roller device.
The Rock N' Roller in the question is size red #4 which is the second generation of Rollers. Rock N' Rollers first generation were in 4 sizes listed as "A, B, C, D" and did not have the two small plastic tubes just above the nut. Rock N' Rollers were created by Karl Guthrie and Joseph Schwartz.
SUPER BONUS ANSWER: Tech Nuts (Slider item #4) and Rock N' Rollers (Slider item #5) were created by the same people.
In the photo below, the far right three Rock N' Rollers are prototypes. The green prototype is called a Tech Roller. In many climbing stores that sold Rock N' Rollers there was a testing block which Go Pro Inc supplied for climbers to test their slider devices upon to show the Rollers ultimate holding power.
Slider item #6 - Yates Gear - Wedgeez II (c1987 - USA) - available in one size.
This double sided slider is a very cool device! It was also available in a single side slider named Wedgeez I.
The photo below shows the progression of prototypes that lead up to the final device sold on the store shelves. (far right piece in photo is final item). The two devices below are the Wedgeez I final (red) and Wedgeez I prototype.
Slider item #7 - Wired Bliss - Ball Nut (c1987 - USA) - available in 3 sizes.
The Ball Nut in the question is red #2. Ball Nuts were created by Steve Byrne in Flagstaff AZ.
In the photo below, the upper left Ball Nuts are Wired Bliss prototypes. The first two on the lower left were created by Jim Waugh (c1987). The third in line (black) is called a "Pirate" created by Tim Wenger (c1987-88). The next middle three are the original Ball Nuts created by Wired Bliss which originally had a clear plastic tubing wire jacket which dissolved in the AZ heat. The lower right BallNutz are created by Trango (c1999 Korea) and the upper right Ball Nut is created by Camp (c1998 Korea).
The next photo below is Lowe/Byrne Ball Nuts (c1988 - USA) created by Greg Lowe and Steve Byrne. A thumb trigger is added which is considered second generation (left two). I am not sure if a smaller orange was ever created in the generation two set. The generation three set (c1989) was created which were originally a set of three, and then in the mid 1990s, the #4 and #5 sizes were created. The far right Ball Nut is a rare "Double Ball" which was a prototype that was never created. Donated by Mike Clifton.
Slider item #8 - DBest Mountaineering - Quickie (c1986 - USA) - available in 6 sizes.
The Quickie in the question is yellow #4 and is the first generation. The first generation carabiner loop end is dipped in plastic, and the second generation have plastic tubing for the carabiner loop end. The nut sizes also differ between the generations. The Quickies were created by Don Best.
In the photo below the top row is prototypes which one was donated by Pete Takeda. The far top right is a rare channel Quickie that were never produced donated by John Middendorf. The below set is the first generation (lower left) and second generation (lower right).
Slider item #9 - Metolius Mountain Products - Slider (c1983 - USA) - available in 5 sizes.
The Slider in the question is green #3 and was created by Doug Phillips.
From Stephane: For a year and a half, Doug Phillips tried many a combination of opposed wedging chocks before creating his Slider. The first prototypes systematically dropped out, and then Doug Phillips realized that if in theory the system should work, in practice both wedges do not generate the same coefficient of friction on either side of the crack. He compensated this by pouring some soldier, a softer material, on only one of the faces, that is in contact with the rock. Doug Phillips took out a patent on the 17th October 1983 and marketed the Sliders the same year by setting up Metolius Mountain Products. Composed of two inverted wedges made of brass, sliding one against the other, held by a dove tail, the Sliders perform well in parallel cracks of granite. Built in five different sizes, the set covered a range of 0.25 to 0.65 ouches (0.63 to 1.65cm). The market, in following years, would witness a plethora of little jewels inspired by the Sliders that could be used in flared cracks.
Slider item #10 - Faces Designs On Mountains - Slug (c1988 - England) - available in 3 sizes.
The Slug in the question is red #3 and was created by Derek Ryden, Phil Dickens, and Jim Ballard.
|
|
rockjockrob
Boulder climber
Tempe, Arizona
|
|
|
Aug 25, 2011 - 06:44pm PT
|
And the Bridwell shirt goes into the Yosemite history museum... It was awesome how the shirt still had a faint smell of Camel Cigarettes. Jim, Thanks for preserving this for us to enjoy all these years later. Marty, thanks for giving us all a chance to be a part of the history. Climb on!
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 27, 2011 - 09:24pm PT
|
Sometimes climbing manufacturers create the strangest T-shirts! In 2005, Evolv Sports gave me a t-shirt to wear which I found to be very odd. The statement on the t-shirt was "Wiener dog not made for climbing, Evolv shoes are!" The statement was accompanied with a cartoon drawing of a wiener dog, which is actually classified as a Dachshund. I always thought the t-shirt was kinda lame, but I wore it from time to time to show my support toward my sponsor. A year later in January 2006, I received a phone call from the Suzuki car company. The phone call was actually from a film company that was going to be creating a car commercial that involved rock climbing in the commercial. I have helped with television commercials, advertisements, videos, and magazine/book publications before, but hearing it was a Suzuki commercial was quite exciting. I said yes without even thinking about it.
