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Thanks for the comment, glad you liked the video - it was crafted with love. With that said, it was definitely a condensed story of our pup, and the time between having a wild animal and our well behaved pooch was long and rough, but we got her there and are happy we worked so hard with her. Sounds like you are going to do the same, so best of luck! Remember that they are very intelligent, which is both awesome for training, but also difficult because they are constantly trying to outsmart you and find loopholes. They are like a really good defense lawyer, haha. Thanks again for the comment.

As I mention in my videos, making your own holds is not something you should do to inexpensively get holds, at least not in my opinion. It should be because you want to learn and enjoy the process of creating and crafting something. It's kind of like building your own furniture instead of buying it. With that said, typically a small volume of resin gets me tens of small to medium holds and I definitely haven't found professional holds for cheaper than that. You might want to look for a different resin than the one you have been using, or maybe you are just in an area where resins are expensive? Try a local arts/hobby store and see what they carry. Again, if you want to make holds, the investment should be in the hobby and process, rather than sinking all the time into trying to make cheaper holds. Best of luck!

Oh, I know the videos you reference too well, haha. Sincerely appreciate the compliments, sorry I haven't really delivered on the follow up video(s). She definitely has a few cameos in some videos after this one, but life got a little crazy and I haven't uploaded a video in over a year. I hope the time will find it's way back to me and we can give Barley the camera time she deserves, and hopefully it can deliver for you. Best of luck getting your pooch, I truly love this breed. Thanks again for the kind words, made my day after a rough week!

Hey! I add the washer during (before) the resin pour. The hole you carve out to recess the bolt head in the foam when shaping the hold creates a cylindrical shelf (when reversed out in the mold) that you place the washer on before you pour the resin. As for the bolts, I use a tnut in the bottom of the foam to keep the bolt upright when casting the silicone mold. For the resin pours, I actually just use the mold itself to hold up the bolts perpendicular to the level casting surface. As long as the bolt is square at it's end, I find it stays nice and plumb. On that note, when casting, the bolts I use I have modified to not have any threads (cut off the threads), and only have the threadless shaft. If resin leaks into the threads, it's nearly impossible to remove the bolt without damaging the hold. On that note as well, make sure you use a good release lubricant on the bolt to remove it easier, and I find removing it before the hold is completely cured gives you the least resistance (just make sure you remove it carefully to not distort the hole size or shape). Some people use a type of plastic dowel or straw instead for this method as well. Others also just cast the hole in the foam shape so you have the bolt hole in the mold and don't need to bother with any inserts... But from my experience, when you cast larger holds, the silicone "bolt tail" is prone to distorting and moving/bending so you end up with a wonky hole in some pours and often it will rip over repeated casting and create headaches. I have been wanting to do a more detailed follow up video (or videos), but unfortunately haven't found the time. Hopefully this does a decent job explaining it and helps you out. Thanks for the comment!

@@SendStory awesome answer! Thank you so much!

Thanks for sharing this, and good call. One would hope a seatbelt would keep your body from getting anywhere close to the ceiling, but accidents can happen. In the day and age of 3d printers, there is probably a less janky and safer way to afix things to the interior of your car. Hopefully someone reading this comes up with a better solution. Sorry about your friend. Thanks again for sharing.

@@SendStory good call on 3d printing. Maybe replace that visor mount with a 3D printed one that has a dowel rod insert that's a soft plastic or maybe even just an elastic silicone.

On a matrix? That sounds pretty ambitious and sweet. Would love an update once you have completed that. Thanks for the comment.

