Quality Issues With Climb-X Hangers

20 kN wrote:Black Diamond had a patent monopoly on twin axle cams for a while. When their patent expired, several other companies came out with twin axle cams. The difference here being that the other companies improved upon Black Diamond's design, they dident straight-out copy it. Improving upon is one thing, copying is another. Climb X literally made photocopies of every product Mad Rock made, whereas DMM took BD's design, modified it quite a fair bit, then produced a new product with a modified design—big difference.

stop buying metolius

from steve byrne, inventor of the TCU

Back in Oregon, Doug was going to meet with his patent lawyer, so I had him take a TCU to get an opinion. It was obvious by this time that there would be a demand for them. He came back and told me that It clearly violates Ray Jardine's friend patent, but that the improvement could be patented. It would cost about $3000 and still wouldn't allow us to make them legally. He said, "The patent part is really up to you, but I just can't afford the risk." (of violating the friend patent by selling TCU's). I was disappointed, but it put me where I was anyways. If I wanted to make a living I needed to make and sell TCU's and I was the only one who made them, so it should work out. I had no reason to distrust Doug and had no hint he ever planned on making them, so I figured we would part as friends and I would start my own little business, like he had two years before.


.....

I think it was about that time that I was on the phone with Alan Watts and he told me that Doug (Metolius Mountain Products) was also going to make them and were calling them TCU's. I was blown away. I asked him what the f?, basically, and he told me, "Doug says the two of you worked together on it and decided he couldn't afford not to make them". I knew Alan knew better, but apparently Doug had given him a job and he was on Doug's side or somehow didn't care. I called Doug and asked him what he was doing and he said, We got a call from the Japanese (a group there were buying in batches for a club or something) and they saw some and wanted to buy 150 and that he also planned on wholesaling cheap to "penetrate the market". His position was that we worked on them together and he saw it as an "equal opportunity". The fairy tale was over. It was going to be a battle.


....

The next Spring I had just developed the .4 and made a climbing trip with my girlfriend back up to Oregon and then down through Yosemite. At Smith Rocks I ran into Doug at the base of Picnic Lunch Wall and we had a conversation. He showed me a different style of TCU, with nicopressed cable loops around the axles and the thinner double cables soldered into a flat base. He said they were cheaper to make and worked just as well, but he was puzzled that nobody seemed to want them, so he went back to the original style. Like an idiot I told him about the .4 and that we were going up to 1 1/2 as well. A couple of months later a friend came in with a metolius zero he had bought on the road. I traded him for one of ours and started playing with it. Within a few minutes I had broken the welded fitting off of the axle. I called Doug again to warn him of the problem, but he didn't seem concerned. You'd have to place one upside down in a pin scar and then whip on it and he probably figured I just wanted him to look bad. I thought about promoting the issue, but just let it go. That wasn't who I was. I was still a climber.

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Capitalism is a bad answer for an economic system. It's like saying unequal is fair, and then you have to define a fair way to distribute things unequally. In the case of inventions it's the patent system. This is such a complicated legal and administrative process that it can't efficiently do the job anymore. Patents are expensive because they are complicated and they are a legal product, but the patent itself is the cheap part. The real expenses come when you have to defend your patent in court. I don't know what the numbers are now, but in 1985 I was told it would cost a minimum of $50k to bring an infringement case to court, About as much as I ever made selling TCU's.

The TCU was a ripoff of the friend. It was totally covered by the friend patent. I think everyone making cams back then got a "cease and desist" letter from Ray Jardine's Lawyer and we all ignored them. Had Ray come and talked to me I would have paid a royalty, but that wasn't being offered. Jardine's mistake was not making small friends early on, and creating a void that needed filling. It became apparent that Lowe was letting it go with Wild Country. I'm sure most of us figured if Lowe can't afford to sue Wild Country, He's certainly not going to bother suing me, and neither is Wild Country.

Doug Phillips must have known this in 1984, but maybe not. By 1987 there were 5 companies making TCU's and I was flattered by all of them except Doug. In his case, he had been my friend, or at least pretended, and then misled me. I would have been happy to stay in Oregon and split the TCU with Doug, but he wasn't giving me that option.

I think what happened, was that after I had left, he received a request for 150 TCU's from Japan and got greedy. Maybe he figured he would just do the 150 or just sell to the Japanese?... but then, you can't tool up and make that many of them without people noticing. They ask questions and you come up with your best excuse. "We worked together on it". Come on Doug... How does that happen? I took an hour to make the first one and the basic design never changed. I did it in his shop though, and more importantly I had moved away. Apparently, throwing me under the bus (trade friend for money) was a viable option. In the end it has put him into the 1% and I have nothing from it now, but this story and a few souvenirs. Such is life. Well played, Doug.





supertopo.com/climbers-foru…

;)

Brendan Blanchard wrote: That's an entirely different company and argument, mostly founded in ultra-patriotic nonsense and fear mongering no less.

