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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Mar 15, 2013 - 04:50pm PT
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Hey nutstory, I did not see this. Got a link for that museum? I don't want to give these up too easily! But I can always make more.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 15, 2013 - 05:22pm PT
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Dan- Maestro Pennequin manages and actively shares THE definitive collection of nuts and widgets in the world along with their story.
Have no doubt as to his integrity and intent in asking for your hardware. I collect on his behalf when I am able to do so.
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ghand
Sport climber
Golden,Colorado
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Mar 15, 2013 - 07:27pm PT
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rgold said:
Ydp, I should have said that I learned the double-strung stopper technique from Stannard. I thought he had made it up himself rather than learning from someone else, but I could be mistaken. At some point, pictures of it appeared in the literature (Chouinard catalog?) and then it was broadly adopted.
I dated Bev Johnson a couple of times in early 70's in DC.
She told me Bridwell was developing sliding nuts that was like 2 stoppers
sliding against each other. This was probably a precursor to sliders.
I strung them together and tried them
at Great Falls,MD. I then showed this to Stannard and the next week
he was at the Gunks pull testing them under Doug's Roof. He wrote up
his results and it appeared in the catalog.
Soon after many were carrying them that way.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Mar 15, 2013 - 07:48pm PT
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Steve, nutstory has been PMed. Is there much to the ball-nut developemnt story? Those are fun. I'm confident there is still plenty to be invented in general.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Mar 16, 2013 - 05:18am PT
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Steve, thank you very much for promoting my name here. It seems that, regarding your own work on the history of climbing gear, I am a rather modest maestro. Merci beaucoup.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Mar 16, 2013 - 06:18am PT
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ghand said: I dated Bev Johnson a couple of times in early 70's in DC.
She told me Bridwell was developing sliding nuts that was like 2 stoppers
sliding against each other. This was probably a precursor to sliders.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Mar 16, 2013 - 02:24pm PT
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Very cool. Looks like Bridwell has had those for awhile.
I saw this in one of Steve's links and thought it was interesting;
Feb 1, 2010 - 02:52pm PT
A few friends emailed me about this thread so I figured I should chime in.
I purchased Wired Bliss and manufactured the cams for several years, it was a good fit with my climbing shop and online shop which I ran at the time in Flagstaff AZ.
I moved to California to Alta Sierra, mainly to have close access to the Needles, and to be within a few hours of the High Sierras. We opened a shop in Wofford Heights and continued selling cams and running the webstore.
I kind of got burnt out on retail and handed off the website to a partner to run and I focused on new projects (mainly real estate investment) which consumed most of my time. I sold my building and put Wired Bliss in storage. I planned on selling the units I had stockpiled and reopening sooner than later in a new location. But my new investment interests grew and I just didn't have the time to devote to Wired Bliss.
I still have a lot of parts, tools, and equipment. I keep dreaming about getting things up and running again but it is obvious that it is just a dream.
I don't climb much anymore I mostly into whitewater kayaking now...creeking to be specific but when I do occasionally head up to Dome Rock to get on some easy multi-pitch....I love the feeling of the Wired Bliss Cams.
I would be very interested in finding an active partner who would be interested in resurrecting this fine product.
Geno Hacker
genehacker at mchsi dot com
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carlos gallego
Ice climber
Spain
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Mar 17, 2013 - 10:33am PT
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... more nuts... Troll and Campbell...
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mar 17, 2013 - 11:17am PT
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Dan, nuts about nuts you are.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Mar 17, 2013 - 01:29pm PT
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Nuts to You! Wasn't that the name of an article bitd? Anyway, I can see how somebody would want to put a little ball into the slots in those nuts just pictured.
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DJMac
Big Wall climber
Midpines, CA (Yosemite N.P. Area)
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Mar 17, 2013 - 02:07pm PT
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I had a bunch of illustrations on the drawing board for Climbing Magazine this week - topic - nut placements. This would have been a fantastic reference. Too late ... but not unappreciated!
