fixing polished holds?

nbrown wrote:Doesn't acid dissolve limestone?

I think the original way the surface of limestone was "etched" to become coarse and frictiony was by alkaline, not acid.

Same basic idea, but with high pH and hydroxide ions instead of low pH and hydrogen ions.

I'd guess the original etching took lots more years than we're interested in. I assume higher concentrations of alkaline (or acid) would do the "etching" faster? But that's serious stuff be using outdoors (or indoors).

Ken

I'm no chemist but I know that even household vinegar is enough to produce a vigorous fizz on pure limestone (as opposed to dolostone). With that being said, sometimes geologists need to scrape through the surface grime before performing the acid-test because it blocks the acid from reacting with the rock. This would imply that using acid to remove chalk/shoe grime from a route isn't likely to be ineffective anyway.

Don't know how significant an effect it would have on the holds but it certainly couldn't be good for them.

Bill Czajkowski wrote:Clean with boiling water and then randomly drizzle hard water on them for a couple hundred years. Should work like a charm.

You can come get some of my well water. It only takes a couple months and I have to clean the all the screens in my water spouts. :)

It is easy to fix this. Stop climbing on them. Everytime you climb on them you polish them, nothing you do to fix it will last any about of time to be useful.

Your basically rubbing sand paper on a piece of wood and wondering why it is smooth.