Hey, sorry for the late response. I'm a little out of touch with 3d printing technology as of late, so I'm not sure of all the processes and materials that exist now, especially for home users. The 3 main issues in the past (which might not exist nowadays) that I have seen with 3d printed holds are efficiency/scalability, structural integrity, and texture. So it is way cheaper to print your own hold, especially if you just need one or two. As I've mentioned in videos, the mold is the most expensive part, and you remove the need for one by 3d printing. But printing takes longer and casting resin takes a few minutes. So depending on the scale of your production, the cost of the mold goes down the more you output and it can be a more efficient process once you have a mold. I would also argue you get a superior product from casting. I know 3d prints can be super strong, but I feel like a pour would be stronger. I know uv/laser cured 3d prints could give you similar results, but I'm not sure of their integrity. I have seen some 3d printed holds that seem really good just randomly sheer along a certain cross section of the hold. Resolution is the biggest issue I think, especially with home quality printers. To get the texture right, the most minute details are important. I have yet to climb on a 3d printed holds (that I'm aware of at least) that has texture that close to casted resin. Even the cheap foam I use doesn't quite get the texture right (there is a foam more dense and rigid that the pros use to shape). By no means am I saying you can't 3d print holds, I'm sure there are ways, but I'm just not sure it will yield as high of a quality of product. If you try it out, I'd love to hear how it went and have you share your results. I have been meaning to experiment with 3d holds and maybe a hybrid in-between, but just haven't got around to it. Maybe some time in the future I can find some time to continue the series. Thanks for the comment!

I honestly couldn't tell you what this resin in particular looks like cured without any pigment/dye because I haven't ever created any holds without it. I do believe that the resin without color ends up being something that isn't quite white, however, the cured color is very light and a few times I haven't got my colors as vibrant or deep as I've wanted and had to add more in my next batch (when I was still playing around with figuring out the right amount of color per volume). I have made yellow though, and it seemed to turn out quite light and I had no problems achieving a color I wanted. There are other resins that work for climbing holds, so I wouldn't be afraid of trying others if you are looking for a pure white color, and there are different ways to color holds as well. Personally, for my home wall purposes, getting an exact color match or a specific color hasn't been a huge concern. Hope that is helpful!

Thank you kind sir! It definitely served it's purpose without causing any permanent damage/changes.

Go get it dude! Full speed ahead! Thanks for the comment.

Hey, I've never experienced this issue, I would assume your thoughts are correct. You want to fully glue all the around the base of your holds to try to stop the silicone from running under the hold (it makes it hard to demold and can also mess up your mold cutting through it to remove excess material). So generally you want to use a fair amount of glue, so your intuition is probably right. Best of luck!

No worries man, hope they turned out sweet!

Heck ya! The future looks bright my dude! Best of luck!

I've used it for both, it increases the life of the molds quite a bit. Without it, I find the pores of the texture of the holds can sometimes rip off tiny dimples of texture from the mold when you pull them out and start to degrade it. Also depending on how you do incuts or even just the bolt hole recesses, it helps removing the hold from that easier. I also will often keep my first poured hold that turned out correct/nicest to make molds from later on when the original mold degrades. Hope that helps!

@@SendStory awesome, thank you for the information. I’m guessing the mold release doesn’t affect the texture of the hold?

@@shaneh7519 not from my experience, it's a very fine spray on product and worked fine. Typically a lot of climbing holds from professional manufacturers have a bit of a oily coat on them when they arrive, so I assumed they use some type of a release as well. Just make sure it's one that's compatible with your resin so it cures properly and chalk your holds up when you first climb on them.

We unfortunately don't have our matrix anymore either, but we honestly miss it all the time. It was indeed a fantastic car. Sounds like you got some good life out of yours as well.

Absolutely! She is actually my second PWD (my parents had one when I was younger, who was also amazing) and my extended family also had two when I was a child (who were also beautiful and had great temperaments, helping inspire us to get our first). Thanks for the comment, try not to fall in love with all those puppies!

@@SendStory that's going too be very hard!

Thanks! You can totally mount to a wall, but depending on how it's mounted and how your walls are built, it might require some bracing into the ceiling/wall, depending on the design and angles. I'm not an engineer, so I'm not completely comfortable commenting on that level of detail, but you should be able to find some examples online. In terms of adjustable walls and loads, in a similar vein to the above, I'm no engineer, but I've seen people use multiple attachment points to distribute the load across multiple points using cabling/chains. Alternatively, you could potentially use a rope/cable to adjust it, then use a locking mechanism to keep it in the position you have adjusted it to in a fixed state. It could be done with some bolts and a fixed structure, or some weight rated material that you can lengthen or shorten with a mallion. Hope that gives you some ideas to explore. If you have access to anyone who has engineering experience, I'm sure they could give you some ideas as well.