This was a little before my time ... but not by much. I do remember getting ahold of this story as a young climber and how much I was influenced by R.R. and his ethics. I have in fact bought less iron in all my years of climbing than most people I think because of this early influence.
I will be bookmarking this thread for future reference.
Cheers!
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Mar 17, 2013 - 02:53pm PT
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Wow for that link. Like you hadn't, I have never seen Bergsport Jokers. So many pages here - so little time!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Mar 17, 2013 - 03:23pm PT
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The whole It takes balls to use nuts thing is just so much Bravado BS from young guys with egos to stroke. Or perhaps old guys reminicing their youth;) The reality is that for every one climb that goes easier with pins there are 10 climbs that go easier with nuts. If climbing without chalk was easier than with chalk you would have been successfull banning chalk. It is not easier so chalk is here to stay.
We just recently had a simeler situation with leashless ice climbing. When the ergos first came out guys were spraying left and right that they did this or that leashless and one of the first questions you would get hit with was "did you do it leashless" The reality however is that leashless is so much easier than leashed that it has zero to do with balls and everything to do with yet annother way to cheat your way up a climb with technology;)
The bravado thing has it's upside though. thanks to the bad assed reputation that ice climbing has we get a free pass to pound iron whenever and almost wherever we feel the urge;) we don't do it because it is easier as it is NOT. A modern screw, a nut or a cam are all much easier than a pin. we do it because it is too much of a PINTA to lug a bolt gun around in the winter and pounding Iron every now and then is fun and Bad Assed:) just like scratching the piss out of the rock with our wicked Kewl crampons and tools is bad assed;)
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sowr
Trad climber
CA
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Mar 18, 2013 - 03:45pm PT
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Great thread with lots of pictures of climbs I did in my youth before I moved to the US. While Chouinard introduced the Hexentric, I beg to disagree that the UK nuts were a "...hodgepodge of shapes" - Clog had a pretty good set which were copied by Metolious only a few years back. The Clogs could be cammed like the Hexes and were also slung with wire, unlike the original Hexes which needed rope of varying diameters.
But most importantly I would like to stress the superior significance of the original invention over later improvements.
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geiger
Trad climber
Doylestown pa
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Mar 18, 2013 - 04:47pm PT
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I started with Chouinard nut's and hexes. We considered the small wired nuts to be more psychological protection. Sure made you climb your best! A trick for horizontals was to place a hex or stoppers in a crack, sometimes in opposition, and weigh them with a water bottle or sneakers we always carried up rather than descend in our EB's.
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Stevethefolkie
Trad climber
Abbottstown, PA
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Mar 18, 2013 - 06:51pm PT
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Heh ... I recall drilling the threads out of hardware store nuts (various sizes), threading rope through them and making my own, um, "protection" - worked pretty well in the lousy abandoned quarry rock we used to climb in suburban Philly - although I do recall having a detached flake (that'd previously not been detached) nail me on the head just as my belayer caught me (I'd clipped to a bolt 15' below the nut that detached the flake) - kinda freaked out both of us (at 15 it didn't take much to do so) - so here I sit - 54 years old - waiting for the temps to warm so I can go blow out my back on another bouldering problem in Gettysburg ... the madness persists - and THANKS for the memories!
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Stevethefolkie
Trad climber
Abbottstown, PA
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Mar 18, 2013 - 06:58pm PT
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Geiger said "rather than descend in our EB's." - you're from where I am - remember "liveys direct" (Livesey (spelling approximate) Rock in Philly) - worst probability was falling onto the broken beer bottles that littered the ground below the overhang - or Ralph Stover St. Park along the Delaware? Took my worst and most memorable winger ever there in 1975 ....
Cheers
Steve
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mar 18, 2013 - 07:01pm PT
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Steve...i did my first real climb at Ralph Stover in 1966, the year after i got out of the army. Was there a climb there called Gorilla Overhang?
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