UKC

Southern Sandstone resin

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I know that several years ago repairs were done to Southern Sandstone using some sort of resin. Does anyone know what that resin was, perhaps its trade name?

I think that aim of the resin was to harden worn holds against further erosion.
 JFraser123 01 Jul 2017
In reply to Frank the Husky:
Wood hardener or French Polish. Soaks into the rock and hardens softer areas.
Removed User 01 Jul 2017
In reply to Frank the Husky:

I'd get hold of these guys for advice http://sandstonevolunteers.org.uk/?page_id=340

In reply to Removed UserArdverikie2:

Thanks, there are no obvious contact details on there but I've sent various messages via Facebook so hopefully that'll work.
 DannyC 04 Jul 2017
In reply to Frank the Husky:

That's interesting, I'd not heard of this before, but then I'm a long way from the South.

I guess it's already been considered and discounted for other heavily-used soft sandstone crags in Britain like Bowden etc?

D.
 CurlyStevo 04 Jul 2017
In reply to DannyC:
Bowden is hard sandstone, although geologically I think sandstone is a continuum rather than a binary decision. Southern sandstone is shockingly bad in places - you could probably dig a tea spoon in to it and take sand out, whilst other parts are on par with the lower end of Northumberland for hardness (say unclimbed wall area at harrisons), although these are pretty rare and generally occur only where the rock has a high iron content, although most of bowles is pretty decent rock.

Generally speaking the hardner on SS has only been used on hard climbs which would suffer badly from minor erosion or on badly eroded areas that would just disappear without it. Stone farm is one of the softest commonly climbed crags and has really suffered with hole portions of wall smoothed and foot holds turned to scoops and other areas pretty much just falling apart

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=59#photos
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=32274
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=32419
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=13507
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=32274

That said Northumberland varies too right, but the average hardenss isn't particularly hard compared with some other sandstones like torridon for example.
Post edited at 12:20
 DannyC 04 Jul 2017
In reply to CurlyStevo:

Cheers for that. You're not really selling it to me!
In reply to CurlyStevo: Interesting stuff, thanks. I'm still none the wiser about what was used on SS. Do you know what was used?

 CurlyStevo 04 Jul 2017
In reply to Frank the Husky:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/southern-sandstone-skills-and-conservation

"Repairs are made in several ways. Rope grooves are usually repaired using cement, where the SSSI status of a crag doesn’t prohibit this. Damaged holds are repaired using shellac furniture polish (known locally as ‘resin’), PVA and sometimes wood hardener. Ground erosion control is achieved using ‘revetments’ – low wooden barriers usually made from materials found on-site to stop sand being washed down the slopes below the crags – and by ‘brashing’ areas with branches to discourage foot traffic."
In reply to DannyC:

I'm pretty sure similar work has been done in Northumberland, I've seen some footholds at Bowden on my last visit that looked to have been stabilised.
 Offwidth 04 Jul 2017
In reply to Frank the Husky:

Get in touch with the Peak boulderers who did work in the access team (eg Bonjoy on UKB). It was also used it at Newstones. From memory it's important to get the right type or it can lead to the surface cracking off.
1
 Bob Moulton 04 Jul 2017
In reply to Dan Middleton, BMC:
At the request of the BMC in the 1990s Mike Vetterlein, who took over this work from Gary Wickham, wrote up what he was doing on Soutthern Sandstone in detail for the Northumberland guys - my copy should be somewhere in the BMC archives! I'm not sure whether they used in Northumberland.

The Southern Sandstone Volunteers Group plan to do a trial of the use of resin/shellac, PVA, wood hardener and a bounding agent recommended by an MSC student from Portsmouth University for use when placing the top-roping bolts to establish which stands up best heavy wear The last was not recommended for this purpose but we think worth trying.

Bob Moulton
Post edited at 23:44
 SteveSBlake 05 Jul 2017
In reply to Dan Middleton, BMC:

In Northumberland a variety of 'stabilisers' have been used. I contacted the Southern Sandstone folks and they passed kindley passed some info, currently we use PVA at 50%. In the past Wickes Masonary Stabiliser was used and seemed to work well with good penetration despite it's gloopyness. Many crags have problems/holds that have been treated, and just about all the problems at Caller have had some stabiliser applied.

It has pretty much stopped dead the very evident erosion of Vienna.

Steve
 Pekkie 05 Jul 2017
In reply to SteveSBlake:

Frogsmouth Quarry in Merseyside has sandstone that varies from very good on the big main wall to stuff that is more like Southport beach - you can literally dig it out with your fingers (does that count as chipping?). Where there was one of these soft bands preventing access to good rock we stabilised the holds with PVA (diluted) which seemed to work well on some routes but at the softer end of the range we decided not to bother as the next 17 stone bumbly to amble along would kick off all the holds. Having said all this the starred routes in the guide are cracker sport routes on solid rock.
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 steveriley 07 Jul 2017
In reply to Pekkie:

I was wondering about Cheshire sandstone and didn't know you'd tried this at Frogsmouth. There's been a bit of damage to the likes of Harmers Wood, Helsby Woods etc, recently. The bottom of the classic Dormouse Arete seems to have grown a hold. Mix of extra traffic from the newish guide, tendency to damp and people not really getting the 'friable when damp' thing.
 3leggeddog 07 Jul 2017
In reply to Frank the Husky:

An honest question, which I fear may provoke a ranting response.

Would encouraging the use of pof (shock horror) help preserve the rock in these cases?
1
 Dell 07 Jul 2017
In reply to 3leggeddog:

What's pof? ...and what's that got to do with the price of fish?
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 Pekkie 07 Jul 2017
In reply to steveriley:

Over the years there have been regular chipping incidents in this area, Black Magic at Pex for example. As you might expect it is difficult to repair as, for a start, what was there is gone and you have to work from memory. I found that the best solution was to collect clean sand from the quarry floor and just make a cement mix as if you were pointing brickwork. Clean the area well and dampen it before the repair. This is mightily efffective if you are filling in a hole (I challenge you to find where we've done it at Pex!) but not so good if you are trying to mould something. As for stabilising soft sandstone, diluted PVA adhesive is the best bet.
 balmybaldwin 07 Jul 2017
In reply to Dell:

Tree Sap traditionally used in Font as an alternative to Chalk.... it's part of the reason Font holds are so polished (rather than worn away)
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