Half size's in the wider stuff! More variety for gods sake so we can protect cracks using the correct size unit instead of a tipped out cam waiting to train track its way into my face.

Who's with me? The plethora of tiny stuff on the market is absurd. Let's round it out by bringing back the good stuff.

This is kind of covered in the new BD cams thread. Maybe write BD/Fixie/Camp/whoever a letter telling them?

Mia would like to see that. But she is climbing wide cracks at the moment and hence cannot type this.

Haha Stich!!!! Too much rain at the moment......

But yeah I couldn't agree more!!! I hate the new BD big camf sizes, I love my old stuff. There is just something about having three 3.5, three new #4, and three old #4 on the harness. True bliss...... LOL

We got rained out of Elevenmile twice today, once at the mouth of the canyon and later way back near the dam. Good to have rains finally. There are still smoking areas visible just uphill from 24.

Stich
I dont mind the rain, as long as it is short lived....
I know we need it. But there is something about climbing in the sun.

Im for small stuff at least around front range im a firm believer in up to size #3 larger size cams have their place in the desert cracks mostly.

use nuts problem solved

wired bliss makes a 9 inch cam that fits between a 6 camalot and a VG9

Just throwing this out there partly as a feeler and partly to show how small a market it is... what would you be willing to pay for a wide cam?

Near as I can tell there are more than a couple machinists on the climbing forums, and some of us might be willing to do one-offs on a you don't know me, I don't know you but it should be good for 10kN basis. I'm not really soliciting, as I don't have time for such things at the moment and don't care to undercut Tom in his labor of love (by my calculations he's losing money on each one he sells, unless the machinery is paid off of he's ignoring his labor cost).

In any event, I though I'd point out that the math isn't that hard and if you really are hurting for off-sizes there's other options available. IIRC I built a ~#3 BD cam a while back using nothing more than a drill press, hacksaw and file for $35, which failed at 20+kN.

Then again, nowadays it seems that meat that doesn't come on Styrofoam wrapped in cellophane in suspect. I'm afraid that's a bigger discussion, and perhaps more suited to ST. YMMV.

Aric I have often thought about making my own big cams. Because all the cool things like offset and wire stem, weight. Those go out the door. So since seeing a thread on here that some kid made a cam in machine shop I have thought about making my own. Solid stem, not too much to go wrong on. I would whip on one. But then my climbing buddy calls me hazard for a reason.

Mia, I would have enjoyed climbing with the RCCC this weekend, had the weather cooperated. Veedaewoo sometime soon. Hopefully Bob will grant us Colorado folk permission to play in his backyard.

Say hi to Hal for me...I would if he'd answer his phone.

Jake

I know that WB was planning to make big cams. They even had some of the parts made and posted the pics on FB. However, I do not know if they ever actually got around to making them. I don't think that they did. I exchanged e-mails with the owner, Michael, in October '11. At that time he provided me with the following info on the sizing of the new cams.:

#5 Range 3.1 to 5.0
#6 Range 3.75 to 6.0
#7.5 Range 4.25 to 7.5
#9 Range 5.5 to 9

I really hope that they get around to making the larger cams. WB makes great gear and I would like to see some options in the larger range.

Pondered this a couple days, and figured wth.... If there's enough interest in them I might be able to be talked into knocking out a small run of big cams. IIRC I have +/-8 feet of 6" wide by 0.250" thick 6061-T6 sitting on the shelf that was purchased for this sort of thing years ago, and I'm tired of looking at it. Probably some 4" and 5" as well. Would have to get consensus on size, single/double axle, rigid/single/U-stem and whatnot, at which point I could run the costing. I've got a CNC machine shop in the basement, so while possible to do it all with a hacksaw and file I'd instead take the easy route. Heck, for the right price I'd even dig out the anodizing tank and make them all pretty. Oh, and obviously they'd be proof tested to some agreed upon load...

Any takers?

Would only be interested in one that was mid-range at ~7", so probably in the 5.5-9 ballpark. At that size, weight becomes more important than range, so I'd think single axle...but would be curious to see what the weight difference would amount to...double axle might perform better as a "pusher" piece, at least the 6 camalot is easier to push than the 6 friend (whether that is due to head width, axle design, spring tension, or something else is a question I can't answer)

Stem design probably won't matter much, u-stem would probably be easier and lighter.

Would have to check my notes, but IIRC 6" stock is plenty for a 9" cam. And I'll do whatever there's interest in, provided it's at least 4 or 5 per size so I don't lose weeks in programming a dozen different cams...

Side note- double axle isn't as awesome as it's made out to be... Taken to their theoretical maximums for a given minimum size, a double axle has only a 10% greater range than a single axle using the same cam angle (IIRC, would have to check my notes as it's been years since I looked into this). This 10% comes with a hefty weight penalty, and in practice (with BD at least), the axle spacing is far from optimal. To put it another way, most of the additional range of C4's comes from the 15 degree cam angle, not the double axle.

Aric I would buy probably three large cams, I am not really picky so if you get three popular sizes I would tack my order on those. Of course that is assuming that I have enough money at that point =P Really a anything up to 9 in would be cool, 9 and above I try to avoid haha.

Huh. Two semi-positive responses before a Yur Gonna Die!!!! Guess I spend too much time on ST. :-)

Well, pass the word around and I suppose we could use this thread to hash out details. So long as I cover costs and tooling, it would be a welcome diversion from the daily grind.

I'd likely buy a 9" sized cam depending on cost.

Pulled out my notes, and it looks like a #9 VG has a range of 145-229mm (5.71-9.01"). I've never asked Tom what cam angle he uses, but those numbers fit rather well with 14.0 degrees. And actually, hopping over to his site (www.valleygiant.com/) that is indeed what he's using. Pricing would be quite competitive with his stuff, but frankly I'd rather not steal business from him so we'd have to come up with a fairly major design change or three to justify edging in on him. I've got an idea or two, so maybe that's not actually an issue.

-a.

Aric I don't know if it is worth even thinking about, but maybe some longer stems/shorter stems variations? Might make some placements easier... I can only think of one instance when I wanted a longer stem, not sure if the weight would have justified the placement though.