It's kind of hard to tell in the video because of how small the texture is, but the grainy texture actually comes from the foam you carve. The foam is filled with really small bubbles (closed cell foam), and as you carve through them, you expose those cavities and create little pores that create the texture. This is one of the reasons why high quality liquid silicone that's meant for making molds is important. It gets right into the micro textures of the foam to create the texture that you get after you cast the molds. I hope that makes sense and helps explain!

@@SendStory That makes perfect sense, thank you.

Hey! Thanks for the kind words! Unfortunately that question is hard to answer because of how many variables are involved. Depending on the supplier in your area, costs can vary quite a bit, as well as the size of holds you are making. The molds are always the most expensive compared to the resin, so your budget might start off by finding out how much liquid silicone for making molds costs at your supplier (you could use the links to products in the description to try to do a rough estimate, but many art/sculpture supply stores carry comparable products). Sorry that wasn't the exact answer you were probably looking for, but hopefully it helps!

@@SendStory Thanks for the quick answer and the time you took to to answer!

Thanks for the compliments, and honestly it means a lot that you found these videos helpful. There was actually lots of info I had to cut from these them to keep it digestible, but I kept the thoughts I figured were most useful in. I have been meaning to follow up, which was going to be the hollow-backs and modifiable molds, but life has been a little wild over here and I truly haven't had the chance. I'm sure there are some resources out there if you dig, but definitely hard for me to provide useful info in a comment. I still hope to do that other series, hopefully I can get to it sooner, rather than later. Fingers crossed. Thanks again.

Hey, sorry I can't exactly remember what the specs were, but it was the Tule Aeroblade and it was adjustable. If I recall correctly, we either just measured the width of our roof or the product said what type of cars it fit. On that note, it is definitely one of the more expensive racks, and I'm sure there are cheaper ones you can get that do the same thing. We had limited time and just grabbed the one we could get fastest, which was not cheap. Sorry I couldn't give you a better answer, but I hope that helps!

Sweeeeeet! I'm sure it was a busy, but fun back half of the year!

Sometimes it's slim pickings, but I try to do the best with what I got! Thanks for the words dude!

I mean, it's the only way, you gotta stay hydrated, right? Thanks for the support and other comments, it's much appreciated! Hope you are having a good weekend!

Hey, sorry for the late response, your comment slipped through the cracks and I missed it. The washer depends on the bolts and tnuts you use. I think in the UK + Europe they are metric socket cap bolts and tnuts (size and threading), where in North America they are Imperial. For my case the hole was just wider than the diameter of the bolts I use, so ~.25"+. In terms of the diameter for the full washer, it will also depend on the size of your hold and it's profile (you don't want the washer sticking out of the holds or the mold causing the washer to sit crooked because it's too big), but generally speaking, the wider the better. There are also different grades of steel used in washers, so the stronger the better too. Lastly, depending on what bolts you are using, you might want to pick metals that match the bolt that will be affixed to it (read up about mixing metals for hardware and corrosion issues if you don't know what I'm referencing). In my case though, I just used what home Depot had and that has worked out just fine for me, so I wouldn't sweat the details too much, as long as the bolt fits in the hole and the washer stops the head of the bolt from pulling through. The rest is really only applicable for commerical products, in my opinion. Good luck and thanks for the comment!

Yea, lots of options and ways to make your own. I've thought about making a hold set that's open source and people just pay for a few resin casts of the various hold shapes that they then can make their own molds of and replicate for a full wall set and then to share the shapes with others to do the same. Then there could be standard orientations/configurations and such and people can use whatever home wall app they want to share problems with the community (like stokd, retroflash, etc.). Essentially an open source climbing board standard that isn't really owned by anyone. Time and motivation are the main problem there, haha. Thanks for the comment and checking out the video.

@@SendStory yeah I hear that, I’m and SWE by trade so I know I could technically create an app to control the leds and use clear resin to pop leds in the back of the holds. But then I realize I work 40 hours a week and maybe just colored tape will do the trick. But maybe if there was an open source project going I would be into contributing.

@@Nihlink good to know, maybe if I ever magically find the time and motivation I'll drop a comment here to pick your brains.

@@SendStory That's an awesome idea

Thanks! Enjoy that car, it's the best!

Wild. Not surprised though, unfortunately. I think we are going to see more and more of this. What is starting to become common practice by some companies is definitely taking more and more power and access away from the consumer, and similar making businesses less accountable and responsible. Hopefully as the pendulum swings over time, some of these headaches will be ironed out, but I'm a sceptic.

