Review on ETCH Hybrid Sandstone Climbing Hold Outdoor Recreation for Climbing by Troy Early

Updated September 2015 Do yourself a favor and don't buy ETCH mounts. What I initially thought was an isolated incident turned into a disaster. I thought these grips were cast with shims embedded in the grip material, but at this point I'm pretty sure none of these grips have shims. See my attached photos to see the final hold falling apart with relatively light use. I'm just glad it happened to me and not my kids. While servicing a Woody I had built in my garage, I noticed that some of the fasteners were a bit loose - not surprising given the temperature change - so I started tightening them. I don't use power tools, I hand tighten them with a ratcheting torque wrench. When testing the grips after tightening, I noticed that some ETCH grips are even weaker than before, which is obviously dangerous. I started taking one off to inspect and noticed that the handle was tightly connected to the bolt, which seemed odd. It turned out that the only reason this handle was attached to the bolt was because the bolt head abutted the hole in the handle - there was no washer and the material that was once under the bolt completely dissolved away. Removing more ETCH grips showed the same thing - those grips were not built securely. All that's holding onto the wall is a thin piece of polyurethane/resin (not sure what the holders are made of) - and there's no way to hold it securely. A little too much force and the toe will rip right off the wall. Since then I've checked all of the ETCH hooks on my wall and have concluded that I'm taking them all off. Stay away. I spent about $80 holding ETCH; And that's all they'll ever get from me. It seems ETCH is happy to risk its customers' safety to save pennies on washing machines. A shame. Previous Review: They were very cheap and overall the sandstone holds are great. Unfortunately, one of them was poorly formed, with no washer, and when I weighted it down (putting a foot on the dyno), it came loose from the bolt. When I inspected the hold I saw that very little of the hold was in contact with the bolt which explains what happened. I've considered returning a replacement set, but that will be around 6 weeks before another set becomes available (unfortunately cannot be exchanged for a different colour). The etch was great overall, but the lack of quality control will make me give it a serious try if I decide to purchase in the future.