I met with the filming staff and collected information on what they wanted me to do for the commercial. I was not the main climbing star, but was the climber that was in the finish of the commercial by climbing up to the top of the cliff face, while I was being shown from the distance. I was also in charge of somehow raising and lowering two actors in the film shoot, to make it look like they were actually rappelling into, and out of, the area of filming. One of the main stars in this commercial, believe it or not, was a climbing wiener dog.
I met with the site coordinator and the location picked for the commercial was at Papago Buttes, Eliot Ramada area which is near the Phoenix Zoo in Arizona. Back then vehicles were allowed to drive in and park at the Eliot Ramada, but today the area is closed to vehicles, but people can still hike into the area which is about 1/8 of a mile distance. I was quite familiar with the rock face that site coordinator was insisting of filming, since I created a guide map for the City of Phoenix years previous, that they use in their search and rescue missions. Yes the mountain is rock, but it is quite crumbly and not really considered a rock climbing area. One or two beginner climbers/adventurous hikers a year die on this wall since they scramble up it and either get stuck somewhere in the middle of the face in fear of continuing upwards, or can't figure out how to get back down and chance an improper descent path. The City of Phoenix Fire Department uses my MK map as a guide to safely get their fire department rescuers to the top of the mountain, where they then retrieve the stuck peoples off of the mountain via the many belay stations listed on the MK map.
The area of filming is a wall which is around 250 feet tall, so raising and lowering a climber/non-climber at that height on a crumbly rock face was out of the question in my mind. But I came up with an alternative plan by hiring one of the most creative climbing gadget riggers in town, my boss at the Phoenix Rock Gym, Paul Diefenderfer. Paul (Dief) has been hired by many construction companies, where he lowered and raised construction inspectors up and down cliff walls where new bridges and roadways were being built. Dief at the time was working with inspectors at the Hoover Dam bridge project, which the new bridge was completed about a year ago. Dief has created a device out of a sail boat winch which had the ability to safely raise and lower major amounts of weight. All I had to do was position/anchor Dief twenty or so feet above the actual filming area, and we were in business. We used two radios for communication between us, and also used visual hand signals as a secondary form of communication to give the film crew the action that they were looking for. The producer of the film was quite impressed with our climbing rigging and communication system that Dief and I came up with. The producer mentioned that he used climbing companies before, that had near disaster results to the camera equipment, the climbing riggers did not really know what they were doing, or it continually took extra hours to get the film talent into position. Dief's job was just sitting on his butt in a large cave/hueco on the climbing face for about 9 hours, winching the film talent up and down. I was the ground crew that got to be with all of the action. My job was making sure the talent/climbers were properly tied in, harness and gear looked proper for the shoot, everybody was guaranteed the highest level of safety, which included the climbers and film crew below.
The commercial was created to introduce the new Suzuki Grand Vitara. A macho climber arrives at the mountain, and starts to scale it exclaiming that the terrain is rugged just like his Suzuki Grand Vitara. Suddenly a regular guy who has his child in his backpack, groceries in his arm, and his dog hanging from his harness rappels into the scene exclaiming that the Suzuki Grand Vitara is made for regular guys too. The regular guy continues to rappel out of the scene leaving the macho climber stunned. The macho climber continues to scale the cliff face to the top to show the height of the mountain. All of this was for commercials being aired only in Canada, and the speaking was all in French.
I was handed a script that showed storyboards for each scene to be filmed, and then it dawned on me on how many millions of dollars that Suzuki was pouring into this one commercial. I was instructed to meet at a resort in Scottsdale with the wardrobe department to get fitted in many different outfit possibilities. The shoot date was for January 25, 26, and 27 of 2006. January 27th was the main filming date where the 25th and 26th were for setting up the shoot. The City of Phoenix Parks Department allowed the film crew to build a wooden stage with rail tracks, below the filming area for their $100,000+ camera boom to sit upon. I set up my anchors and Dief and I made sure that we tested his devices and got the safety approval from the producers and directors.
The Eliot Ramada area became a city of RVs and shade tents. There was RVs for wardrobe, make-up, two food catering trucks, directors RV, film equipment trucks and then the RV for the wiener dog rolled in. This RV was the biggest of them all and it was all for the dog! This particular wiener dog was famous for many commercials that it was filmed in, besides magazines and videos. The wiener dog was definitely the star of the shoot. A special ergonomic harness was created for the dog, and also a climbing helmet. The selected talent was all in place, and then the shoot happened. It was a beautiful day and everything went well except for the child that was hanging in the backpack carrier was being difficult and uncooperative. The directors tried to make the best of what they had. The next day I received a phone call from the production manager that the shoot had to be redone due to the child problem.
