PRODUCT NEWS: Wild Country Friends, Technical Friends and Trigger Wire Repair Kit

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 UKC Gear 20 May 2019
Friends Wild Country, the original creator of the Friends, have continued to innovate and create the best cams available since 1977. The latest iteration is the lightest and most versatile yet, whilst the Technical Friends 5 + 6 are big enough to protect you from the most heinous offwidths.

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 jimtitt 20 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Rock Empire have made twin-axle cams with a thumb loop and extendable Dyneema sling for years.

 Mr. Lee 20 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

A reaffirmation that WC have lost their British roots when they start throwing American phrases around, like 'the most heinous offwidths'. 

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 MischaHY 20 May 2019
In reply to Mr. Lee:

Can't really see the relevance considering they're owned by Salewa who are Italian. 

 beardy mike 20 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

More to the point, unless I'm much mistaken, they don't make Technical Friends and haven't done in the past 5 years+ so what they are doing releasing information about them, I'm not sure. 

Post edited at 14:28
 deepsoup 20 May 2019
In reply to Mr. Lee:

> A reaffirmation that WC have lost their British roots when they start throwing American phrases around, like 'the most heinous offwidths'. 


Perhaps describing themselves as "the original creator of the Friends" is a bigger giveaway.  The grammar is a bit dodgy on either side of the Atlantic.

Is this Wild Country the same Wild Country that was the original creator of the Friend, btw?  It's a philosophical question I suppose.  How much of the 1977 company remains in the current Wild Country?

"Give your Friends a new lease of life with our Trigger Repair Kits."

Cool.  And if it needs a new sling to give it a new lease of life, er..  you're on your own, soz.  We don't own a sewing machine in the UK any more.  Should have bought DMM if you wanted to be able to get the sling replaced.

Post edited at 15:48
 beardy mike 20 May 2019
In reply to deepsoup:

I don't think you can really say it has been the original WC for decades - TBF Mark Vallance sold the company a long time ago. That's kind of what happens with a lot of companies. I mean even the DM of DMM isn't with the company but instead bought the old HB site in Bangor and started ISM...

 HammondR 20 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear: Also, unless I am mistaken, the trigger repair kits are for the new fangled friends. I suspect the real demand at the moment is from old codgers like me who have busted "real" friends.

 deepsoup 20 May 2019
In reply to beardy mike:

That wasn't quite my question though - not "is it still the original company" so much as "does anything of the original company remain".

Not much is what I'm inclined to think if they're no longer able to sew a sling themselves, however strong their outsourcing game.  And since this advert talks about giving your old cams a new lease of life, I think it's worth a mention that a useful service they used to offer has been quietly scrapped for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know it's no longer available.

DM may have moved on from DMM many years ago, but they're still Manufacturing. 
(Or Machining/Moulding in the Mountainy bit of Wales - depending on which version of the story you're subscribing to.) 

In reply to UKC Gear:

I am surprised no one has mentioned strimmer line yet. 

 beardy mike 20 May 2019
In reply to deepsoup:

Well I think I already highlighted a while back that it's essentially an Italian company. I got a bunch of dislikes for it and told I shouldn't be so negative...

 badgerjockey 20 May 2019
In reply to HammondR:

They still work, I repaired a first generation tech friend with one the other day.

 badgerjockey 20 May 2019
In reply to deepsoup:

> Cool.  And if it needs a new sling to give it a new lease of life, er..  you're on your own, soz.  We don't own a sewing machine in the UK any more.  Should have bought DMM if you wanted to be able to get the sling replaced.

Cord, mate.

 beardy mike 21 May 2019
In reply to deepsoup:

And by the way, their manufacturing base was basically either shipped abroad or subbed out to DMM when the two companies joined forces for a while. That's already got to be 15 years ago... Salewa have just finished the job.

 deepsoup 21 May 2019
In reply to beardy mike:

Indeed, though they were still a UK company with at least a tenuous connection to the 'original' Wild Country.  Not that I'm really bothered about that personally.  I don't think it's too much to ask that an Italian gear manufacturer at least has a sewing machine of their own and someone who knows how to use it in Italy though.

 beardy mike 21 May 2019
In reply to deepsoup:

I would tend to agree with you. But it's a level of infrastructure they don't have and whatever you like to think about that and the complexity of it, it's something they didn't want to do. It's got to be said though, in all my years of climbing, I've never needed tape resewing?

 deepsoup 21 May 2019
In reply to beardy mike:

> It's got to be said though, in all my years of climbing, I've never needed tape resewing?

