Ed Leeper passed away this morning

I just discovered, with sadness, this old thread about the death of Ed Leeper. I corresponded with him a very long time ago (in 1993, and a little later). At that time he kindly sent me three of his catalogs which I keep with a lot of care. He also very generously sent me a set of Leeper Antipitons and some Z Chocks for the Nuts Museum.

In fact, I realize that I know very little about Ed Leeper. I warmly thank Jamie Logan for his testimony posted here on this forum. Would it be possible to know the date of birth of Ed? I did some research on the internet to find a nice portrait of him, but apart from the one published in his 1982 catalog there is nothing (apart from a small very low resolution photo found years ago). I would be pleased to get a good portrait of Ed.

On one of the last documents that Ed Leeper sent me, there is a small post-it note with his handwriting... To this day, I do not know if the Fragile-Flake Cam Hook has been marketed in aluminium...

Ed Leeper (USA) Antipitons, thin and regular (1975) and Z Chocks (1979)

Ed Leeper (USA), Nut Tools, left to right, Model NT3 Hustler, Model NT2 Jiggle-O, Model NT1 Hookers

 

^^^^^^^

Moses Enterprises sells an aluminum cam hook for fragile flakes. It’s head is wider than other cam hooks and is based on the Leeper design. 

That nut tool and the old BD one are indestructible. The ones on the market these days are pure junk.

Ed created a lot of quality, innovative climbing gear which I think was somewhat under appreciated in its time. Much of it now worth its weight in gold. 

Salamanizer Ski wrote:

That nut tool and the old BD one are indestructible. The ones on the market these days are pure junk.

Ed created a lot of quality, innovative climbing gear which I think was somewhat under appreciated in its time. Much of it now worth its weight in gold. 

Ed commonly used 4140 high strength heat treated spring steel. It was certainly stronger than anything else made at the time, however, banging your hand on such a thin slice of strong/hardened material utilized by Ed Leeper in a nut tool was not something any common man did very rigorously for very long. Everything else was not "junk". 

Wild Country, Metolius and Ushba all have pads on the end so as to not impale your hand when you slam down onto it. Ed's tools crossed the divide of hammer and hammerless. If you had a hammer and needed to remove a recalcitrant chock, Ed's tools were great. Using one without a hammer or a rock could cross the line of painful to excruciating. Which is why you don't see Eds tools out and about these days. Ed Leeper was unique and important no question. All climbers, even those who have never heard of the man (and they should look him up) owe him a debt of gratitude. Where Ed really shined IMO was in developing testing techniques for pulling various soft and hard iron pitons along with various bolts. Ed always shared his work, and his results were often unique, interesting, and important. Ed's Z pins were some of the best weight to holding power performance pins ever made. Great stuff.