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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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Marty,
Yes the fold is the same in a number of these pitons . Even though this would be considered a flaw by industry standards, in the real world use of a rock piton, I doubt this would be a cause for actual failure.
When forging such a radical change in section as where the blade meets the eye, it is very hard to avoid getting this fold in the steel. This would be even more likely with the hand hammer techniques used by Chouinard and presumably Salathe.
Even when Chouinard began using power hammers in his forging, they were relatively light. The archival photos of the GPIW shop in "Let my People Go Surfing" show them using 25# or possibly 50# Little Giant mechanical hammers. There is however, what looks like a 100# hammer under a tarp in the background in one of the photos. That hammer would have had the hit to do the job properly if set up right.
I suspect the later Chouinard pitons had the edges ground smooth to get rid of any folds and give the blade a double taper. I haven't measured the taper of the pitons I have but it looks very close to the 1-8 "holding taper" found in Morse taper tooling and power forging hammer die keys.
The pictures of the KB's in the related thread that show the forging marks from drawing the taper of the blade could have been done by hand under flat dies on a power hammer as well as by roll forging.
I'm still not sure whether the eye of the piton was punched and drifted to size while hot or was punched in cold on a punch press. Again the archival photos seem to indicate that the eye was punched cold after the blade was forged to shape . Punching and drifting the eye while hot would have given a stronger eye with better grain flow of the metal and no loss of material, although this would be a tricky operation so close to the shoulder.
I guess I'll have to go out to the shop a make a couple to see how I would actually do it.
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dogtown
Trad climber
JackAssVille, Wyoming
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If old Chouinard is worth 125.00 I would say 200.00 would be fair. What route did it come off of? And when? If I can ask? I’m sure there’s some history that Jim can ad.
Dawg.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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This is a good time for Hennek to jump in.
Dennis was the main forger for YC for years.
I remember one very fun trip to Eddie Shapiros (sic) in LA with Dennis, when we picked up one mechanical hammer only to drive a short distance and return to exchange it for another. These are not light units!
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Todd, Wait a minute while I wipe the tears from my face.....What a beautiful piton! Outstanding!!! We are not blaming you, we just want to see the history. THANKS TONS Todd!
Clint, The Access Fund called me up and said that they had a box of left over stuff from an auction that nobody wanted. Inside was half of the Pinnacles bolt hangers and a pair of shoes. Inside the shoes was a list of the bolt hangers where I discovered it was only half of the lot. That Neptune character in Colorado had beat me to the other half! That was the half with the handful of Salathe hangers. Once I realized what the shoes were I almost fainted! Dick Williams shoes shown on the nude climber on page 289 in the book climbing in North America,by Chris Jones. One of the original Vulgarians. I eventually contacted Gary Neptune and we did a big trade and I got the other half of the hangers.
What is a Salathe piton worth? At least $1000.00 if it has all of the document papers with it (that is clean store shelf value). If it was from Salathe as a gift and may have been used by him it could be more valuable. Once again, "one mans trash is another mans treasure." A Salathe piton has got to be the second most desired collectible piton from North America. Stoveleg piton is probably the most desired and I value that at $5000.00, and there are only 4 created. Who knows how many Salathe pitons are out there. If my piton is truly a Salathe, it is worth only $50 or so due to condition and no history documentation.
Below is a photo of Salathe gear out of the Book Climbing in North America pg 191.
Rock on! Marty
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WBraun
climber
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Stoveleg piton is probably the most desired and I value that at $5000.00,
Holy sh'it!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to dive into the dumpster .........
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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The hell with making stair railings, I going to retool to crank out genuine Salathe "artifakes"
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Marty,
when we rebolted the historic routes on the Hand at Pinnacles National Monument in 1997, Kelly Rich removed two pitons that were driven into cracks on the belay knob at the top of pitch 1. Along with the bolts in your photo I also sent the pins to the Access Fund for future fundraising auctions. When I contacted the AF a few years back to see where all that stuff went, they couldn't tell me.
I am not sure that these two pins were originally Salathe's, but it would be nice to know where they ended up so we can attempt to verify their origin. As I remember, I believe they were ring angles. I am not sure if Salathe made any ring angles. Can you help out here?
Bruce
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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Bruce, No clue where the pitons went. Maybe Gary Neptune (Neptune Mtneering in CO) obtained them from the auction as well. If the pitons were in with the hangers then Neptune is my best guess. I only knew of and got the hangers and shoes. Do you still have a list of everything that was auctioned overall? What I obtained is absolute gold! I can only imagine! Maybe the items were not displayed correctly to get the full value of the pieces, or people did not know what they were looking at.