Hey, thanks for the comment. The silicone you use to make the mold captures very fine textures from anything you make with it. So in this case it is capturing the open pores of the foam you carve, which are created when you cut open the tiny bubbles that make up the "closed cells" in the foam. This is the same process larger climbing hold companies use to get their texture - so essentially this process will give you more or less what you get from holds at the gym. This gives it a texture somewhere between a coarse sandstone and a soft/fine volcanic rock. If you want it to look like rock, you would have to carve it to give it that aesthetic. The are some techniques like cracking the foam open to give it the look of a flake of a rock face, however the texture would still be the same. If you wanted to cast realistic rock texture, you would need to carve something that felt the same or similar. So you might get actual rock texture by carving a real rock, like a soft limestone or something similar, and then casting that. Original holds were cast in concrete as well, which while being super heavy, might help you get something with a more "realistic" texture. I hope that helps answer your question, thanks for checking out the video.

Awesome mate, thank you very much. I’ll try to make few. I was doing bouldering years ago, now my kids love climbing.

@@josedanielarciniegascontre9631 as a new dad, I appreciate this. As long as you keep a safe working environment, making holds can be a fun exercise to do with the kiddos. Sounds like a pretty great parent to me. Best of luck!

Thanks for the comment. She is definitely a great pup and worth the effort we had to put in the beginning. Not sure how havanees are as puppies, but porties are a lot of work up front and are high energy working dogs, so they require a lot of attention and focused direction. Just giving you a heads up because I think some people are shocked when they get their puppy after seeing how well behaved and intelligent adult porties can be, so just be prepared! With that said, ours seemed to naturally start to mellow out a fair amount after a year. Good luck and thanks for the comment!

Assuming you are referencing Life O'Reilly, yea, you could be right. My endurance sucks, and I really think Energy Crisis comes down to that and crimp strength, so it was a struggle for me, where Life O'Reilly was a few powerful very low percentage moves that I put together fairly quick. At the end of the day it's all arbitrary, I still think I Love Barbie is one of the hardest things I've climbed, lol. On the other hand, if you literally just mean life is harder, you would be right as well, haha. Thanks for the comment.

@@SendStory haha I was honestly just saying it was really impressive how quickly you put it down cuz I’ve seen so many people get shut down by it (including myself LOL). That said tho, I do strongly believe grades are subjective and any extension of Pika (already a hard boulder) has gotta be tough

@@GourmetNinj4 thanks for the kind words. Climbing is just all around hard, haha. If you remember that you can keep your ego in check, but I often forget. Keep pulling on Life O'Reilly, you got it. (Just remember a lot in the Glen is condition dependent, at least if you are working at your limit).

No problem, glad you worked your way through it, hope it helps!

Honestly, the clips with help were the only times I had an extra pair of hands and the process immediately went smoother. Sorry to hear about your struggles, I can definitely emphasize, but stoked you got it done. Enjoy your wall and the gains!

Yea, the desert can get crazy cold at night this time of year. Never thought about rodents being an issue, but I guess that makes sense in that climate with food supplies inside. I'm sure it was a great trip outside of those hiccups. Thanks for stopping back to drop another comment, appreciate it.

By chance did you watch my series? or just this video? In the first video I kind of touch on this. It might be a good idea to watch that over if you haven't, but I'll try to give you the jot notes here if that helps save you some time. Essentially, it COULD be cheaper to make your own, depending on what you want, but to make it cheaper, you will probably want to make less molds (the most expensive part of the process) and end up with many of the same holds and it would probably lack variety. There is also a learning curve and you might find some of your holds are not that useful and your overall inventory might make your wall less inspiring/repetitive. If you were to want to save some money by making holds, stick to making foot-holds/foot-chips at first; they are more forgiving, require smaller molds and thus less material all around, and you don't care as much if they lack variety. My advice would be to look for some second-hand holds at a discount (check your local gym, because sometimes they get rid of old holds as they get new inventory, and check facebook groups and marketplace, etc.), and then make some wood holds, then buy a few sets of holds from one of the hold companies. When buying holds, look for cosmetic seconds (many companies sell these at a discount because of blemishes and imperfections that they don't want on display in commercial gyms) and look out for sales. With it being cyber Monday already (depending on where you live) today might be a good time to place some orders. I would also stick to ordering more small to medium holds for a home wall - you wont get the best use out of large holds or macros on a smaller home wall and you can always make holds/problems more 3d by making your own volumes to set on. Making your on holds is time consuming and when you build a wall you will be excited to climb on it and wont want to wait to set. So I think it is best to explore making holds once you have some time and energy to play around with it and can make your own holds to fill in the gaps in your wall that you are lacking with your existing inventory. Woah, that ended up being longer than I thought, hopefully you made your way through it and it helps you out! Again, check out the other videos if you haven't. Thanks for the comment!

