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More Nuts' Stories:
 
by Stéphane Pennequin


Here are a few more nuts' titbits for the real cognoscenti!

Drilled Out Nuts:After twenty years of research, I am truly delighted to finally be able to complete the Nuts Museum with such an awesome range of drilled out machine nuts, from the tiniest samples to the oversized ones. I already had several samples of drilled out machine nuts, some of them as intriguing as the ones machined by Harry Smith, but none of these historical nuts were still threaded with their original rope. In addition to those already threaded onto rope, John Cheesmond also offered a number of big drilled out machine nuts to the Nuts Museum.

For two years in the mid '60s John Cheesmond worked at an outdoor centre in Derbyshire where Joe Brown also worked and recall one of the weekend instructors (sadly, John can’t remember his name maybe later?!) drilling out some engineering nuts for both Joe and him which they strung on to nylon slings and tapes.

That type of ‘hawser laid’ rope was the normal type of rope used by British climbers during the fifties and well into the sixties, with the red version with the nuts having been ‘home dyed’ to distinguish it from that of others. The thinner cord was known as ‘line’ and the thicker as ‘three-quarter weight’, even though there were 2 thicknesses above that. Three-quarter weight (approximately 850kg breaking strain the manufacturers claimed) was often used as a 90 metre double rope for those who went onto harder routes, or those who aided their way up ‘artificial climbs’ with pitons, étriers, wooden wedges and so on. That weight of rope was not pleasant to use on long rappels, particularly if one's clothing was thin!  
     

In late 1963, members of Bruce Bedford's caving club – the Chelsea Speleological Society – were busy preparing for their 1964 expedition to Triglav Pothole in the Julian Alps . Having to be ready for a descent of up to 1,000ft, they made up a very large quantity of electron ladders (this was before the widespread use of SRT in caving).

Bruce Bedford and his companions were left with a quantity of steel wire, a Talurit press (on loan), and a quantity of ferrules for swaging. Up to that time, in rock climbing, they had used runners made from ordinary engineering nuts mounted on nylon cord. It occurred to them that steel wire would be much more convenient, and enable them to use smaller nuts, so they made a number of swaged steel wire runners for their personal use. That was in 1963.

After a treasure hunt, Bruce Bedford has managed to locate one of these original wire-mounted climbing nuts, in the possession of fellow club member George Fletcher, now generously donated to the Nuts Museum. This example was made in the latter part of 1963 or the very early part of 1964 by Pete Thompson who was another member of the caving club.

If the first recorded wire-mounted nuts were the Little Mesters made by Charles Curtis in 1961/1962, we can wonder if these nuts might be the very first ones with the wires swaged with the Talurit ferrule system…

Peck Crackers were made from knurled round steel or Duralumin bar cut to the required length. The earliest ones, in which the wire ends were locked and silver soldered into a copper sleeve, were definitely in use in 1962. It was only in 1967 that the wires were swaged with the Talurit ferrule system. I do not have any exact dates for the nuts produced with such a system by Troll and Clogwyn Climbing Gear but, as these two companies were founded in 1964 and 1966 respectively, the original wire-mounted climbing nuts made by Bruce Bedford, at the Chelsea Speleological Society, could well be the very first ones.

 
     
Porter Nuts: Many climbers have played with stacked or opposed nuts for years. One of the first to improve on this idea was Charlie Porter. Sometime in the early 1970's Porter had a machine shop in Briceburg, downstream from the Yosemite Valley. He made his own aluminum stoppers, opposed them together on swaged cable loops and came up with adjustable sliding wedges. Porter sold these handy units to many climbers and some may still have them. Porter Nuts were also commercially available on a limited basis. On this photo only the size 5 (the biggest) is missing.  
     
Porter Equipment #4, #5 and #6: These big guys, also made by the legendary climber Charlie Porter, are incredibly rare. The Nuts Museum has just acquired a full set.

 
     
Monkey Paws: John Middendorf, who set up A5, decided to part with a couple of his prototype Monkey Paws and contribute them to the Nuts Museum. The Monkey Paws were never made in production; John Middendorf made perhaps 30 prototypes and then a batch of 10 finished versions. It is a three-part sliding nut design using a ball and two grooved wedges that John Middendorf invented in 1987, and the concept predates that of the Ball-Nut or Lowe-Ball by 6 months! The Ball-Nut inventor, Steve Byrne, saw John's design, made and later patented his two-part version. The mangled and destroyed units in the picture were the results of strength testing using a hydraulic puller in the field. The fact that the cable broke as a result rather than the nuts pulling out shows the strength of the design.  
     
