Retire old cams?

I have a mixed rack of cams purchased back in 1995 that have been kept in excellent storage condition. I've used them from time to time and none have suffered strain caused by falls. When not in use they have been kept out of direct sunlight and in a storage container away from corosive materials. What's the deal with the stock webbing attached, is there and expiration to the stitching? Should I have it replaced - or does the whole unit need to be retired? The BD cams have the tubular webbing and the DMM have spectra.

I purchased my first set of cams back around 1995. I had them reslung by Fish Products (I believe it was Russ Walling) a couple of years ago to be safe. No need to retire the entire unit.

I'm planning on having my sets of old rigid friends and tech friends reslung this winter. Has anyone worked out the sling color-size combo for Wild Country cams that most closely corresponds to the BD sling color-size standard?

jaypg:

They should immediately be retired....

Please send them to me for proper disposal.

Mountain Tools has a service whereby they resing old cams with the color combo you want. They do a fine job.

PRRose wrote:I'm planning on having my sets of old rigid friends and tech friends reslung this winter. Has anyone worked out the sling color-size combo for Wild Country cams that most closely corresponds to the BD sling color-size standard?

Howdy,

I went through this exercise about a month ago (unfortunately, after I reslung my Friends). I developed this chart to map the C-4 colors onto the nearest sized Friend. Of course, it's not a perfect match, and you can adjust as it makes best sense to you. I pulled the dimensions off or the Wild Country and BD websites, and dropped off a decimal place to make it readable (I don't think you'll be climbing with a dial caliper):



Cheers,
Thom

Galibier_Numero_Un wrote: Howdy, I went through this exercise about a month ago (unfortunately, after I reslung my Friends). I developed this chart to map the C-4 colors onto the nearest sized Friend. Of course, it's not a perfect match, and you can adjust as it makes best sense to you. I pulled the dimensions off or the Wild Country and BD websites, and dropped off a decimal place to make it readable (I don't think you'll be climbing with a dial caliper): Cheers, Thom

Great--exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

I learned an interesting thing in CA this summer from my old buds there. I had a set of old Chouinard (not BD) camalots, the bipolar ones where the wires come up through plates just inside the outer cams. Visible fractures have developed in these plates where the wires come through. Apparently other people have noticed this too in these old camalots. These babies are like from the Pleistocene, being Chouinard and all. I think I bought them in the early/mid 80s or so. Apparently there haven't been any catastrophic failures under load on these things, but they should be replaced. I went down and gave blood so I could replace them with the modern BDs and retired the old guys.
I hadn't noticed the fractures until my friend pointed them out to me and kindly told me I'd better replace them for my own good. I hadn't heard anything about these fractures before, so if people are still using these bipolar Chouinard Camalots, be good to check out those plates.

Thanks for that info Bob. I have one blue Chouinard Camalot from the mid-eighties and will check it out tonight.

Unless the cams have had a recall (worth a web search) I suspect they are sound units. I vaguely recall reading you could use dry silicone or teflon-based products to lubricate them but I've very rarely done so with no ill effects. As for the slings I'd resling them for sure, and I'll give a plug to a local (Durango,CO) vendor, Forest Products. I have a mongrel rack and wanted to have the sling colors sorta sync up so I did some reslinging a few years back. A solid sling product (27Kn, vs 14Kn for BD stock C4 slings), a variety of colors and relatively prompt service. Just my .02.
-Tom

I really like the term "mongrel rack." I've been saying "mix and match rack" for years, but "mongrel rack" is way better. Thanks.

PRRose wrote: Great--exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

You are going to mis-color if you follow that color chart.

In general it's pretty good, but a #1 camalot will not match a 2.5 friend. It's closer to a #2 friend. A 2.5 friend is closer to a #2 camalot.

Unfortunately, you'll get different sizes due to a difference in range and number of cams in the range. I highly recommend just reslinging the WC cams with the WC colors. WC has already matched colors to BD... the cam sizes that dont really cross over they just go with a completely different color (more specifically the 1.5 and 3 sizes). Best to just leave it that way. And it'll make people that you partner with that use WC not be scratching their heads when they are leading with your cams :D