Continuing Vertical Archaeology’s long running love affair with LONGware equipment, I present the approximate piton selection Gerry offered from LONGware in 1964. The pitons shown in our gallery and illustrated in the catalog pages represent a good selection of what was available at the time. I believe there were several other sizes made which Gerry didn’t stock for whatever reason.
Being handmade, there are variations in the horizontal pitons just from the manufacturing but the general sizes are: medium taper long and short, a thicker short wedge, and two versions of what is essentially a medium thin “duckbill” or reverse taper Lost Arrow. Also in our collection is a piton best described as a “long wedge lost arrow” but this piton seems to be a variation due to handmade production and not a standard size commonly offered.
The angle pitons of this era were very interesting. The ring angle offered by Gerry is pretty standard for the day although a little wider than the commonly available Army Ring Angles and of course the LONGware is chrome-molly and can be used repeatedly. Army Ring Angles were soft iron and would deform as they were driven into cracks resulting in decent holding power when done right. Hard steel angles depended more on the springy properties of the steel for their holding power but they could be placed and removed many times without deforming.
The two middle sized Bong pitons are another story. The eye and striking surface of the larger angles are welded in four spots to both keep the pitons shape and to produce a thin area for the carabiners to clip through. I have one of these pins in my collection where the welds have popped loose and the piton has started to open up. I think too many lateral blows during cleaning or overzealous driving would easily deform the eye of the angles.
The larger Bongs have a single rivet below the eye holding the pin together. The eye section is thicker and the striking area is a little larger, although still prone to deforming unless some care is taken while driving them in. An early mentor of mine gave me this advice about Pitoncraft: “be an artist, not a P***y”. I guess if you approach pitons with that in mind then you could appreciate these beautiful handmade tools as the pieces of art I believe they are.