Hahahahaha, Ultra-patriotic, fear mongering. nice. Well how about I also add that I work for Honda as a Master Technician, and you know where most of our problem cars I see come from? Good ol'Alabama, USA. I don't think that just because it is made in the United States it's better.

My point wasn't that the the country of origin was necessarily the issue, actual not blaming the manufacture, but more or less the end user application. Thing is, no matter where something is made, you will inevitably have product that slips through with issues.

20 kN wrote:Black Diamond had a patent monopoly on twin axle cams for a while. When their patent expired, several other companies came out with twin axle cams. The difference here being that the other companies improved upon Black Diamond's design, they dident straight-out copy it. Improving upon is one thing, copying is another. Climb X literally made photocopies of every product Mad Rock made, whereas DMM took BD's design, modified it quite a fair bit, then produced a new product with a modified design—big difference.

A few years ago when Climb-X first started I went to their "shop" in Portland. They were promoting their new brand on message boards and I didn't know their history. They had no store front, just an office with a few desks and cardboard boxes. There was no engineering, no testing, nothing...just an office. Shortly after there was the Mad Rock suit. I did not end up buying anything from them.

Companies like DMM have engineers, testing, and manufacturing. They did not just steel a patented design and start making it. The BD patent expired and DMM made notable improvements. The changes DMM made were engineered and tested, they did not go to market with a clone.

I don't know if Climb-X hired an engineer to design their metal products or just found a job shop in China to crank out unprotected designs. However, there is a real likelihood based on their history with Mad Rock that they took an old design, cut cost on materials, and went straight to market. I would love to see some metallurgy and destruction testing.

I think that a few people are misunderstanding the reason for popular objection to climbX. It isn't that they did some illegal patent thing, or that their products are obviously all complete junk. The main objection I think is that if you pay attention to their history, they seem to be a pretty slimy company, whether or not they did anything technically illegal. And slimy companies tend to cut corners.

If I think a company is cutting corners - if I get that feeling in my gut - I'm not going to wait for their case to wend its way through the lawyers and courts - I'm going to err on the side of safety and use gear from a company that doesn't give me that feeling, of which there are many. In fact, of all the companies making gear today, I would say climbX is the only one (okay, one of two), that gives me that feeling. That's a purely subjective judgment, but there you go.

Irrational? Sure.
Safe? Very.

I'll admit I jumped the gun in saying 'this was bound to happen' - but I stand by my gut feeling, which is that these guys seem slimy, and that even if this wasn't a QC issue, it probably will be next time. Maybe someday there will be an open-and-shut case where some poor soul takes the long dive because ClimbX tried to pass off a carabiner made of very firm cheese, and everybody will be satisfied, finally. I, personally, do not want to be that soul.

I don't disagree.

This is why I tend to buy from DMM if given a choice. They are clearly a quality driven company.

MegaGaper2000 wrote:I think that a few people are misunderstanding the reason for popular objection to climbX. It isn't that they did some illegal patent thing, or that their products are obviously all complete junk. The main objection I think is that if you pay attention to their history, they seem to be a pretty slimy company, whether or not they did anything technically illegal. And slimy companies tend to cut corners. If I think a company is cutting corners - if I get that feeling in my gut - I'm not going to wait for their case to wend its way through the lawyers and courts - I'm going to err on the side of safety and use gear from a company that doesn't give me that feeling, of which there are many. In fact, of all the companies making gear today, I would say climbX is the only one (okay, one of two), that gives me that feeling. That's a purely subjective judgment, but there you go. Irrational? Sure. Safe? Very. I'll admit I jumped the gun in saying 'this was bound to happen' - but I stand by my gut feeling, which is that these guys seem slimy, and that even if this wasn't a QC issue, it probably will be next time. Maybe someday there will be an open-and-shut case where some poor soul takes the long dive because ClimbX tried to pass off a carabiner made of very firm cheese, and everybody will be satisfied, finally. I, personally, do not want to be that soul.

There is all sorts of good history and technical information in this thread. Love it.

The part about the TCU design is especially interesting.

Bump for a good thread. Any more failed Climb X hangers out there to add to the list?

These photos of cracked hangers are from Canada Cliffs Mount desert island Maine. Top hanger on the climb Roundup broke off and a lower one was also cracked. All have been replaced. Miles from the ocean and this crag is not tropical but often wet.
No EN stamp. No third party testing. Total junk and climb x won’t give a refund or do a recall.

Reach out to Joe Garland at climb x for more information about this product.

Mike Ho wrote: These photos of cracked hangers are from Canada Cliffs Mount desert island Maine. Top hanger on the climb Roundup broke off and a lower one was also cracked. All have been replaced. Miles from the ocean and this crag is not tropical but often wet.

If MP's route database is correct, Canada Cliff is less than 2 miles from the ocean.