Origins of the Chromoly piton

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 Deuce4 20 Aug 2022

The rise of Chromoly:

Link:  

https://www.bigwallgear.com/p/1950s-usa-gear-notes

hope to find out more about the early UK pitons, Clog, etc.

who was making pitons in the UK in the 1950s?

In reply to Deuce4:

Probably Hiatt.

 duncan 20 Aug 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

Great stuff as ever John. Hiatt made handcuffs and other security products. They also produced a range of pitons before Clog, certainly in the 60s and possibly earlier. Nothing innovative but seemingly well made. I inherited some Lost Arrow types and they were very robust and placed and cleaned easily. Some were fixed in new routes I did in the Avon Gorge and elsewhere and a couple even made it up El Cap.   

http://www.smhc.co.uk/objects_item.asp?item_id=33039

 jimtitt 20 Aug 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

Probably nobody, there were vast numbers of ex WD ones available and steel severely controlled after the war. Then the usual European manufacturers, Hiatt came in mid to late 60's with chrome-moly pitons.

OP Deuce4 20 Aug 2022

As yes, Hiatt.  Mid 60s, then?   Here is what Marty has:

https://www.karabinclimbingmuseum.com/hiatt-pitons.html

i think Clog were making production forged horizontals mid 60’s, maybe earlier.

the 1952 British Army pitons look well made as well.  Not sure of material, does anyone know?

Thanks!

Post edited at 09:17
 uphillnow 21 Aug 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

One of the people who could help you with this is of course Denny Moorhouse.

I weekended in Wales throughout the 60's and on wet weekends I sometimes went into Denny's workshop and did some hours helping out (in return for a few nuts or products made at the time). I recall that Denny had some support at one time from a bloke employed by some organisation - something to do with Rural Industries. Denny didn't produce pegs initially and up until then they had been mild steel. He I think did some work around the design and use of templates to form pegs. This coincided with the introduction of chrome moly, perhaps in the USA.

This is my memory of the events and I do have a log of my climbing activities at the time which would date some of this - without making reference to this I think it was in the mid 60's. I may still have some of the first chrome moly pegs produced by Clog somewhere. 

 Doug 21 Aug 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

Did Peck (Trevor ?) make pegs ? But maybe 60s rather than 50s.

 jimtitt 21 Aug 2022
In reply to Doug:

Late 60's, they were stainless steel channel pegs but due to a slight engineering failure had the habit of loosing their eyes. Not the best thing in the world!

 Rob Exile Ward 21 Aug 2022
In reply to jimtitt:

Slight?

I don't ever remember seeing UK pegs before Clog produced some basic design right angle pegs - maybe even Lost Arrow designs  as well? Most pegs we encountered in situ were Cassin or similar mild steel foreign muck. 

Frank Davies published a catalogue in the early 70s describing - I think - Chouinard pegs as 'no longer a wodge of discarded steel, but a precision tool with which a climber can identify.'

I never saw a Hiatt piton, though plenty of their bl**dy awful steel carabiners.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I think the Cassin pegs could be bought in Britain (e.g Blacks and YHA in London) in the late 60s, couldn't they?? Then the Clog pegs came in about 1969/70? Before that, I'm sure there were a few peculiar old British pegs by e.g. Hiatt, and some ring pegs (but they may have been French or Italian.)

 jimtitt 21 Aug 2022
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

> Slight?

Well yes, recommended was tying them off with 1/4" tape but we worked out it was better to poke a bight of tape or cord into the crack then smash the peg in inside the loop to make a thread. Quickly  we worked out it really was better to buy something else! At one time I owned the last stock of Peck pitons when Trevor died in a wild bid to corner the market, I gave them away in the end!

 Rob Exile Ward 21 Aug 2022
In reply to jimtitt:

You must have been an entrepreneur from a very early age!

I've still got the Peck equivalent of a Deadboy; it's probably 50+ years old now, but still seems OK. Any reason not to carry on using it, do you think?

 Seymore Butt 22 Aug 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

A mate of mine served his engineering apprenticeship at Lucas Aerospace in Burnley in the  mid to late 60's. He worked in the methods engineering dept whos' manager was Jack Umpleby, He of Umpleby's Corner at Widdop.

Jack got Mick my mate to make some press tools to manufacture pegs out of high tensile steel aerospace material (not sure what grade) that they nicked from the scrap bins. They called them 'Hi Tens' i think at the time and were mainly blade pegs. Not sure what became of them, but apparently you needed a quite powerful press to produce them even when hot formed.

We also started making our own aluminium wedges around the same time. Never thought to go into producing them in mass quantaties at the time, even though Fishers in Keswick said they'd buy everyone we could make. Looking back we should've been a bit more enterprising at the time.

In reply to Deuce4:

Just put a photo of a couple of Peck Pitons on Ukclimbing.com. Retrieved off Great Zawn Chimney, originally climbed by Peck and Biven. 

OP Deuce4 03 Sep 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

Found this in 1968 Summit (US).  Sold by Blacks mail order.

Post edited at 07:53

In reply to Deuce4:

This suggests that the very first run of Clog pitons was in 1966.

https://www.karabinclimbingmuseum.com/clog-pitons.html

Scroll down to 'Clog King Pin'

And Hiatt were advertising chrome steel pegs in 1967:

https://www.karabinclimbingmuseum.com/hiatt-pitons.html

Post edited at 08:51
 Darron 03 Sep 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

The 'ChroMolly' pegs referenced above. Am I correct in understanding that these are more accurately ' Nickel Chrome Molybdenum'?

Ta.

OP Deuce4 07 Sep 2022
In reply to Darron:

not fully clear.  Steel production varied internationally.  In the USA, 4130 steel was becoming dominant.  I have mentioned many times in my bigwallgear.com writings how interesting it would be to discover original materials of museum pitons.  There is a lot to learn from hardness test and perhaps a small notch ground (check sparks and acid wash notch to look at grain structure with loupe).  But probably overkill in climbing gear research!  European steel has different story from USA post WW2, when industrial high alloy steel production parts with tailored heat treatment really boomed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Post edited at 02:41
 CantClimbTom 07 Sep 2022
In reply to Deuce4:

I like that advert, it not only charts the history of the peg but shows the rise of the nut (moac) below


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