Hammer drills!

What should I get, if I want a bolting drill? Are there any experts out there? Untuck your d or v and tell me.

some one to show you how to do it right

Ben Griffin wrote:What should I get, if I want a bolting drill? Are there any experts out there? Untuck your d or v and tell me.

This topic has been covered a million times. You can find a listing of pretty much every suitable drill on this site. That said, the only word you need to know is "Bosch."

Ian Cavanaugh wrote:some one to show you how to do it right

Cool. Come show me and bring a drill, so I can finish my route.

I'm actually just wondering about the voltage? How much voltage is needed to drill into hard rock like granite or limestone. I actually mostly drill into limestone or sandstone.

Ben Griffin wrote:I'm actually just wondering about the voltage?

The 18v Li batteries are adequate, but the more the merrier.

+1 Bosche

I have a 36v Bosch with Lithium Ion batteries, which I used to bolt a bunch of lines around D-Town. The thing is amazing, but not particularly cheap. I found one on CPOTools.com for about half retail. They're fairly light, drill holes super fast and clean, and have ridiculously good battery life (10+ 6" holes in limestone). On top of that, the lithium battery is definitely the way to go unless you're disciplined about charging/draining.

I have a friend who found a tiny hammer drill (maybe on 12v) that only weights a few pounds. While it isn't for installing mega sport lines, it could be a cheaper alternative for a few bolts and for ground-up, alpine-type climbing.

Psyched to hear y'all have more lines to put bolts into down there!

Ben Griffin wrote:What should I get, if I want a bolting drill? Are there any experts out there? Untuck your d or v and tell me.

Bosch 36V compact

For sport routes, the above is pretty much the standard, it'll do around 20 3/8 by 3 1/2 holes in granite per charge, and each hole takes around 30 seconds. If you're doing ground up traditional bolting, you can go with one of the smaller 18V rotary hammers, but you'll get a lot fewer holes per charge.

If you're going to start bolting, make sure you learn from someone who is experienced and knows what they're doing. We only have a limited supply of rock, and we don't need to be messing it up with botched bolt jobs.

+100 Ian Cavanaugh.

+1 for everything Kennyoce said/recommended.

Get the compact he linked to, but then buy a fat-pack battery. The hilti above would be a great drill too (everything hilti makes is best of breed)...but you are going to pay big for that. My Bosch has drilled hundreds of bolts and works great. Save a bit on the drill and invest in best of breed hardware instead.

And now some unsolicited thoughts from my experience (kind of like un-asked for beta...so feel free to ignore me if you wish):

Unless you are going ground up for ethical or logistics reasons. Suss it out as much as possible on TR (tick-marking bolt placements from ideal clipping stances, considering fall potential, testing rock quality, etc.) and use high quality stainless bolts and hangers. You will feel much better about your lines if you do that.

If you use wedge style bolts (the only wedges you should consider are Hilti KB3's or KBZ's), overdrill the holes by at least a 1/2" (I usually overdrill by a full inch.) to allow them to be pounded in and patched (as they are hard but not impossible to remove). Since you will be using stainless...that replacement cycle will be a long long time from now. If your rock is kind of soft, the 1/2" KB's are pretty amazingly strong. If it is really soft rock...perhaps glue-ins.

If you use Power-Bolts, definitely consider the 1/2" as the 3/8" have crazy low torque in stainless. Consider practicing with a torque wrench a lot to get the feel for your recommended torque. Small wrenches will help keep you in check. With wedges, under torquing is not a huge deal (except they may spin sooner). Overtorque is much worse.

Also, I like to really clean my holes with a blow-out bulb and 1/2" bristled pipe brush. The 1/2" brush works great in 3/8" in holes.

Plenty of people use hardware store gear, somewhat randomly bolt on rap, don't clean their holes, and crank down bolts with little consideration for torque, and most of those bolts are just fine.

Early on, I used plated bolts (Powers and some FIXE wedges) and played around with all kinds of anchor options (for 10 years of occasional bolting). I have decided stainless (even in the desert) is the right thing to do and I now almost exclusively use mussys for anchors.

I like the feeling of being really proud that I did it as good as I could. No matter what you do, some people will criticize something about the line you are so proud of (its chossy, that one bolt was too high/low, it should have gone higher or ended lower, etc). At the end of the day, you do the best you can and go from there.

I have found that developing routes is one of the most personally rewarding things I have ever done in any sport.