Ewbank Crackers: Very rare: in fact they have become cult chocks in Australia. John Ewbank made them in 1968. He manufactured a range sized from "A" to "K" to fit cracks from 3/8" to 3.5". Unlike the Peck knurled English Crackers, they are cut and drilled from hexagonal bar. John Ewbank is a legendary climber who invented the Australian climbing grade system.  
     

A new edition to the Nuts Museum is an Acorn (the smallest size)! This Acorn is in good condition and complete, with its long "hawser" laid rope and the machine nut. In the early sixties British climbers used to carry their nuts around their neck. This Acorn belonged to Hank Harrison, of the Summit Club, with whom John Brailsford did the East Face of the Grépon in the early 1960s.

 

After almost twenty years of research and many forlorn hopes, two of the three Forrest Mountaineering nut tools have finally landed in the Nuts Museum . T o get them would not have been possible without Joseph Healy's invaluable interest and generosity in my work on the Nuts' Story.

The Bam Nut, “the Roll Royce of the nut tool”, was developed by Forrest Mountaineering in the mid-seventies as a multi-purpose clean climbing tool which can be used for the placement and

 

removal of nuts and slings, as a hammer, as a nut, or even as a cliff hanger. The aluminium head used as a nut fits nicely in a variety of placements in 1 ½” to 2 ¼” wide cracks. As a hammer head, it has just enough weight to drive and test pins. Heat treated chrome molybdenum steel is used in the pick/ handle with an aluminium alloy for the hex head. The two parts are force fitted together; a steel Spirol pin serves as a backup anchor.

In 1980 Forrest made a slightly different version of the Bam Nut, the Crag Dagger, that came without the aluminium head.

 


Photos from top: Bam Nut and Crag Dagger, Bam Nut head, branding detail, the mythical Wire Nut Tool.

In 1993, Bill Forrest, with a lot of trust, kindly sent to Corsica his own climbing equipment on loan. It was not that easy for Bill to part with all these items as he was still an active climber, and this equipment was impossible to replace. Among these tools, there was a Wire Nut Tool . If I was able to take quite a good photograph of this very rare item but I had, of course, to send it back to Bill…

 

 


I had never seen this treasure again since that time, but after seeing this webpage, Bill very generously sent it to me once again… When once at home, Wire Nut Tool discovered the other members of the Forrest nut tool family, there was a great reunion on the shelves, and the party was wild…

 

 

Dave Rearick created his own chocks from wood of the Osage orange tree. Dave and George Hurley used them for the first all-wood ascent of Twister in 1973. Dave Rearick's " Plugs " as he called them were, though, very strong. He tested them thoroughly, and gave Pat Ament a full set, as a present, including his Clapper, an adjustable wooden nut for wide cracks. I am still working hard to get the design details and some good photos of the Clapper from Pat. I would like to remake an exact copy of this really interesting device for the Nuts Museum.

Bob Ryan tells that Dave Rearick gave him a set of six wooden nuts. Bob in turn has given these very rare nuts to me for the Nuts Museum a while ago. Bob also relates this anecdote: "I spoke with Dave, and he reminded me that I had taken a leader fall on the third pitch of Werk Supp. This was in May 1978. The nut jammed so that I had to return later with a tire iron to knock it out."

 

 

The very latest news concerning the Nuts Museum: after some twenty years of research, I have finally enhanced the collection with a very rare Charlet-Moser Grupp! From the historical point of view, this nut is really interesting. Only mentioned and pictured in an old article by Henri Agresti published in La Montagne et Alpinisme, in 1977, the Grupps were numbered from #1 to #4, the #4 being the smallest. They were the very first French nuts ever patented in 1973 (Patent FR 2.229.432). The inner composite wedge is probably made of nylon (polyamide 6.6).

 


Straight from the Drawing Board!
What something often begins as a hazy idea somewhere on the rock face, (or even in the bath…), may at times reach the drawing board and, for the most fortunate ones finally land in the hands of very happy crag rats. I would like to think that you would enjoy seeing all the prototypes that highlight the Nuts Museum (in 2006), from the early MOAC to the latest camming device developments; through the procedure of time and space, some of them linger on the drawing board to disclose their secrets at some later date…

If gathering all these treasures required a great deal of energy, patience and a strong sense of persuasion, this collection would not have been possible without the trust, faith and the shared passion of many generous donators.

