Replacing Glue In Climbing Bolts - Does a blow torch work?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Sometimes bolts get in the way of random swinging hammers. We explored two ways of heating up glue in bolts in an effort to remove them so you can reuse the hole. I'm not convinced this is a good idea. What do you think?
Don't try this if it is fire season. Don't try this without bringing a way to cut the bolt when you are done in case it doesn't work, because it has been compromised. Cutting and replacing the bolt right next to the old bolt is one solution as you can see here • Is too much epoxy bad ...
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Don't try this if it is fire season. Don't try this without bringing a way to cut the bolt when you are done in case it doesn't work, because it has been compromised. Cutting and replacing the bolt right next to the old bolt is one solution as you can see here th-cam.com/video/8pgFzVqVEJY/w-d-xo.html
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i was surprised to not see this in the summary. you absolutely compromised the rock. and in no way should you redrill to clean the hole and reuse this area of rock, particularly that kind of rock. it is very likely spalling will occur on the surface, which could possibly allow the new bolt to break down the surface edge. i think your actual in use method is really the best way.
Depends on the rock but generally most mountains are granite and granite doesn’t take extreme heat well. There’s a list of rocks that are suitable fire pits and I’d bet that list correlates to the strength of the rock after being subjected to extreme heat.
@@allstarwoo4 do you know where I can find that list?
@@allstarwoo4 not entirely sure but i think the reason some bricks are not ok for firepits is that they can retain moisture and will "boil" and pop, flinging rock fragments all over your patio.
@@andrewut7ya511 same thing can happen to rocks. Most bricks are pretty porous so that usually isn’t a problem. And besides that you have the problem of differential heating.
@@ecooper7081 I don’t know to be honest I came across it looking into material for a fire pit.
Hey folks,
epoxy doesn't melt, you can imagine it as a crosslinked network. It softens reversable into a rubbery state at a certain temperature (called glass transition temperature) and decomposes at higher temperatures. The temperatures depend on the epoxy you are using.
Due to lack of oxygen decomposition will result in carbon residues (soot) inside of the hole. Leading to a new question: will the glue of a new bolt have enough interface to be stable? Glue holds parts in place by interaction with the surface of the bolt and the surface of the rock. If one of the interactions is to weak the bolt pops out. Hence it is intended to use a new bolt with fresh glue, this interface shouldn't be a problem. But a soot layer inside of the rock MAY (a theory that need to be tested) act as a lubricant with the chance that the glue slips out of the hole. My guess would be that thoroughly burning the hole with a very hot piece of metal (e.g. thick nail) should make enough interface available although I have no clue was it will do to the rock.
I hope you find these comments helpful and I am open for discussion.
Im going to search for videos about melting epoxy, sounds cool. Thanks
I would assume redrilling the hole ideally preventing this problem you mention or the old glue just being in the way, but as many point out, that much heat could just damage the rock as a whole
Interesting test. For future reference, infrared thermometers like that can be thought of a bit like a reverse flashlight. That is, If you were to shine a narrow-beam flashlight at a small object, the light will hit more than just the small object. Likewise, when you point that type of thermometer at a small object, it is collecting infrared "light" from things beyond the small object. Depending on conditions, this can throw a reading off by a lot. Note: the little red laser pointer is just a pointing aid -- it is not involved in reading the temperature at all. At longer ranges, the laser (hopefully) shows the center of the reading area. At very close ranges, the red dot might not be in the reading area at all because of the offset between the laser and the lens below it which is what actually collects the infrared radiation.
I'd be seriously worried about heat damage to the rock if I was reusing the hole (especially in something like limestone where the chemical structure changes if it gets hot enough)
Would be interesting to see if freezing the bolt causes the glue to fail or the bolt to shrink enough to weaken the bond. Freeze spray, the type of aerosol used by plumbers to temporarily freeze water pipes and mechanics for disassembly / shrink fits can theoretically cool to -50 °C / -60 °F (if sprayed a lot). Mechanics use the thermal shock of repeated heating and cooling cycles to remove fasteners without damaging surrounding areas. In a horizontal application, a dewar of LN2 poured into an enclosure surrounding the bolt would be the extreme in cold (and danger).
If you've got the time, cobalt drill(s) and a drill guide should work... but it's boring!
Great video!
