Mad Science: the Making of Modular Climbing Holds

There aren’t many pieces of climbing gear the average climber can make him or herself. Sure, you hear every once in a while about packs, crashpads, chalkbags… none of these are rocket science like cams and biners. And, another piece of DIY climbing gear you hear of from time to time is the hold. Home woodies abound, it seems, and homemade hold techniques run the gamut from drilled river rocks to shaped wood.

Living in rural West Virginia, a home wall probably looms large in my future. This brings up questions: do I want to make my own holds? If so, how?

Well, how do actual hold companies do it? I wanted to see it first hand, so I visited friends who own an up and coming hold company in Charlotte, NC, called Project Holds. Turns out they employ a vastly different process (duh) than most home hold makers.

Hold making is a carnival of mad science. But it’s also in large part artistry and craftsmanship. The process begins with shaping, which is exactly like it sounds. The hold maker puts tool to foam and literally sculpts – by hand – what will eventually be the final shape.

Step two is to form a mold, into which the hold maker will pour the liquid plastic that will become a hold. I was surprised at how involved this step can become. More so for large holds. Yet more so for large, hollow-backed holds.

Once the mold is complete, the real science begins. Hold plastic consists of two parts, a pre-polymer and an activator. The process of mixing begins by adding dye to the pre-polymer. After mixing in the dye, Project Holds adds the activator in a roughly even ratio. The effects of the resulting chemical reaction are apparent almost immediately as the mix begins to heat up. Charles, one of Project Hold’s two owners points out that this can actually be a problem. “The first time we poured a hangboard, we were like, ‘Ooooookaaaayyyy…’ It heated up the whole room.”

Hold makers have only a short window in which to pour the mixture into molds. The hardening process is over surprisingly quickly. If they’re making a hold with more than one color layer, waiting too long to pour the second layer will result in the two not bonding correctly.

All in all, it’s probably – okay… definitely – more involved than I want in a home-wall project. In regard to sharing every last one of their trade secrets for this article Timothy of Project Holds agrees. “Anybody wants to go through everything we do… more power to ‘em!”

J. Young