There I was – Nice new Rock Empire cams, out of the bag for the first time and … I get the frigging thing over-cammed and stuck! One moment it was fitting nicely and the next stuck!

Ok before you go racing to Magalies – I got it out, but it made me think (other than I’m a fool for getting it stuck in the first place) – are there any magic tricks to removing over-cammed or stuck cams? You know – magic puff powder, blood, skin, bits of wire or anything that moves them?

Brute force is thy only method. Sideways pulling of the head with thy nutpick can worketh wonders as well. Fare well then. bye bye now

Often stuck cams can be retrievd using two nut picks instead of one. This works especially well with friends or camelots (or other single stem cams with a two-finger trigger). Use one pick on each side of the trigger and push your thumb on the end of the stem. Solid stem friends have an aluminium pin as a trigger so you can use the hole at the end of the chock pick to hook onto this. Also, try sliding an over-cammed cam parallel to its axle instead of out the way it went in. Old style friends have a little nut on the axle that can be removed to dismantle the cam.

The above mentioned method also works well using two wire nuts, sling the wire loops around the end of the triggers and push down on the stem (handy if you dont have two nut picks)

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Depending on the rock...try:

1. Aplying some spit to lube it up the contact surfaces.
2. Use a largish fishing type knife or nut pick to scrape the surface of the inside of the crack, under the parts touching the rock.
3. max force
4. for walked in small cams... 2 nuts with the clipping loop over both sides of the trigger. If its walked \"too\" far in... join nuts toegether(as in to creat a reef knot). Slip the clipping loop over both sides of the trigger...pull.

2 nut picks also help.