I was instructed to meet with the production staff at the Scottsdale resort around dinner time, to view a new set of kid possibilities that were selected for the reshoot. I was a little late arriving at the meeting since I had to pick up my kids from school, get some food into their bellies, and then get to the resort through rush hour traffic. My kids were tired and irritable and wanted just to go home and were not interested in this meeting that I had to go to. But tough beans kids! We arrived to notice five new children that were with their parents that were selected as the new talent possibilities. The child that did not cry when being placed into the child carrier was going to be the child selected for the shoot. My youngest son Nicholas was having fun playing on the resort couches and crawling all over one of the directors named Brian. Brian was really nice, but was getting irritated of Nicholas playing with him. Brian's worries escalated as he watched the child talent problem continue. I could see in each of the parents eyes that they were bummed when their child was not selected for this high paying opportunity of having their child in a commercial. All of the new five possible kids were crying due to the child carrier uncertainty, and they were not even dangling off of a cliff wall yet.
The overall director, Brian and main staff was really bummed out and was trying to come up with a plan 'B' to this major problem. At the same time my son Nicholas was still playing his games. I apologized repeatedly to Brian for Nicholas's rather rude behavior. I remember the directors words perfectly as Brian jumped out of his seat pushing Nicholas to the side and said to him "Nicholas you have to stop that NOW," then Brian paused, smiled and exclaimed "Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas, can you get into that child carrier?" Nicholas went over, slipped into the child carrier, was put onto the actors back and then Nicholas said" What's the big deal, no problem?" Brian ran over and kissed Nicholas on the forehead and had the hugest smile on his face. Brian and the staff were glowing in excitement! My son Nicholas was at that moment hired as a main talent for the Suzuki commercial, that was shot the next day. Nicholas had to hang out in that child carrier for 5 hours during all of the filming, but he was having fun with the whole experience, especially having a wiener dog next to him the whole time. The dog and Nicholas were rested in between shots, then Dief raised them up back into position.
On the final day of shooting, I wore the Evolv Wiener Dog t-shirt and everybody could not believe the shirt was created before this commercial came to be. The filming was a success! All of us got paid many thousands for our parts in the shoot, and Nicholas to this day still receives royalty checks every time that commercial is even mentioned. Nicholas's pay has exceeded $11,000 for his 5 hours of work. We allowed him to buy a few toys and games with the money, and the rest went into his college fund. Trevor Cornish with Spy Films was the overall Director. On a sad note, the assistant director/producer named Brian Atkinson at the time was quitting smoking. He was chewing Nicorette gum to relieve his cigarette cravings, and shortly after the commercial was completed, he died from what they believe was from Nicorette Gum intoxication. Chewing over 30 pieces of gum per day. Brian was in his mid 30s.
|
|
couchmaster
climber
pdx
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2011 - 10:37pm PT
|
Great story marty! WOW!
|
|
rockjockrob
Boulder climber
Tempe, Arizona
|
|
|
Aug 29, 2011 - 10:34am PT
|
Dude this story never gets old to me! I love how Nicholas is like, Meh, no prob, Allez! Totally awesome.
|
|
James Doty
Trad climber
Phoenix, Az.
|
|
|
Aug 29, 2011 - 11:27am PT
|
Great story. Thanks for that.
|
|
James Doty
Trad climber
Phoenix, Az.
|
|
|
Aug 29, 2011 - 02:18pm PT
|
Been awhile B.A. Whats' up? We worked together in Dallas.
|
|
The Climber Neo
Boulder climber
Scottsdale, AZ
|
|
|
Aug 30, 2011 - 07:06pm PT
|
I remember that commercial shoot at Papago, it was pretty cool to be able to hang out on set, always great memories Marty!! much love!!
-Neo
|
|
karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 31, 2011 - 11:14am PT
|
I don't know if you sharing is proud or crazy.
Especially as I continued to read further and found out you were an industry dude.
Personaly, if I meet Buddha on the road, I'm going to kill him.
So anyone professing great spiritual quests is suspect.
Jesus didn't bother to tell you how to save you house, marriage, or children's youth in your meeting with him?
RENOUNCE your climbing gear collection....RENOUNCE IT!
or sell it and make your mortgage. DUH.
Handjam Belay: I had to quote your words so you will remember what you wrote. I made a shout out so possibly some famous climber with a lot of money will create a building to call it a climbing museum, and my enormous collection will be DONATED to it for all to enjoy. You are stating that you want to murder spiritual people, and you say I have a problem? Are you upset that your prayers have not been answered, so you want to personally kill people for that reason? Otherwise why would you make a statement that you personally want to kill Buddha? You professing that YOU want to be a murderer makes me suspect of what? Missing a house payment?
On a side note my house is fine. I have not missed a payment in years. I actually have been working double time at the gym and have a stored up a savings account that is growing every day. Both of my kids have scored the highest grades in their class. Everything is going great in the Karabin world! Just because I read a lot of spiritual books and go to church does not mean that Handjam Belay has to. Enjoy life!
Marty
|
|
neversummer
Trad climber
30 mins. from suicide USA
|
|
|
Aug 31, 2011 - 01:55pm PT
|
Thanks for the Suzuki story, it was a good read.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!