This is the Akimbo

@southsoundtree The meaning for you is that you spend ten less keystrokes of your life typing my handle than I spend typing yours. Ever wonder why anyone hardly ever tags you? ;)

@craneguy1 Cheese, well, at least that's better than Coin Operated Locker Babies, which is something horrible that I just discovered while googling colb... Personally, I think that all should be Join Eperated Focker Fabies GU.

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@JeffGu
 
Not to derail again from this fascinating derailment but...

If Rock Exotica is making actual improvements like making the production version less finicky about rope size and brand, handle water and ice better, or certify to make it available to other industries, or larger companies that only allow certified gear, etc. Then I am OK with the wait.

On the other hand if this is a hold for market timing, then that sucks, just drop it and let people climb and get attached to it ;), before someone else drops something cooler and slicker.

For Christmas I was hoping to add my Akimbo's younger, hotter RE sister to my device haram, but then I met this steam punk kissing cousin and I am digging it!
2017-12-16 11.57.06.webp

Don' get me wrong, I am still the Akimbo's biggest fan, and I will get the RE version when it shows up, but in the mean time I need to get a second rope in the tree and the BdB is a rockin' option.

Now I need to go wash my hands for typing that horrible haram metaphor. :rayos:
 
FreeFallin said:
Not to derail again from this fascinating derailment but...

For Christmas I was hoping to add my Akimbo's younger, hotter RE sister to my device haram, but then I met this steam punk kissing cousin and I am digging it!
View attachment 48379
Click to expand...

Just for the sake of giving credit where credit is due, the Compact Bulldog Bone is more like a steam punk mother to the Akimbo, rather than a cousin. The Akimbo is derived from modifications that Gordon freely permitted Jaime to make to Gordon's Compact Bulldog Bone, with help and advice from Gordon. Inventors freely borrowing each other's ideas and putting their own twists on them is what is propelling these innovations forward. Folks like Gordon, Paul and Kevin having hearts big enough to allow it, with no concern for ego or greed, are what is changing the way that climbers all over the world operate within the canopy.

Just my humble opinion.

Tim

P.S. I was going to say that the Compact Bulldog Bone was more like a father to the Akimbo, but after previewing my post, and seeing your reference to your "device haram", I thought it might provoke an "eeeeww, gross!" reaction.
 
I suppose I had a rather backhanded influence on the Akimbo, because as Jamie was making his modification to my OAR idea I asked him not to use the swivel aside chain links in a commercial application, due to my provisional patent for that idea. He then developed the X spine configuration and eccentric bollards.
 
TimBr said:
Just for the sake of giving credit where credit is due, the Compact Bulldog Bone is more like a steam punk mother to the Akimbo, rather than a cousin. The Akimbo is derived from modifications that Gordon freely permitted Jaime to make to Gordon's Compact Bulldog Bone, with help and advice from Gordon. Inventors freely borrowing each other's ideas and putting their own twists on them is what is propelling these innovations forward. Folks like Gordon, Paul and Kevin having hearts big enough to allow it, with no concern for ego or greed, are what is changing the way that climbers all over the world operate within the canopy.

Just my humble opinion.

Tim

P.S. I was going to say that the Compact Bulldog Bone was more like a father to the Akimbo, but after previewing my post, and seeing your reference to your "device haram", I thought it might provoke an "eeeeww, gross!" reaction.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more, however you want to define this metaphorically disturbing familial device relationship, there is no denying that Gordon is a continual innovator that contributed much to the Akimbo project, while also continuing to innovate down his own device path with the BdB. I just supported that belief with my hard earned cash, and am following the evolution of the mini closely as well.

Jaime put his own brilliant twists on similar mechanical functions and made a swanky new fork in the device family tree.

I could go on about the work Paul and Kevin have done to get us all here but it's been said many times.

So - cousin, mother, creepy uncle, whatever, they are all better devices than what I can come up with so take my money and give me something cool to put on a rope, it's a great time to be dangling from a tree!
 
Gordons nonstop tinkering and endless show and tell of ideas was one of the biggest inspirations for me to get into the game. he has my eternal gratitude for being such an open and friendly guy.

as to the wait re RE. i assure you its not for market timing or any such. even tho what I've developed up to this point and brought to them works well, it still takes time to translate into a mass produce-able item. i can personally fine tune the fit of 65 units, you cant do that for 1000, or more. I've spent a fair amount of time talking with the engineer heading the project about ways to tweak things to insure repeatable machining and quality. this is also our last good chance to make sure we don't miss any design elements that improve the range of ropes, weather, settings etc.
 
JMerritt said:
.....this is also our last good chance to make sure we don't miss any design elements that improve the range of ropes, weather, settings etc.
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Analysis paralysis. It is our nature to tweak, improve and refine, it will never stop, but they have had in their possession a fully-functional and field-tested tool for over a year now. That is like Henry Ford not producing the model T because he envisioned the more capable model A.
The tooling and assembly systems that RE has are far more capable of exacting, repeatable production than any home scale operation. So that is not an issue.
I can certainly understand the need for advanced testing and certification but to whose and what standards?
 
"Scope creep" .....as in, if we tweak or improve it to do A, then we can modify it to do B, which will enable a little redesign to perform C, etcetera etcetera.
I, along with a Civil War General named "George B. McClellan" have found this mental exercise to be highly useful for procrastinating.
 
DSMc said:
Analysis paralysis. It is our nature to tweak, improve and refine, it will never stop, but they have had in their possession a fully-functional and field-tested tool for over a year now. That is like Henry Ford not producing the model T because he envisioned the more capable model A.
The tooling and assembly systems that RE has are far more capable of exacting, repeatable production than any home scale operation. So that is not an issue.
I can certainly understand the need for advanced testing and certification but to whose and what standards?
Click to expand...
yes they have had it for a year. we waited several months to get as much feedback from the units i sent out as possible. that was invaluable as some design flaws came to light rather quickly. a lot of time was spent waiting in line for prior RE projects to finish and then they also lost time moving their entire factory. its been full tilt since the beginning of Aug more or less.
 
One of these days a company will put the time money and effort into making a device that both performs and meets standards enough to get a CE certification or even a UL stamp that allows it to be used in the industrial realm. We shouldn't always strive to be on the fringe by using and producing devices that work but aren't tested to standards and have the certification to prove it. Perhaps figuring out a way to pool money to help innovators or companies build that perfect tool or tools is the key. I'm guessing if you talked to manufacturers about it, they would say the margins of profit after developing and creating what we want are in that negative realm. SRT climbers who will climb on a mechanical device in our industry are probably .01% of the market. You might have deep pockets for these toys and tools, but most folks do not. Unless the device we seek can be appealing to the industrial and European market by being certified to a high standard, it's market share and sales volume will always be very low and because of that will take years to recover its R&D costs. A most unappealing prospect for a large reputable manufacturer.
 
surveyor said:
I suppose I had a rather backhanded influence on the Akimbo, because as Jamie was making his modification to my OAR idea I asked him not to use the swivel aside chain links in a commercial application, due to my provisional patent for that idea. He then developed the X spine configuration and eccentric bollards.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit late responding to this post, so it's a bit out of sequence with the rest of the thread. I just wanted to say thanks for the response, and for pointing out the difference in design between the two devices. Until you mentioned it I never noticed or realized that the Akimbo had an "X" spine design. It did show up well in a video done by @yoyoman, which I only saw after reading your post.

It is just so cool how all of you guys just push and prod and feed off of each other's work, and then come up with new stuff. I've never seen anything like it before getting into reading these forums.

Congratulations to all of you.

Tim
 
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