UKH

Alcohol based liquid chalk bottles exploded in my bag and parts of a nylon sling absorbed it. Can a sling get damaged

Not by alcohol.

Otherwise ALL my climbing kit would be buggered by now...

Not binning it then, cheers

I did my MSc on this very subject and soaking slings in liquid chalk didn't make a measurable difference to the strength of any of the slings, either dyneema nor nylon, that I tested.

Excellent, cheers

I've been soaking my insides, for nearly 40 years, not done my any harm, twitch twitch

I've heard that some climbing walls have observed two different brands of liquid chalk which utilise differing core ingredients. The feedback is that one of the two is damaging to their climbing holds. At this point I'm lacking the core detail! But did you test different types of liquid chalk as part of your MSc?

 

No I didn't. From memory I tested DMM's liquid chalk, but I'm not 100% certain. I also tested petrol (relevant to tree surgeons), a couple of different types of industrial disinfectant (relevant to MRTs), DEET, and suncream. None of them made any measurable strength changes in the slings that I tested, but for various reasons (one of them being that not necessarily all liquid chalks behave the same) I would try very hard to avoid my kit getting in contact with any of them.

Matt, is there no bounds to your knowledge?!? When I clicked on this thread I was hoping for idle speculation, not actual answers 😂

Thanks! I'm amazed to here that DEET passed the testing as well, my experience of it is that once out of the bottle it will absorb through zip and seal bags, kit bags and half way through the groundsheet of my Terra Nova Quasar before I spotted it. Its like Alien blood!