Ahhhh, finally, after all these years I finally have my very own climbing wall to play on. I have always wanted one, but living in the dorms in college didn't really allow the room to build a climbing wall...especially with the amount of crap I own. I would have had to throw a few computers out the window to make room...*hrmmm...now that I think about it...* Anyhow! I then lived in apartments, and well, I don't think they would look too kindly on me having a romp fest on there cardboard, paperthin walls. You know the kind. The kind where you can hear exactly what your four neighbors are doing. But then I moved into a house with an unfinished basement...perfect! It's even heated too! Begin Phase I.
Planning:
I really didn't do a whole lot of planning. In fact, I was just ready to start climbing, so I wanted to get some wood up and see what it looks like later. I knew the basic concept of framing, and well, had an idea of what to get, but I didn't exactly know how it would all go together, but then again, how hard can it be?
pictures coming soon
Buying:
This was the easy part. I went to Home Depot and picked up a lot of 2x4's. I also picked up some plywood. I initially got some crap plywood because of the price, but when I looked at how it had holes in it every so often in the layers, I opted to shell out the cash for the birch plywood. Also I got a lot of 3-inch wood screws, a 12V cordless drill and a small handsaw. I went to my favorite store, REI and got tons of metolius holds.
Framing:
This phase took a while. I didn't have a lot of time to work on it really because I was always doing something it seemed. However, I found that my drill worked out really well with the two batteries, so one can be charging while one is in the unit. I kinda just orchestrated how I wanted it to look on the spot, but I know I wanted an incline, and some dihedrals and stuff, so I just kinda made it happen.
Adding Holds:
This was the fun part, because finally I got to see results and test my route-setting skills. Putting on the holds consisted of me using the t-nuts and screws and putting them on the plywood with an allen wrench.
Playtime:
After I got everything done, I started playing on it and load tested it. I think I did a pretty good job, as there are only a few holds that spun a little. It took me about three seconds for me to get blood on my wall though. I got a little excited and tried a dyno and totally screwed it up. Hehe...oh well.
Cost:
I put this down here in hopes people don't get discouraged from building their own woodie. My climbing wall is 104 square feet and it cost me a little over $800. Most of that was on climbing holds, but what I should have done was buy in bulk and that would have saved me $200, but oh well, I have the kind of holds that I like.
I hope you found this page informational, and if you have any questions on building your own climbing wall, lemme know! I will be glad to help you in any way I can.
Here is a picture of what it looked like in my old house. (Wall version 1.0)
So I moved to Boulder, and I had to take down my entire wall. Now, I had *not* planned taking it down when I was designing it. I had stripped a lot of screws putting it in place, so it was *torture* getting them back out. However, I eventually got it all deconstructed, and began to put it up in my new home! This time in the garage instead of the basement.
It took me a while to figure out what to put where and how to support it. The main difference between my last design and this design would be the fact that before, I had joists above to screw into, now I didn't have any wood up high to secure the top of my wall with. So, I had to really think how things would be secure and not fall apart. This was a monumental task, however, I eventually thought it all out in my head and started building.
The first thing I wanted to do was make the design a lot more fun. I wanted different looks, different angles, different movements. So I decided to start building a cave section. I built this so that I could work on my roof technique. The plan was for it to be a lot bigger, however, I soon noticed I was using up all my wood! I needed some for the other sections! Yeesh!
The next section I started was the layback section. This I set at a pretty decent angle so that it would be a challenge. I have yet to actually climb it, however by the time you read this, I probably *have* climbed it many times over, but it looks like some fun. This section actually was left half built for like 3 months. I started it, but never got back around to finishing it. Well now I put panels on it, and it looks much better! It's climbable! yay!
I had plans for a better chimney section which would link the two sections together. However, I ran out of wood and screws. So it's incomplete at the moment, however you can still check it out in the pictures below. This would be the next area I would work on. Then, if I were to expand more, I think I would make some easier angled stuff closer to the garage door, and left of section two.
Well, I'm sure you didn't even read this and just wanted to look at the pictures. So, here are the new pictures of my wall Version 2.0. If you want to know more about the framing behind the panels, just ask.
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