Nor me to be honest, though I like the idea that the facility is there.  It's more just a prejudice that I don't quite trust a manufacturer who can't at least do a basic repair on their own premises or knock up a prototype to play with.

I did have some old Friends I was thinking of sending off to the USA to get new slings on a while back (they were past their sell-by date so WC wouldn't have been an option even while they were still re-slinging their cams), gave them away in the end though to someone looking to put a basic rack together for nowt.  I'd have been happy enough with one of the DIY alternatives, but my most regular climbing partner would not have been so keen and also needs to have confidence in my gear ideally.

I went to a talk by Chris Reed of 'Reed Chillcheater' a while ago (fairly niche kayak/watersports 'wet' clothing manufacturer - not a big company, but not really a small one any more either).  He was press-ganged into doing it at short notice at a sea-kayak symposium when someone else dropped out. 

He talked at length about the efforts they go to to keep as much of their manufacturing in the UK and even in their corner of Devon as possible.  For various reasons to do with providing employment in an area that doesn't have many of those kinds of jobs, maintaining a lot of control over the product and being able to offer repairs, alterations and bespoke stuff to customers.  Though I suspect it's also largely because it's his company and he just really enjoys being able to go down to the workshop and make stuff himself.  He enthusiastically went into a *lot* of textile-geek technical stuff at one point and I was struggling to stay awake for a while there, but it all struck me as really quite admirable.

 EddInaBox 21 May 2019
In reply to beardy mike:

> More to the point, unless I'm much mistaken, they don't make Technical Friends and haven't done in the past 5 years+ so what they are doing releasing information about them, I'm not sure. 

Aren't the current size 5 and 6 cams Technical Friends?

 beardy mike 21 May 2019
In reply to deepsoup:

Well I think you're preaching to the converted - I certainly don't disagree with much of that. It's got to be said though, my experience is that most of the companies I've worked with don't have machines to cut CNC prototypes, or if they do it's hard to schedule prototyping time as running ground up new 3d surfacing G-Code through a machine is necessarily slow - until you run it you cannot be 100% certain that it will run fine, or unless you have a very strict protocol as to how you run the machine like a specific prototyping shop does. Unless you are really kitted up to do it, it's probably cheaper and faster to do it through a third party, unless you are specifically set up to do short runs of goods a bit like DMM are. In addition, most 3rd party manufacturers have their own prototyping facilities so in theory you can get them to cut a prototype. Really the only way you could achieve current price point in the market is to either manufacture for other industries and companies, base yourself with cheaper labour (either in an expensive country or in a much cheaper country, although both of those things come with considerable caveats), or somehow automate as much as you can, or use old designs so you have lower development overheads. It's really a bit of a thankless task in a lot of respects. Your man from Devon will have an easier decision seeing as he will also be factoring in transport costs - shipping a kayak is a wee bit more expensive than a few boxes of biners and cams, plus his numbers will be smaller especially if he's gone for the smaller premium market. Anyway, it's not quite as simple as just saying "lets manufacture here"... if it was we'd all be doing it. 

 beardy mike 21 May 2019
In reply to EddInaBox:

Yes, but the point is those sive 5+6 were kept on initially because they didn't design Helium 5+6 - by the time I got round to designing the new friends, they were if I'm not much mistaken, not in production then, which is getting on for 5 years ago. 

 deepsoup 21 May 2019
In reply to beardy mike:

> Well I think you're preaching to the converted

Yes, I picked up on that a few posts back.
I bow to your expertise on the technical stuff re: machining etc.

> Your man from Devon will have an easier decision seeing as he will also be factoring in transport costs - shipping a kayak is a wee bit more expensive than a few boxes of biners and cams, plus his numbers will be smaller especially if he's gone for the smaller premium market. Anyway, it's not quite as simple as just saying "lets manufacture here"... if it was we'd all be doing it. 

Yes I get that it's not that simple but surely there's some middle ground between obsessively manufacturing everything at home, and abandoning manufacturing altogether to outsource absolutely everything I'd have thought.  Perhaps Alpkit would be a good example?  Outsource the bulk stuff, make some of the other stuff at home and, crucially, retain the ability to repair/alter/etc. as required for the benefit of the customers who appreciate that kind of thing.

Reed don't make kayaks btw, they make & sell clothes (mostly) for kayaking, but I'd say you're quite right - 'smaller premium market' is a pretty accurate description of what they do.


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