Nuts' Story: 2001, a Nut Odyssey

In the mid-'50s, the Stone Age melted away and a new era was born: the Iron Age. The technique of using inserted chockstones was greatly extended by the introduction of artificial metal chockstones, particularly normal machined nuts. Hughie Banner thinks that Jack Soper is responsible for the idea of jamming machined nuts. John Brailsford believes however, that it is extremely difficult to credit anybody with the first use of machined nuts because, as with most of these things, it was the spontaneous practise of many people with an engineering background that was so commonplace in UK climbing circles at that time. Very early nuts had not even the threads filed out but it did not take long to realise the inherent danger posed by the sharp thread edges. So the thread of the nuts was bored out and the ends smoothed to prevent chafing and cutting of the cord. The nut runner worked on the same principle as the chockstone but it had the added refinement of having the sling threaded through the hole of the nut - a great advantage over carrying a pocketful of loose pebbles, then threading them, often "in extremis". Threaded pipe fittings and expanding metal wedges were also used with great effect. Dave Gregory remembers that he and Jack Soper used to pick up machined nuts beside the Snowdon Railway Line, a line that links up Llanberis to Snowdon, Wales' highest peak. This little steam train, now one hundred years old, gets very close up to the mythical Clogwyn du'r Arddu, Cloggy for regulars. They had a joking superstition that if they found one nut on the way up to the crag they would be successful in their project for the day. The climbers' hardware was then developed to use all kind of "chockable" objects coming from various origins or made, generally during working hours, by climbing engineers.

In 1961, a blacksmith from Sheffield, John Brailsford, then a teacher of engineering technology, created the ever first purpose designed nut, the Acorn. Three sizes (1 inch, ¾ inch and 5/8 inch) were turned on a lathe from extruded aluminium alloy. John Brailsford also tried Tufnol (a resin bonded fibre used by Rolls Royce or Hoover for making light weight, silent gears) and brass for their different properties of hardness. Since the Acorn had a machine nut sitting on its top and threaded on the same sling, this " nest of nuts " offered two options, the machine nut or the Acorn. They were probably the first nuts to be marketed in England, by the Roger Turner Mountain Shop in Nottingham.

Most of the difficult cracks which were climbed by hand-jam and layback techniques needed however a wider nut. After measuring some of them, John Brailsford (again!) made models in balsa wood in the form of truncated, oblong pyramids. A Derby company, Coronet Tools, specialising in aluminium casting made six prototypes in L.M. 6 in which John Brailsford drilled two holes and created a radius to join these holes. In the sixties, the testing of ropes was based upon Maurice Dodéro's works. Dodéro used components which related to the carabiner then in use - a 10 mm diameter standard. John Brailsford realized that, if he could increase the diameter over which the rope passed on the top of the nut, he would greatly reduce the risks of cutting the rope sling at this critical point of contact. A star was born: the MOAC! Joe Brown, Don Roscoe (of the Rock & Ice Club), John Brailsford himself and his regular partner, Doug Cook, used them and found they worked at a level of safety not enjoyed before. In 1962, the first batch of MOACs was cast in Manchester and the guide, Peter Gentil, hand-finished them. Mounted on 9 mm rope, other sizes could be obtained by filing them down to reduce their thickness. Originally, Alan Kimber, a Scots-based friend of John Brailsford, thought about calling the new nut Johnny, which also is a slang term for a condom... Ellis Brigham, owner of a chain of outdoor shops in UK who sponsored the die cast first production run, also owned a climbing equipment import company, Mountain Activities. Therefore the name MOAC was chosen for this nut, that many British and American climbers still carry them for sentimental reasons.

Charles Curtis was probably the first to make wired nuts. He first climbed on Cloggy in 1959 and collected his first authentic "nuts". At this time, he was studying Chemistry at Sheffield. He graduated in 1961 and moved to the Geology Department where he started making his Little Mesters in his workshop. Charles Curtis had not seen wire used for artificial chockstones but, at the Sheffield University Mountaineering Club, many members were speleologists who explored the caves in Derbyshire, just a few miles away. They manufactured ladders from wire, and he convinced them to give him some samples. His first attempt was a dismal failure. A mould was made and molten aluminium poured on to a knotted wire, which caused it to lose its temper and strength. Attempting the second ascent of Vector, a Rock & Ice route at Tremadog with Peter Crew, Jack Soper fell off on to one of these nuts while trying to layback the top crack which was full of mud.

In the spring of 1963, John Earnshaw of the Phoenix Mountaineering Club was formulating in his own mind the need for, and the possibility of improving in some ways, the safety protection needed for some climbs. After numerous sketches and rejections, he decided on the style and the shape of the Spud, as it has always been known. The origin of John Earnshaw's choice of name for the device came about as follows. At the time of the invention, he had no access to machinery but one of his climbing protégés, Terrence Murphy, was an apprentice engineer and he volunteered to make a prototype. Everyone may of course already know that, in Ireland, potatoes are known as "murphys" and, in England, they are called "spuds". Because of Terrence's invaluable help, John Earnshaw named his invention Spud in his honour.

