The ChalkBlaster combines climbing brush with a blower to clean your projects

Many of us at the gym or the crag have spent inordinate amounts of time brushing holds, thinking to ourselves, ‘Man, there’s gotta be a better way to do this.’

The difference with Kent Eskildsen and Paul Ménager is that they did something about it. 

And not just in a bring-a-baby-fan-and-an-electric-toothbrush-to-the-crag kind of way.

They co-founded Sweep Climbing, and, together, put out the ChalkBlaster.

Think of a climbing brush fused with a handheld blower, and there you have it. 

Gripped and Eskildsen had a written correspondence over the last few days to get an idea of what this new product was all about.  

Below is the conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. 

 

Gripped: How’d you get the idea?

Eskildsen: Everyone joked about bringing their Sonicare, Dyson, or a Ryobi leaf to the crag. As battery-driven fans and pocket jet blowers started appearing more regularly at the crag and in the gym, the idea clicked: why not build it properly? Why not combine the fan with the brush, the two things you’re already bringing to your trips and turn it into one purpose-built tool?

That became the ChalkBlaster. The world’s first electric jet-powered climbing brush.

What I found striking after putting it out there was how many people had been thinking along the same lines. I’ve seen every iteration imaginable. Toilet brushes on screwdrivers, brush heads mounted on reciprocating saws, brushes taped to massage guns. The idea clearly wasn’t new. What was missing was someone actually bringing a finished, market-ready product to life.

 

Gripped: Describe what it was like developing it.

Eskildsen: The first prototype was functional but ugly. I bought an existing jet fan, took it apart, and reassembled it with pipes and 3D-printed components. It was oversized, but it was amazing! I ran a Kickstarter campaign that didn’t reach its target, but it didn’t feel like a failure. It opened doors. Most importantly, that’s how I met Paul.

Paul joined as co-founder and brought something I didn’t have: the ability to engineer an idea into an actual product. Together we rebuilt it from scratch. Custom battery packs, purpose-designed circuit boards, precision motors, and refined 3D-printed housings. The result is what we’re selling today.

Is it perfect? Not yet. Hardware is hard. The first version had a clear design mandate: maximum power. We pushed the motor and battery as far as the form factor would allow. There were many challenges to overcome, but now it exists. You can hold it.

 

Gripped: What kind of advantages does this give us over a regular brush?

Eskildsen: The most important thing to understand is that the ChalkBlaster isn’t really competing with your regular brush. It’s competing with your jet fan and Makita fans. 

If you’re already carrying a fan to the crag and, increasingly, serious climbers are, the ChalkBlaster consolidates two tools into one. You’re not choosing between brushing and blowing; you’re doing both simultaneously, with one hand free. That matters more than it sounds.  Pair it with an extension pole and the range of what’s possible expands significantly. Holds that were previously impossible to brush properly: too high, too far back, became reachable. You’re giving those holds the best friction, so each climb counts.

Lastly, just one tool for everything rather than having to bring a brush, extension pole, a Makita fan or a separate jet fan? The ChalkBlaster is a good alternative for long approaches to the boulder. It also charges your phone, and, yes, it has enough juice for blasting and charging. 

 

Gripped: How would you address concerns over noise and increased airborne chalk?

Eskildsen: The ChalkBlaster doesn’t add chalk to the air,  it removes it from the hold. If you brush a hold and blow on it, you get the same result as using the ChalkBlaster. The difference is speed. It just happens faster. 

The broader concern about air quality in gyms is worth taking seriously, but the root cause isn’t the tool, it’s bad ventilation. We have a tendency to romanticize old-school gyms: rough, dusty, chalk-thick air as a mark of authenticity. But we’re also seeing a new generation of facilities with proper ventilation systems where air quality is actively managed, and that’s the standard gyms should be held to. Our product doesn’t change that equation. It just makes the underlying problem more visible. 

Besides, if we can make a blowing device we can reverse it, add a filter and now it is a vacuum. This is something we are actively experimenting with. We just got a couple of new motors inspired by the famous Dyson Pencil Vac, plenty of new challenges, but something we are looking into. 

It’s also worth noting that the ChalkBlaster is, at its core, an outdoor climbing product. The climber who values it most is standing at the base of a boulder on a cold morning, trying to give themselves every possible advantage before they commit to the move. Indoor concerns are valid, but they’re not the primary context this product was designed for.

On noise, it’s a fair point, and we own it. Version 1 was deliberately over-engineered for power. The trade-off was sound. At lower settings, it’s barely noticeable to those around you, but we know it can be better by improving the air intake and outtake to have better laminar flow. Version 2 is already in development, and usability and acoustics are the leading design criteria. We’re rethinking the air intake to reduce noise and adding silicon membrane to reduce vibration. The first generation proved the concept. The second is about refinement.

Gripped: Anything else you want to add?

Eskildsen: Fans are already mainstream for serious climbers. Watch any double digit climbing content right now and you’ll see a Makita or a jet blower somewhere in frame. The debate about whether they belong has largely been settled by the people at the top of the sport. They use them because they work, and that’s not changing.

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