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Version A
Version B
Fungo
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I acquired this eight from Ragged Mountain Equipment in 1994.
The C.A.M.P./Lowe, Version A is forged from aluminum alloy. Mine is 132 mm. tall, 74 mm. wide, and 14 mm. thick. The rope hole is 48 mm. high and 48 mm. wide. The top center thickness is 11 mm. The shaft length and width are 43 mm. and 24 mm., respectively. The eye measures 19 mm. by 25 mm. My eight weighs 108 g.
The front of this eight is stamped "CAMPITALY," and the rear is stamped "KG. 2500."
The C.A.M.P./Lowe is a "midi" size, forged, aluminum eight sharing one of the most common designs of this type. The following eights are quite similar, except for their markings:
Some of these eights are made in Europe, and some in Asia. Some are rebranded eights made by one manufacturer for outside customers and labeled accordingly.
Each of these eights is 131±1 mm. tall and 74±1 mm. wide. Their weights fall in the 105±4 g. range. These are normal manufacturing variations that have no practical significance. Although similar, these eights are not identical, and close inspection will reveal some minor differences in their shapes. None of these affect their performance to any noticeable degree.
The AustriAlpin and C.A.M.P. 928.00/01 appear to have harder anodizing than the others, and may wear better. My experience with the high-quality hard anodizing on CMI eights is that hard anodizing provides considerable protection on clean ropes, but the protection provided against cave mud is limited. In bad conditions the anodizing soon breaks through, and the protection is lost. For this reason, I don't place a lot of value on hard over soft anodizing for caving use, but I prefer hard anodizing for climbing applications.
The rope hole is shorter than normal, so it may provide too much friction on stiff or muddy ropes. Cavers should consider this possibility.
Some caver friends refuse to use figure eights because they twist the rope. I think that concern is absurd for short drops, and eights are short drop devices.
Many climbers think that eights are outdated, and prefer to rappel on belay tubes. I prefer belay tubes for belaying, but belay tubes get very hot when used for rappelling. Eights run much cooler. On any given day, I make my choice about carrying a separate rappel device by considering several factors, and it is not unusual for me to carry an eight if I expect to be rappelling more than a very short distance.
None of these eights have slots for sticht-type belaying, and their oval eyes are not really designed for that purpose. They can be used for "Sticht" belaying on 9 mm. rope, but the eye is a bit short for optimum use on 11 mm. rope. Some people will belay with an eight rigged for rappelling, but I don't like that practice since it does not provide the automatic lock and the friction that a sticht does.
Most of these eights have strength markings of 25 or 30 kN. To put this in perspective, the value required by EN 15151-2:2012 is only 7 kn. The excess provides margin for wear.
[ Top | Version A | Fungo | Return to Figure Eights ]
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| Front | Rear |
I acquired this eight from Ragged Mountain Equipment in 1994.
The C.A.M.P./Lowe, Version B is forged from aluminum alloy and then soft anodized. Mine is 131 mm. tall, 74 mm. wide, and 13 mm. thick. The rope hole is 48 mm. high and 48 mm wide. The top center thickness is 11 mm. The shaft length and width are 44 mm. and 25 mm., respectively. The eye measures 19 mm. by 25 mm. My eight weighs 102 g.
The front of this eight is stamped "CAMPITALY," and the rear is stamped "KG. 2500."
The C.A.M.P./Lowe is a "midi" size, forged, aluminum eight sharing one of the most common designs of this type. The following eights are quite similar, except for their markings:
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Some of these eights are made in Europe, and some in Asia. Some are rebranded eights made by one manufacturer for outside customers and labeled accordingly.
Each of these eights is 131±1 mm. tall and 74±1 mm. wide. Their weights fall in the 105±4 g. range. These are normal manufacturing variations that have no practical significance. Although similar, these eights are not identical, and close inspection will reveal some minor differences in their shapes. None of these affect their performance to any noticeable degree.
The AustriAlpin and C.A.M.P. 928.00/01 appear to have harder anodizing than the others, and may wear better. My experience with the high-quality hard anodizing on CMI eights is that hard anodizing provides considerable protection on clean ropes, but the protection provided against cave mud is limited. In bad conditions the anodizing soon breaks through, and the protection is lost. For this reason, I don't place a lot of value on hard over soft anodizing for caving use, but I prefer hard anodizing for climbing applications.
The rope hole is shorter than normal, so it may provide too much friction on stiff or muddy ropes. Cavers should consider this possibility.
Some caver friends refuse to use figure eights because they twist the rope. I think that concern is absurd for short drops, and eights are short drop devices.
Many climbers think that eights are outdated, and prefer to rappel on belay tubes. I prefer belay tubes for belaying, but belay tubes get very hot when used for rappelling. Eights run much cooler. On any given day, I make my choice about carrying a separate rappel device by considering several factors, and it is not unusual for me to carry an eight if I expect to be rappelling more than a very short distance.
None of these eights have slots for sticht-type belaying, and their oval eyes are not really designed for that purpose. They can be used for "Sticht" belaying on 9 mm. rope, but the eye is a bit short for optimum use on 11 mm. rope. Some people will belay with an eight rigged for rappelling, but I don't like that practice since it does not provide the automatic lock and the friction that a sticht does.
Most of these eights have strength markings of 25 or 30 kN. To put this in perspective, the value required by EN 15151-2:2012 is only 7 kn. The excess provides margin for wear.
[ Top | Version A | Version B | Return to Figure Eights ]
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| Front | Rear |
I acquired this eight used from Walt Pirie in 1991.
The C.A.M.P./Lowe Fungo is forged from aluminum alloy and then soft anodized. Mine is 122 mm. tall, 90 mm. wide, and 19 mm. thick. The Fungo has a distinct bend that accounts for the increased thickness; if flat, it would be 12.7 mm thick. The rope hole is 61 mm. high and 40 mm. wide. There is a small projection on one side with a 4.5 mm. hole for a keeper cord. The top center thickness is 10 mm. The shaft length and width are 40 mm. and 26 mm., respectively. The eye measures 23 mm. by 23 mm. My Fungo weighs 97 g. after a little wear from Walt’s use.
The concave side of my Fungo has mountain logo with "CAMP" above and "Italy" below. The convex side has "Kg2000" in raised letters.
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The keeper hole allows attaching a keeper cord that can be connected to the harness to reduce the rik of dropping the eight. A drawback is that the keeper can easily get entangled with the main line. You may think that the keeper holes on these eights are not in a good placebut where else could it be? If it were on the shank or eye, then the keeper would prevent rigging the eight while the keeper was attached to the user. I recommend simply not dropping your descender, but if yuo have a real concern about dropping the eight, perhaps it would be better to switch to a different kind of descender.
The Midi-sized eights have a compact design that causes the rope to make sharper bends, providing more friction on stiff ropes than a standard-size eight. They also weigh less than most eights. The standard-size Rock House provides less friction than the Midi-sized eights. The Fungo has a bend that allows it to be rigged two ways with differing amounts of friction. The C.A.M.P., Version H is a flat Fungo-equivalent that lacks the two friction arrangements.
This eight is lighter than most figure eights. The rope path is well laid out so this eight runs smoother than one might expect.
The eye is too narrow to accept two full size locking carabiners.
[ Top | Version A | Version B | Fungo ]
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