This touches on a question I’ve been wondering about in Arizona. Recent wildfires have burned up against some classic sport routes with glue-ins. I’ve been sketched out about their integrity ever since. What do you think?
Small issues with the use of the IR thermometer. Silver surfaces emit less IR than darker surfaces so the back of the bolt will appear cooler than it is.
If you can darken it, the thermometer will give a more accurate number.
When I started watching this, I thought the reason you guys were replacing the glue ins was because of them being worn out at the tops of routes. When you started talking about people smashing bolts, I couldn't figure out how they were getting up there unless they were climbers. I couldn't imagine a rock climber doing this. It wasn't until the end of the video that I realized it was high line anchors you were talking about.
It's really messed up that someone would do something like that.
What type of glue was this? A fire-rated epoxy shouldn't get compromised by 120F or whatever you read with the first one.
Also: go the induction heater!! great idea!
To prevent rock scarring when using the torch, there's heat shield tape, which can withstand about 1000 degrees Celsius.
I haven't tested this, but I suspect the tape doesn't completely prevent the rock from heating up. However, I think the discoloration on the rock is actually residue from the chemical reaction of the flame, rather than the heat, and that residue would stick to the tape, not to the rock.
June: parka weather!
I was screaming at the screen
Use induction!
You did, nice
Won't work on titanium bolts though
And not good enough on the stainless I think
@@HowNOT2 when in doubt,
Increase the current.
you just have to consider that in a real situation, the rock will absorb much more heat (thermal mass) than that small piece. And that makes the time needed to weaken the glue can be much longer (at least with the gas torch)
I don't that would be a significant issue, rock isn't a very good conductor of heat, the glue is going to be compromised from heating the bolt, not bringing the rock to tempurature
Not true, using heat is a standard way of removing epoxied in anchors in construction, epoxy softens at under 200f , it is very easy to heat and pull anchors
Pretty scary to hang out on a wall with a blowtorch around all your plastic gear
The issue isn't that the rock is a good insulator but that it's great at absorbing heat and spreading it around the whole rock.
All of these comments (negative and positive) seem to highlight what they are trying to portray through this TH-cam video. Thank you for your research @hownot2
Would this not cock up the temper of the metal and degrade the rock? Heat can substantially affect strength in other industrial applications. Seems sketchy to me.
Everything about this is sketchy, especially if applied to the vertical world haha
you are removing a smashed bolt... who cares about its temper?
I am not sure climbing bolts have much in hardness through Quench and tempering, as It would be horribly annoying to have a high hardness bolt that chews through your connected gear like putty with the smallest scratch.
Tempering w/o quenching would be useless outside of something similar to a stress relief, and heating a beat up bolt is basically doing it favors.
The climbing bolts are 3xx and 4xx grade stainless, they can't really be hardened in that way
Besides, for this application you want a tougher bolt. Using hardened steel would make them more brittle
Or possibly vibrating the bolt with a high frequency oscillator (electromagnetic solenoid via battery or portable power supply) to free the bolt, then chisel/scrape out (any?) remaining glue....
momentum when you do this at a hot day , com'on guys this is static . but its easy to snap it "cold" off given you have the right tools
If the bolts had a thread cut on them it would make them easier to replace , I have unscrewed machine bolts that have been glued in with epoxy with a spanner
What about drilling a hole in the epoxy next to the screw and then filling it with paint stripper or acetone? You could hang out with a little bottle and keep filling the hole and put a soaked towel over it while it soaks in. It may work enough to be able to break the bolt loose with a bar and drill out the hole of the remaining epoxy with a bit matching the original size.
or even just pour the solvent around the bolt and let it slowly seep in while you scrape away enough of the top to form a cavity. "eventually" all the epoxy should be dissolved no?
@@PaulEdler something like that, it would take longer with solvent but no damage to rock, i think. You would only need to disolve enough to break the bolt looe then drillout any remaining epoxy
Much love to you guys.. algorithm hacking, on
An interesting problem needs a complex solution. I would try a tension and torsion attack.
Build a 1 foot high three legged metal tripod with a hole in the middle to enable an M16-ish eye bolt to be screwed with a Nut and wrench. After you connect the eye bolt with the climbing bolt via your preferred soft-shackle and tension it as much as you can by hand, you can proceed to use a long crowbar to exert some much needed Torsion to the system. A 3-4 foot wooden handle with a metal prong at the end might do if weight is an issue.
