UKC

A climber was blatently drying a hold dry at Malham with a blow torch at the weekend. I understand that it is not good for the rock. Is that true and why?

In reply to Steve Crowe:

The hold will disintegrate - especially on limestone - the natural bonds holding the rock together will weaken.....apart from that the seapage will come back very fast and the hold will be moist.

Seen it happen.....

It's an incredibly selfish thing to do.

Best to move onto something that is dry rather than obsess over something......

Mick R

In reply to Steve Crowe:
Seems a bit of a stupid thing to do as even during the course of the day some pockets started to seep and got worse so you're not going to achieve much I wouldn't have thought i.e. if a hold is seeping it will continue to seep even after blow torching.

In reply to Steve Crowe: This is because Limestone (calcium carbonate) will thermally decompose (that is chemically breakdown when heated) creating calcium oxide (which will dissolve in water making calcium hydroxide - a strong alkali) and carbon dioxide (the gas).

Obviously this means that the rock is permanently damaged.

Just use an old rag - it may not get the hold as dry but at least at the and you'll still have a hold.

BTW which route was suffering the blow torch treatment?

In reply to andy farnell:

Andy -in short: it don't work and it f*cks the hold up.

U Know - when you are young and obsessed (I've done it)

This needs to be broadcast somewhere.

Mick

In reply to Steve Crowe:

I hope he wasn't using a wire brush as well.

In reply to jon:
Sitting on a belay ledge in the dolomites with Whillans he suddenly said that they used to heat stones when he was a kid to put in bed on cold nights. We decided to try it with stones on the ledge. They started spitting and smelt awful. This seems to confirm what was said earlier, we stopped doing it in case the fumes given off were noxious after the first two and shivered when the first ones cooled down.

In reply to andy farnell:

Of course, the plus side is that the quicklime created doesn't do the culprit's fingers much good, especially if they are sweaty.

In reply to andy farnell:
If its the lads I'm thinking of then the route was Energy Vampire. I heard them mention blow torching, but thought they were joking. I was there till about 7pm and didn't see anyone blow torching. If they did it earlier in the day then Mick Lovatt (FA of Energy Vampire) was around, wouldn't he have said somthing?

In reply to Dave Garnett:
keeps them clean
quicklime plus human finger fat = soap.

In reply to andy farnell:

CaCO3 doesn't start breaking down in air at atmospheric pressure untill about 800 C. You could get to those temps. with a blow torch but probably a greater problem is cracking from the heat due thermal expansion of the bit being heated compared to the rest of the rock or due differncial thermal expansion of the components of the rock. Virtually all rocks crack when you heat them up even gods rock 'granite'.

Still a stupid thing to do however it damages the rock.

Julian

In reply to Tyler:
"If its the lads I'm thinking of then the route was Energy Vampire"

They did use the blow torch but only for a few seconds. I have never seen anyone use heat before and thought I could remember hearing that it was'nt a good idea but I couldn't remember why. What was also frustrating was that I was struggling with damp holds further along the crag.

I know limestone comes in for a lot of abuse, chipping, selective cleaning, gluing back together... but in the end of the day it appears that applying heat will only destroy the route or at least that hold.