RRC Archives

tutugirl wrote:Share pics of your woody

i'm not going back to jail

I agree with bcombs. I brought myself from a decent ten climber to pushing 12s in one year with a tread wall. It takes hours, but it works.
And those lunge moves, all you have to do is ride it down (by getting high feet and gripping with one hand, which helps train for clipping) till your butt is almost hitting the ground. Lunge.
Adjust it to slab, turn off the brakes, speed it up and only look at your feet to climb. Your footwork ability will increase like crazy. (So will your cardio).
Climb like crazy on it and you will see your endurance, strength and tech will all increase.
Those things really work.
Don't knock it until you climb a mile on it in less then a month. I guarantee that if you climb a mile on it in a month, Toad, then you would for sure say it works.

tutugirl wrote:Share pics of your woody

My wife and I bought a new house this summer. Along with countless hours of other work, I built a bouldering wall in our attic. Here are a couple pictures from before we moved in:






Totally insulated the attic, layed an extra layer of 1/2 inch plywood on the floor for extra support (this really solidified the attic), covered the non climbing walls up with 1/4in particle type board. The wall itself is 50 degrees, the peak is 9.5 feet off the floor and about 22 by 18 feet counting the cave. For reference, the cave has a 4 by 8 horizontal roof.






Unfortunately only one person climbs with me on a very sporadic basis. But I have about 50, high quality, problems up. So if you find your self in South West Wisconsin (Platteville), send me a pm. My latest addition is this campus board I built a couple weekends ago. I haven't used it yet, but will be psyched to get it into the routine.



There is an attic ventilation fan, as well as a window air conditioner for the summer. Up to this point I have not needed to heat the attic. It seems the insulation is keeping in the heat that gets there from inside the house.

whatahutch wrote: Buy some liquid nails or get your mom or wifes hot glue gun out and put the glue on the t-nuts before you hammer them in. This will prevent them from backing out and "spinning" when you are trying to put a hold on your wall.

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If you have no carpentry skills this will take a longtime and could be dangerous to build and climb on. Consult a carpenter if so.

I totally disagree. The first is not necessary, and the second is crazy talk. Coming from someone with no 'carpentry' skills, I had no problem building a climbing wall. Use a little intuition, to plan ahead, and then do it. I am pretty sure most people will have no problem using a drill and circular saw. My wall hasn't fallen apart yet Not rocket science ...

I learned the trick about the liquid nails/hot glue from a guy who built climbing walls professionally. I didn't take his advice on one section of my wall and that is the section that has the spinners.
I agree, slightly, with you on the second part. But without saying such things someone might want to use nails instead of screws. Might not use but one stud per sheet. Etc. It just makes things easier and safer to know some basic carpentry skills.
It is the same as saying Rock climbing is inherently dangerious. Death and serious injury can occur. Etc Etc Etc.
All that I was saying is a warning. Sure you can build a safe climbing wall without some prior carpentry skill. Same as going climbing and not getting hurt with some prior experience. But it is still easier with a little know how in what you are doing, and safer.

It also looks like you screwed into the roof trusses. Which is different then building a wall in your garage, or your basement. Your roof is already slanting and overhanging. Your way is much easier, and more simple then framing, building, and shoring up a completly new structure that has different angles then your prebuilt wall.
Unless your roof was completly built wrong, by the original carpenters, then your way should be fine, until you start screwing in a bolt, crossthread, and then back out the t-nut and then you have a spinning t-nut that you might never get the hold off of.
This happens, anyone with their own homebuilt woody will tell you it happens. With the way you built your wall you will have to unscrew the whole panel from the truss and fix/replace the backed out t-nut.
Or punch a whole through your roof.

whatahutch wrote: It also looks like you screwed into the roof trusses. Which is different then building a wall in your garage, or your basement. Your roof is already slanting and overhanging. Your way is much easier, and more simple then framing, building, and shoring up a completly new structure that has different angles then your prebuilt wall.

I agree, and have built walls both ways. The wall at my last house was actually a wall given to me by pwilkes (I think that is his username, thanks again for the wall Phil ) that was a free standing 8 by 8, 45 degree wall. I modified this to add a foot vertical board and a 4 by 8 roof section at the top, also free standing. Was it any harder to build, not really, maybe I will upload a few pictures tomorrow. I still claim that you do not need carpentry skills, or be a construction whiz (though I am sure it would help). Just use a little intuition. When you get your frame built, hang all over it, test out the integrity. If it needs more, figure out what you can do to stabilize it. Its fun to build a climbing wall, if you have patience, and a few basic tools, it really isn't a hard thing to do.

I am not sure we disagree, as much as I am saying, if your thinking about building a climbing wall, do it. If your worried about not knowing what to do, don't be, just educate yourself, there is a lot of good information out there.

whatahutch wrote: Unless your roof was completly built wrong, by the original carpenters, then your way should be fine, until you start screwing in a bolt, crossthread, and then back out the t-nut and then you have a spinning t-nut that you might never get the hold off of.
This happens, anyone with their own homebuilt woody will tell you it happens. With the way you built your wall you will have to unscrew the whole panel from the truss and fix/replace the backed out t-nut.
Or punch a whole through your roof.

Wow, you make it sound so complicated The biggest panel on my wall is 4 by 4. (I recommend this if you are building a wall in the attic, much easier to carry up 28 4 by 4 pieces of plywood, then talking your wife into helping you carry the 4 by 8 pieces up. Probably a lot easier on your walls as well!) I will take out some screws, pull the panel down, replace the t-nut, and then put it back up. All done in five minutes while resetting my wall. Heaven forbid I have a hold stuck on the spinning t-nut, in that case add a minute to get out the sawzall.

sawzall saves the day everytime.

Here is my little woody.
I wish I had more money for some holds other then the ones I made myself, just can't afford it living on a graduate students income. My wife says I can when I get a real job.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... db90ec7d49

nice, starting phase IIIIVX tonite.

phase 1?

chriss: i would imagine that 4 or 5 people up there climbing in the summer would get hot as balls, even with the fan... any problems with that?