While watching many of these sophisticated tools it looks like the time of the pocketful of stones is so far away and yet…

  • ALTITUDE EQUIPMENT ( Australia ) : 2 prototype Poly-Hex's # 10 # 11
  • BLACK DIAMOND ( USA ) : 2 prototype Camalots (1993), 1 prototype Camalot C3 (2005) # 1
  • BLUE LIGHT (THE) (France) : 1 prototype for drilled holes
  • BOHN David (USA) : 1 prototype Big Sis (1997)
  • CANADIAN ALPINE MANUFACTURING ( Canada ) : 1 prototype CABLE CAM
  • CCH ( USA ) : 1 prototype Alien SL (1994) # 2
  • CLIMB TECH ( USA ) : 1 prototype Removable Bolt , 2 prototype Tech Nuts (1999)
  • CMI (USA) : 2 prototype Wallnuts , 1 prototype Beamchok
  • COYOTE MOUNTAIN WORKS ( USA ) : 1 Samson # 4 (1986) made of composite
  • DMM (Wales) : 1 prototype 4CU (2000)
  • EXTREME MOUNTAINGEAR ( Canada ) : 1 prototype 4 cam unit with a flexible U stem, 1 prototype 4 cam unit with a flexible stem
  • HARRIS Bob ( Germany ) : 1 prototype width adjustable chock (1976)
  • HB CLIMBING EQUIPMENT ( Wales ) : 2 prototype Micromates # 0 # 1 ½, 1 prototype Cobra
  • JARDINE Ray ( USA ) : 1 prototype Friend # 4 with magnesium cams
  • LOWE ALPINE SYSTEMS / Greg LOWE (USA) : 1 prototype Tri Cam (1973), 2 prototype Cam Nuts (1973), 1 prototype Tri Cam on wire (1983), 1 prototype Fan Cam # 3
  • METOLIUS (USA) : 1 prototype 3-Cam (1986) # 4, 1 prototype Curve Hex-2000 (1999) # 10 on Spectra, 1 prototype Ultralight Curve Nut (2006) # 4
  • MIDDENDORF John / A5 (USA) : 1 prototype Monkey Paw (1987)
  • MOAC / John BRAILSFORD ( England ) : 1 prototype MOAC (one of the six original pyramids)
  • NOSLEY (France) : 1 nut made of black epoxy (1972)
  • OZDIAN Bedrich ( Czech Republic ) : 1 prototype Bosfer , 1 prototype Duo (1996)
  • OMEGA PACIFIC (USA) : 1 prototype Link Cam (2004) # 1
  • PECK CLIMBING EQUIPMENT ( England ) : 1 big prototype Ny-Chock , 1 prototype hollow Chock
  • SALEWA (Germany) : 1 prototype “ Vertebra Nut ”, 1 prototype “Friend” # 4 with plastic blue cams, 1 prototype Key (1987) # 7
  • SMITH Harry ( England ) : 1 prototype aluminium hex nut (1961/1962)
  • SPLITTER GEAR ( USA ) : 1 prototype 2Cam # 2, 1 prototype 6Cam # 3
  • TRANGO / REED, MOUNTAIN HARDWARE / LUEBBEN (USA) : 1 prototype BigBro (December 1984) # 2, 2 prototype BigBros (2003) # .5 # 5, 1 prototype MaxCam (2003), 1 prototype MaxCam (2004) # 3
  • VIAMONT ( Czech Republic ) : 1 prototype “Hex” (2004) # 2
  • WILD COUNTRY ( England ) : 1 prototype Friend # 2, 2 prototype Cosmic Cams (1983) # 1(?) # 5
  • WIRED BLISS ( USA ) : 1 prototype Two-Cam Sam , 1 prototype 3/4 TCU (1983/1984)
  • YATES GEAR ( USA ) : 1 home-made large came device with rigid stem # 6 (prototype Big Dude )

The Nuts Museum is very comprehensive, but it is still short of a few item. For a full list please go back to the
Nuts Museum.

Also click for: 
Nuts' Story: 2001 a Nut Odyssey
Clockwork Friends and
Early Equipment Catalogues.

 

 

 

 

 


Photo: Stéphane Pennequin preparing to photograph his millenium arangement of nuts and cams as seen on the main
Nuts' Museum page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stéphane PENNEQUIN
Photo Hall, 18 Cours Napoléon
F-20000 Ajaccio FRANCE
Phone : (00 33) 4 95 21 43 31
E-Mail : pennequin.nutstory@wanadoo.fr

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