This might work only if the bolt is not totally beat up.
Btw - have sidedrilled and basically broke the bond - but it leaves 2 holes and a mess of rock scars.
Cordless dremel type tool, patch the stud hole w epoxy and drill a new hole is easiest.
Why not just use a long pry bar and twist it without heating? That could be your next bolt buster.. what length bar is needed to remove bolts without heating first. Not tried myself but heard of people removing them that way
whenever we have pulled bolts sideways they break before the glue disengages. But maybe a pry bar test wouldn't be such a bad idea. If it snaps the head of, i guess that works too since the only other option at that point is angle grinding which for sure could screw up the rock
@@HowNOT2 Hydrolic Jake with an extension that fits into the eye of the bolt. Machine Toe Jacks are similar to what I'm suggesting.
@@allalphazerobeta8643 Also one hydraulic jack that works in the horizontal position. Most have a gravity ball valve that does not.
A bit of water would protect the rock well while you blow torch the bolt. Maybe dumo boiling water on it to help get things warm, then squirt around the rock as needed.
you could use a piece of aerogel cloth to go around the bolt to protect the rock
Maybe look into slide hammers and carbide drill bits. Try heat with the slide hammer. If that fails cut the bolt then drill out with a carbide drill bit. Carbide is very fragile and easy to break when drilling by hand but it can be done. Practice helps.
Thought about this for drilling out anchors in caves. (There are often very limited good locations where you want to put the bolts, so putting a new bolt in the same place is often preferred), Carbide metal drills are very brittle and drilling down a metal bar in an epoxy tube would be difficult in a machine shop, basically the drill will want to wander off into the softer epoxy. A carbide milling cutter, needs mag drill or similar, which would require bolts to fix the steel plate to the limestone... I've seen it done it at work, its a nightmare.
there are these backpack oxy-acetylene torch kits out there which give a much more concentrated heat and probaply less heating of the rock
Hmmmm a few things I'm curious about. Wouldn't heating (from that angle) compromise the rock, and make it not suitable for use again? And as another commenter pointed out the epoxy need only reach its glass transition temp. So what you could try is to heat it parallel (and maybe even pointed slightly away from the rock so that only the heat from the conduction of the bolt makes it into the rock so you don't compromise it. Then you'd just need to keep a pry bar (that you don't care about) through the eye to keep pressure on it, then as soon as it starts budging you should be able to take the heat off and just pull it out as normal. This should also perhaps be tested in different rocks with different properties (granite, sandstone, limestone, etc.) And with the obligatory break test.
You want to heat the rock so it expands, and cool the bolt so it shrinks causing a separation of the bonds.
How?
@@HowNOT2 Try to sit on it. I don't know! Lol
I wonder if clipping two leads to the bolt and letting it short out with a big battery would heat the epoxy enough.
(Assuming you don't piss off the battery too much.)
Induction coil if you could get a driver powerful enough.
Oh they literally tried that next lol
@@therealandycook That's what they tried in the video, but it'll always have more losses.
You'll need a rather high voltage (for portable use) to use a bolt as a resistive heating element. I'm not sure if you could do it with a battery, but if you got a generator, it's more likely. You could also maybe use an inverter to step a battery up to mains voltage, but I'm not sure what current you'll need, and some of them get unhappy
@@bandana_girl6507 Resistive heating is from amperage, not voltage.
But those stainless bolts are pretty beefy.. It might be too much amperage for a car battery to do too much.
@@EverettWilson you can get current if you know voltage and resistance. Also, what you're actually looking for is wattage, which has voltage squared (and resistance in the denominator, but that's more important for whether your bolt heats up or your leads)
I feel like the type of rock would matter as well, where igneous rocks like granite would be able to withstand heat better than sedimentary limestone.
Well, you've found out stainless is a poor thermal conductor and epoxy doesn't really melt until its really hot. Actually useful because it's the relative conductivity which matters. Now if only we made bolts out of aluminum or copper this would probably work...
For few first seconds I got a feeling I was watching Miff Busters episode )
Can we splurge & get Bobby a mic?
It literally doubles production/film time, we barely had time to squeeze this test in. I use it when it matters the most
Your heating only the metal which expands...common sense says something larger than the hole won't fit lol
So of course if you heat the rock too they both expand.