The ring angle piton in the photo above is a Salathe. But the text says that it is rare.
Photo below is the auction hangers I got overall. Remember nobody bid even a penny on these. The Access Fund came to me to get them off of their hands. This is a fabulous set of historic hangers dating into the 40's. Unbelievable history here. Toss a rusty Salathe piton on the table and I bet it would be the same. Maybe one taker at 15 bucks. People just have no clue what they are looking at. I love this set of hangers!!! (Red borders)
Rock on!
Marty
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Quite a collection of funkies.
I still have a Dolt keyhole and a pile of new Leepers.
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Dick Erb
climber
June Lake, CA
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Chouinard must have a few Salathes. He repeated many of his routes looking for pitons. I remember him coming back form Little Yosemite proudly holding a John Salathe piton. When Chuck Wilts heard about this he said something like, "Gosh we thought the fifty five cents he was asking for them was a little high".
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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My bud Toby from the UK visited Yosemite about two years ago. Plucked a Salathe from some highway. Apparently he had gotten off route.
It was kinda small, I wish I had taken a picture. It makes a great bottle opener on his key chain.
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Eric Reynolds
climber
CO
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I've got three Salathé pitons given to me by on old family friend who climbed with John Salathé.
My friend grew up in the Bay Area and as a teen was in a Sierra Club rock climbing group that had Salathé, Steck, and Bedayn as instructors/mentors for kids like him. This was pre-1950 years. I am 100% positive of the provenance of these pitons as being made by John Salathé himself. The stories told to me were quite great.
About ten years ago I was given a few pieces of off his old rack that had been hanging on a nail in the garage for decades. Here are some photos.
I want to sell them to finance my move the Rwanda to start up a social sector enterprise there. Open to advice and inquiries.
Eric Reynolds
ereynolds-boulder@comcast.net
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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I don’t remember where I acquired the piton shown below. It’s certainly a pre-GPIW horizontal forged from chrome-moly. It looks most like a Chouinard hand forged one, but its markings say that it’s not. Most obviously, are the “S” and “H” hand stamped, probably after the paint was applied. If the pin is inverted, it could actually mean “H. S.” which might be Herb Swedlund. Did he ever use turquoise paint to mark his pegs and place them similar to this one? Roper’s “Green Guide” shows that Steve Herrero made the FAs of “Try Again Ledge” & “Bacchigaloupe Wall” in the Yosemite Falls area; he may have owned the pin as well. At any rate, directly underneath the “H” is a circular mark that was probably a part of the original manufacturing process. Any guesses about who made this or similar pitons? In Chouinard’s article “Modern Yosemite Climbing” in the 1963 AAJ, he mentions that Jerry Gallwas forged some chome-moly pins for the FA of HD’s NW face? How did he mark his pins, if at all? Comments welcome.
Recently, this thread has been running parallel to another here on Taco, so check this one out:
Help with vintage pitons???
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1104287/Help_with_vintage_pitons
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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The only place Herb ever used turquoise paint was on his girlfriend's toes.
Dam, starting to sound like Donini.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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That's the point: The paint was applied BEFORE H.S. or S. H. acquired it...
I wonder if turquoise nail polish would attract as much fetishtic attention as that on the Bible thread...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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I have some European pitons that seem to be about exactly
like that Salathe piton (one of the first picture posts on
this thread). They were relatively common in Europe, and
I wonder if he didn't have some, in addition to any he might
have forged himself.
Right now I have all sorts of classics, one hand-forged by Jerry
Gallwas that went up the NW Face of Half Dome on the first ascent,
with Royal and Sherrick, then got stuck in Bat Crack at Tahquitz,
and Rearick removed it...
Pat
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Here are a few photos of some Salathe gear. One of the more distinctive features of many of Salathe's Arrows are grooves running lengthwise down the blade.
A selection of his pins.
Bedayn carabiner on the right and an oversize aluminum carabiner on the left with a piton below.
Drill handle and bit.
Bolts and hangers.
The grooves can be seen a little bit in this photo.
His rope.
His hammer.
Ken
P.S. I wonder how many of these were sent out and whether any others survive.
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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Quite the interesting thread to be sure!!
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Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
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Sep 10, 2015 - 08:42am PT
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Recently bought through eBay:
Both pitons pulled from routes at Mt. Diablo.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Sep 10, 2015 - 10:20am PT
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Damn Roots,
Did you pay the $800 asking price?
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