@@SendStory Thanks alot for the reply, I will definitely look around for second hand holds.

Ha, that's awesome, must be built into the DNA. People often think she is a dalmatian mix or something because of how rarely you see a white (parti) porty. Definitely easier to spot in a body of water when they are white though (and a rainforest for that matter)! Thanks for the comment!

Thanks for the comment dude, appreciate it, and appreciate that you checked out other videos! Energy Crisis is such a fantastic problem and an obvious line on that boulder, definitely a fantastic choice. Good luck, you got it!

Thanks for the heads up!

The base of the climbing wall does touch the wooden deck at the bottom, but the deck typically doesn't allow standing water and the wood at the base of the wall is pressure treated and okay for ground contact. Again, because the wall was placed on a deck, when it is tarped, there is minimal ground water that makes it's way under the tarp/wall, however some still gets in during wind storms sometimes and unfortunately driven under the tarp and towards the wall. If you put a wall like this on paved ground, it would be best to try to keep water away using a cover/roof of some sort and try to make sure the grade of the surface drains water away from the wall instead of pooling or drawing water towards it. If you custom built the surface it is on, or have the ability to modify it, I would have some type of breaks in the ground around the wall to drive water away and keep as much out from under it. I hope that answered your question and helped.

I can't say I've tested them thoroughly yet (the only way would probably be to get them up at a gym... which I might try to and do a follow up video), but I've noticed no wear or had any issues. Most commercial holds in North America are poured by Aragon Elastomers, and in Europe I think it's Composite-X and I'm sure they have their proprietary resins and processes that make the quality better, but I really can't complain about the resins I've used. Some of the dyes and pigments in some holds I've poured seem to fall victim to the elements outside (mainly UV, I suppose), but then again, so have some commercial holds (I show this in my climbing wall update video). Honestly, the biggest change I would make from the process in these videos is to get my hands on proper commercial foam to get the scale and texture closest to commercial holds. Green floral foam is definitely limiting, but cheap and easy to get a hold of. Hope that at least somewhat answers your question. Thanks for the comment.

@@SendStory Thank you for the quick reply! I actually didn't really expect to get an answer on a year old video. Much appreciated feedback. I've been toying with the idea of making my own holds and volumes for a moment and discovering your video gave me the info I needed to progress with my ideas.

@@sergeantoine123 glad I could help, best of luck with your holds!

Thanks dude, greatly appreciate it. Similarly, comments like this carry weight, so thanks for brightening up an otherwise gloomy day. Hopefully I'll get back to making videos soon, and maybe I'll catch you in the comments again. Have a good one and thanks once more.

AW bro, so much love to ya from a random Irish stranger on the inter line @@SendStory

I think that can totally work, but there are some reasons why I haven't done that here. The main reason is that I've found you get the best consistent texture from clean passes with your tools and whatever you are sanding with and can clear off the left over dust and particles with compressed air. However, when it's wet, you can clog the foam pores with the foam slurry you are left with. That also requires you to wash the foam shapes after to clean them (before molding) and any water can affect the way the molds cure. So if you wet the foam, you should be waiting until its dry, but with the foam being porous, water could seep into it and take a long time to properly dry. So essentially it is faster to work dry and leaves less room for error. I also don't think it's great to wash foam particles and bits down your sink, both for your pipes and water systems. Lastly, if you are using any tools, you will be getting them wet, which generally speaking isn't great for them. These points are possibly fairly insignificant to some, but it was what I considered when I decided to just carve them out of the package. Again, i think both methods work though. Hope that helps!

thanks for the explanation for not wetting! makes sense! :) @@SendStory