In 1964, Trevor Peck, a wealthy businessman who owned a hosiery factory in Leicester, also became involved in nut manufacturing. He paid particular attention to producing an object less costly than the MOAC. Peter Biven and his brother Barrie introduced Trevor Peck to climbing in 1951 and the three of them formed a formidable climbing team for many years. The credit goes to Trevor for dreaming up the chock. His Crackers were made from knurled round steel or Duralumin bar cut to the required length. He used steel wire, stronger than small diameter rope, for the smallest sizes. The earliest ones, in which the wire ends were locked and silver soldered into a copper sleeve, were definitely in use in 1962. It was only in 1967 that the wires were swaged with the Talurit ferrule system. There was also a nylon version of the Cracker, the Ny-Chock on tape. Trevor Peck deposited the first patent for nuts in 1965. This was later refused since there was already proof that the MOAC predated the Peck device and left the door open for other innovators. The Peck Crackers were not very successful in England but the American climber Royal Robbins, returning from a trip to England in 1966, took back to the USA not only a few samples but also his experience of the art of placing passive protection. In his excellent book, Advanced Rockcraft, a superb photo by John Cleare shows Peter Biven using a Cracker on the Coal Face at Bosigran. Unfortunately, Trevor Peck passed away prematurely in 1969 and was not able to develop his company, Peck Climbing Equipment.

In 1964 or was it 63, in a cottage in the Peak District, then home of Tony Howard, a hobby was born which was later to become a company of international repute. With his friend Alan Waterhouse, Tony Howard marketed sets of Wedges under the brand name of Troll. Not far from there, Paul Seddon, master of his castle in his own small enterprise Parba, was asked in 1965 by Ellis Brigham to manufacture new nuts to be sold in his store in Manchester. Paul Seddon cut his prototypes in a 25mm by 20mm bar of aluminium alloy that he was going to use, by a coincidence, for a future piton...

Angled at 14 degrees and drilled transversely with a simple 8 mm hole, these nuts were delivered, also under the name of Spud, to Ellis Brigham in October 1965. Later on, Spuds of different sizes were manufactured. Paul Seddon did not stop there. In 1968 he produced what were probably the first nuts for wide cracks, the Big-H, which were cut from an H-section extrusion. Later in 1967, at Troll, an extruded bar in the shape of a " T " gave birth to the Tee Chock. In 1970, Paul Seddon teamed up with Tony Howard and Alan Waterhouse and became the third "troll".

In 1966, in the long-abandoned cinema of Deiniolen (Wales), Denny Moorhouse and Shirley Smith, two original personalities, created the most mythical factory of climbing hardware, Clogwyn Climbing Gear, known as Clog for short. At that time, a day on which they produced 24 nuts was reckoned to be a good one! At the end of that year, Denny Moorhouse made his first Hexagons which inspired many later on. The size 6 was called Jumbo, the size 7 Mammoth! In few years, Clog became the generic word for nut in the language of climbers around the world. In the early 70's, Troll and Clog marketed a full arsenal of passive nuts covering a wide range of crack widths.

When writing this story, one cannot hush up the Scottie. George "Scottie" Dwyer was the first Welsh mountain guide; he was also the creator of an amazing device in... 1946! George Dwyer never used it on the crag since it would no doubt have been considered as unethical at that time. But, from the historical point of view, this complex device, grandfather of the American space age Slider, predated the main nut development by 15 years.

In the United States, Royal Robbins, armed with a brand new set of chocks bought in 1966 at the Joe Brown Shop in Llanberis, was spreading the good word, trying to convert the less enthusiastic by climbing, over and over, difficult routes using only nuts. With his wife Liz, he made two first ascents in Yosemite in 1967, in this fashion, Boulderfield Gorge and Nutcracker. Nutcracker really put nuts on the map, showed what could be done with nut protection alone, and put moral pressure on the climbing community to follow suit. He played also a key role with articles on the subject in Summit, like the famous Nuts to You in 1967. Preserving the Cracks, compiled by Tom Frost in 1972 in the American Alpine Journal, clearly stated the problem. The repeated use of hard steel pitons was damaging granite cracks in an irreversible way. The nuts offered climbers from across the Atlantic the possibility of cleaner and less traumatic ethics for their playground. Doug Robinson treated this subject most seriously in the Chouinard Equipment Catalog 1972 in the excellent The Whole Natural Art of Protection. Yvon Chouinard was maybe the biggest manufacturer of pegs in the USA at that time but also achieved the second ascent and direct finish of Nutcracker with... Royal Robbins!

Let's come back to England where, in a small village in the Peak District, Mark Vallance, creator of Wild Country, improved considerably the most classic pyramidal nut. "Rare are the cracks showing the same profile as the nuts". Starting from this statement, in 1978, Mark Vallance thought of changing the two large flat sides to create the maximum possible point contact with the rock. Using some Forrest Foxheads as prototypes he tried a large number of combinations to obtain finally the first curved nut, marketed early in 1979 under the name of Rock. No matter what the angle formed by both sides of a crack, the Rocks have always a three-point contact instead of only two for the pyramidal nut. By coincidence, at about the same time, Geoff Birtles, the Editor of High Mountain Sports magazine, worked with Tom Proctor on a closely similar design. They offered Mark Vallance the name Rocks which was what their device was called.

Another English maker, Faces, from Matlock, went even further a few years later, with his Gemstones (or Gems). Curved from top to bottom but also from back to front, this complex shape keeps three point contact in flared cracks.

With Hugh Banner (today HB Climbing Equipment), the problem of the flared crack is tackled from a different angle. " A real goldsmith of the bronze nut ", he created the HB Nuts in 1983, later renamed the HB Offsets. Cracks in rocks, particularly small cracks encountered on difficult climbs, are often narrower at the back than where they emerge on the surface. To deal with this inconvenience, the Offsets have a double-transverse taper which allows subtle placements in flaring slots and old piton scars.