Homemade pitons

[Pilchuck71]

I am curious if anyone has experience making their own pitons.

I have been messing around and making some bail pins and would like to see others projects and hear thoughts.

 

[ivan]

all the cool people have forges!

[G-spotter]

or stoves with legs

[Phil K]

Years ago I was in Ventura while there was a vendor event going on at the Great Pacific Ironworks / Patagucchi store. Mr. Chouinard himself was back in the Skunk Works making pitons by hand at the forge. Most of the crowd didn't seem too impressed.... like "Huh, some guy messing around in the shop." I felt like I was in the presence of a minor deity. He was all laid back, talking about surfing, complaining how it was impossible to buy coal legally in Kalifornia, 'cause of the carcinogenic smoke, heating up this chunk of steel, hammering it out, driving the hole with mandrel, big'ol forearms bulging. When he'd finished, he stamped it with a diamond C and gave the piton, a classic lost arrow, to someone in the crowd. Not me dammit.

 

Anyway, that's my contribution to this important thread.

Edited February 18, 2010 by PHILONIUS

[miwuksurfer]

This guy seems to make his own pins. I think Philonius saw him...

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimherrington/3197768908/in/set-72157612573530086/

 

(Photos by Jim Herrington, a very talented photographer. Not me.)

[Peter_Puget]

Back when I was 14 a friend and I made a bunch of pins. His dad had a pretty good little shop so we would cut and grind things we found and then made a bunch of pins out of angle iron. We used them on some routes but since they were all soft iron they had to be made just right for the crack. Even then with lots of time and no money it seemed like a goofy thing to do. That said a homemade pin did catch a small aid fall of mine. Homemade stoppers are far easier to make so we went that route.

[boadman]

I was in china when I first started to get into climbing. I went out with some chinese climbing buddies to a granite area north of Beijing. On our hike in, we passed a black-smith shop in a little farming village. My friend showed him a lost arrow, and said, "can you make me one of these." Five dollars later, we had a whole rack of pins, made from cheap chinese steel out of the leaf spring on a tractor. On of my other friends was aiding a route and decided to try them out. He ended up zippering from 50' and breaking his back. It was probably a combo of user error and the wrong metal.

[Off_White]

Down on Popo near Mexico City I saw a pair of crampons a guy made for himself out of rebar.

 

Seems like you can still get pins cheap enough that its not worth making them unless its fun for you and you use the "my time is of no value" equation.

[Pilchuck71]

This are fully just for the fun of tinkering.

I am thinking if anything I would consider using them for low angle rappel anchors.

The fun is really in the fabricating!

[JoeR]

I've been wanting to fire up my forge and bang hooks and pitons out, but I can't in my current neighborhood..for some reason the neighbors don't really like the noise and black smoke. I can't imagine why.

[B Deleted_Beck]

necropost, i know..

 

is hot forging really necessary? with a good modern spring steel, seems like a good gage sheet, an angle grinder, and a carbide 5/8ths drill would produce something comparable to whats sold in climbing shops. only difference would be that grinding causes heat, stamping (how i assume they make theirs) doesn't.

Edited January 22, 2011 by bkb0000