| indoor walls there's lots of good info on the net to
help you build your very own woody. the main difference is how you want to tilt it
and how much head room you have to play with.
basically, you'll get a couple pieces of plywood, some 2x4's, some T-nuts, holds and
your in business. I built mine based on karl's tiltable wall. if you can put
some bolts into a wall you can use a couple of chains to tilt the wall with.
Building the wall is the easy part, paying for all the holds you'll need is the hard
part. which bring us to making your own holds...
climbing holds
wow, you can just drill holes into rocks and presto instant hold. Tried that,
unless you have a drill press or a bench vise to hold the rock still, you'll probably end
up with the same results i had. which was that before i got through the rock, the
hole was too wide for the bolt...
well, how about making molds and pouring your own. looks pretty easy. and
it is, you'll need to get some florist's foam, some 100% silicon cauk, a utility knife,
some rough sandpaper, and some cardboard. I tried two methods, the first had you glue the
hold to the bottom of a small box and then fill it with silicon. well, unless you
have a lot more patience and time, you'll probably think it's finished when the center is
still liquid. after a week of drying time, i still ruined the molds by trying to
remove the foam before they were dry enough. after giving up on that method, i just
coated the hold with one to two layer's of silicon, let that dry. this worked for
me, if you have any deep pockets, you need to allow plenty of time for it to dry, a full
week works. i found that the outside would be dry, the silicon hard to the touch,
and you could still have soft silicon on the inside.
since it's winter and i don't want the smell of making resin holds in the house, i
tried concrete. this works kinda; here's what i found out:
- don't use patching cement, it's not stong enough. Quickrete, which comes in a
bucket or bag seems to work. i also tried the Quickrete with the fibers and that
seems to work too, although you have to pick out most of the rocks (don't get a mix that
has rocks in it!) I didn't do anything to the concrete, just mixed it until it was
moist then spread it in.
- take the concrete hold out after a day or two. while it's still moist clean up the
bolt hold and flatten out the back so it's smoth. i let them set in a plastic bag
for 3 days or so then air dry for another day or two. a week might be too soon to
have fully cured so you might want to wait a few more days before climbing on them.
- do use a metal washer in the hold, or the bolt will slowly grind into the hold each time
you tighten it.
- don't make small holds. they crack when you tighten them. if the mold is too
thin, you'll blow it off as soon as you pull a move on it. i'll save these
molds for trying a resin hold this spring.
- make sure that you have 1 inch of hold behind the washer, that means the hold should be
at least 1 1/2 inches thick.
- you might want to avoid jugs that you could put a lot of torque on, these have all blown
of the back for me. pinches, pockets, slopers, small pockets seem to work so far.
- when coating your hold with silicon, don't lift the end of the tube off the mold and
start a second bead, this causes ridges to form which can get sharp, instead go back and
forth, keeping the tip in the last bead so the silicon spreads across the mold.
- when you take the silicon off the hold, use something to scoop out the foam and then
peel it off, be careful if you try to break the foam, if it splits suddenly you can rip
the silicon.
- get big holds too, i started with all small holds and found that they just weren't
positive enough to tilt the wall over too far, get a mix and you'll be able to use more
angles on your wall to mix it up!
links
Karl Lew (www.climer.com)
the climbing wall
resource (www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9640)
concrete holds
(www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/3464/index.html)
making holds (www.cranc.com/holds.html)
back to climbing page |