It seems that Hamish MacInnes was cutting firewood with a bushman’ s saw in Glencoe back in the 1970’s when the blade broke and in the process of replacing it he had an idea for a new crampon which would fit around the welt of a mountaineering boot; a bit like wrapping the saw blade around it. Crampons were undergoing big changes back then since the step cutting era was pretty much at an end and climbers wanted better technology to climb ever steeper ice. Hamish’s friend, Yvon Chouinard, in America, was having trouble getting the ‘temper’ of his new crampons right. Many of them were breaking so Hamish got another friend, Trevor Peck, to make his own version which got the nickname’ the bandsaw’ To cut a long story short, they were not a success and the one we have here in the collection is probably the only survivor. Another friend of Hamish, Rob Taylor, took a pair climbing on Creag Meaghaidh one day and they slowly disintegrated as the day went on. This one, minus its two front points was the only survivor – apart from Rob, of course, though he reckons it was a close thing!