I imagine it would work but it would require more time and energy than a grinder. And im worried about the rock being weakened by the heat. Plus I wouldn't trust reglueing that hole with the heat compromised adhesive inside. I would probably overbore the hole back to fresh rock and install a larger diameter glue in.
I would totally drill out all the old glue for sure but that in theory would be easy if you got that far along.
This seems like a surefire way to completely fuck the rock all around the bolt.
With that in mind, not sure why you tested this at all. I guess shits and giggs? Even if it worked, it shouldn't be used because it damages the rock and can cause breakage, which is something you especially don't want to happen near the bolt.
Stainless steel sheds heat very quickly, it radiates fast, but conducts slow, if that makes any sense. So i was expecting the heat to remain "shallow" in the rock. not suprised it took 10+ min of open flame to heat it enough. A oxy/acetylene torch setup would heat it much much MUCH faster. BUT ANYHOW, i would never go anywhere near ropes with any kind of heat source.
Yep. Stainless has something like one 6th the thermal conductivity of normal steel. Which is good for building efficient houses, but bad for heating up hangers.
Agreed, that's why your frying pan with the stainless handle doesn't burn you
If only someone had an electo magnet that would stick to rock! 😉 Because a cordless mag-drill with a tungsten carbide cutter would chew out the stainless bolt (after flush cutting the eye) but without the magnet function you'd have to leave behind a few 1/4" diameter holes from a locating jig 😐 Also not the easiest thing to do vertically because of the weight/alignment issues, but horizontal might have some promise... Until you keep misaligning the setup or bottoming out the bits/tooling and end up spending $200 per each failed attempt 🤫😁 I mean a much cheaper carbide bit on a much cheap cordless die grinder would also work, but unless you have the world's steadiest hands then a custom one-off jig would be required, along with some coolant or you'll just end up using $200 worth of $50 bits 🤔 If I invent a cordless mag-drill that sticks to rock instead of ferrous material, which also has a fully adjustable base I'll call Ryan first for testing I guess 😄 👍
Seriously, do you expect the bolt smashers are watching your content?
My flash, try electricity, not sure how to set it up, yet, going for less heat over more time, this lets the rock heat better, the epoxy doesn't need high heat to go plastic.
Cheers 🍺
I dont climb but i love gear tests. Ive broken alot of shit in my day and im always fascinated at where and why things break. The hot glue situation here has surely peaked my intrest
noice
I’m guessing this is looking for solutions for when it’s time to rebolt Lost Arrow, after you can guarantee psychopaths won’t hammer them over
Smashing bolts seems awful -- what if you smash it in such a way that it compromises the strength, but don't completely make it unusable or only causes minor cosmetic damage. It could result in a climber using it as protection and risking their life. Use an angle grinder and make it obvious! (Or don't do it!)
Those infrared thermometers take an average temperature of an area, and don't work well on shiny surfaces. Terrible for this application. Look at the sticker on the side of it, and it'll tell you the area its measuring vs distance from it.
You need to heat the epoxy enough to soften it. It is impossible to heat only the bolt and not the rock. The rock is a large heat sink, so it will take a lot of heat before the epoxy gets warm enough to let go. With that much heat in the rock, the rock will crack/spall, therefore not be safe for new bolts anymore. In other words, heat doesn't work if you want to rebolt in roughly the same place because you damage the rock too much.
Why anyone would intentionally smash bolts is beyond me. If they don't like bolted rocks then don't go to where the bolted rocks are. Duh.
The hypothetical situation here is that the original bolt is smashed or in poor condition and a new one needs to be placed to make the route safe
@@poacher5131 I see. I think cutting it flat would probably be best. Then fill any voids around the base of the old anchor with epoxy and maybe even paint the cut end to help prevent future spalling from rust or ice. Also cutting it flat would prevent others from trying to use the same hole. Reason being, it is not a good idea to use any hole that has dust, dirt, sand or water in it. so drilling the hole the same day you glue it is ideal. I worked doing structural fabrication of big commercial buildings in Portland we used this style of epoxy on a lot of bolts. Throughly cleaning out the drilled hole with a shop vac was required both by the bolt manufacturer and the epoxy supplier.
@@badgermetal yes, the hole cleaning is very important, but I don't see why you can't do it at a later date. Wetness is not an issue for the right resin so it being damp will not harm bond strength.
Dope Sika tshirt dude!
@hownot2 - pls test sika anchorfix 1 and sika 2020. Thx!