(Now Done! With Pix) Designing a Bouldering Wall. Would love feedback

Here's my plan.

Here's my space:

The green line on the back wall shows the incline, and the line on the floor shows where the right wall will go.

Right and back walls will be flat walls, with 2X4 and 3/4 ply construction with the left incline wall being 2x6.

I was going to do a 6in grid on the ply.

This will be a training ground for my 2 year old, and a retraining for my(currently out of shape)self

I'd love to hear your thoughts/design ideas/experience on this plan thus far.

Thanks,

Todd

Make one of the flat walls 35+ overhang. With any regular use you will outgrow flat walls in no time at all. Add kick plates to both overhangs. Slap the crack on the end of the 15-20 and make it adjustable. Loose the other cracks, fixed cracks will become both boring and useless very quickly.

I understand "for the kid" but they will ether hardly ever use it or use it so much they will need a 45 inside a year. I just have some bucket ladders set on my 30deg for the kids/wife.

Make some volumes.

Thanks, Jim.

Big 10-4 on volumes.

I didn't go for anything steeper due to the smaller footprint of the area, but your point is well taken.

Adjustable crack: do you have any links that address this sort of build?

Plenty of good information on anything you might want to make, from hangboard setups to adjustable crack simulators, to full on climbing barns can be found here:

What Does Your Woody Look Like

Wow, perfect. Thanks for the link.

If you are in the Denver/Boulder area I might have 6 sheets of 3/4 with T nuts installed for sale and some holds

I am indeed, Sir. Englewood, just south of Denver.

Let me dig them out get some pic's, maybe we can help each other out. You save some $ and I get rid of stuff I'm not using.

That sounds like a swimming idea to me, Will. Thanks!!

My personal experience with personal climbing walls is that I end up not using them much because I'd rather climb with friends. I do use a hangboard & campus board at home a lot, and have a little climbing wall for the kids to play on.

I'd probably skip the money & work of a big installation, and put in a hangboard, system board, and campus board at home along with a play wall for the munchkins.

So about 6 feet of vertical on the left side was left off, I couldn't get wide shot with iPad. I have bikes and tons of gear on floor...usually clean.
Left side: 8' vertical, 4' 30 degree, 4' of 45 degree.
Back: 6' 45 degree and 50 degree.
Right side: 4' of 55 degree.
Ceiling. Roof climbing with a roof crack system

Morgan - Thanks. The full back story is that we have 2 year old and 6 month old, so we're a few years out from being able to conventionally take off and go climbing with the kids. Plus, my wife is a stay-at-home mom, and she feels this would be a good escape for her and the wee ones during the day. Plus, I really enjoy route setting, I use to do it at my college wall. So, for my family I think a full wall makes sense.

Alfonso - Great set up! We've been blessed with a pretty large garage, so thankfully this area won't have to compete with other garage vomit, which there is an ample amount of!

Okay. She's all done. Paint is just curing.

The original design was tweaked but here is what I ended up with (excuse the oddness of panorama, for example I assure you the header plate is not crooked and the back wall crack is vertical not angled)

10' x 7' footprint. Flat back wall. 35* left wall. 15* right wall.

Double crack with varying widths from full fists to monos.



Close up of cracks (pant sand mix in the crack surface)



Couple of build pics



Crack mock up before carving





Harbor Freight power carving head for an angle grinder did an awesome and quick job of shaping and texturing the cracks. I'll be using this to be making holds too.



Texture paint



The only thing left to do... routes



Thanks for all the assistance in the design. I'll be happy to answer any questions if ya'll have some.

Todd Blackstone wrote:Okay. She's all done.

Something happened to the pictures. can´t see them

Hmmm. I'm not sure. They're still showing up for me. There is one at the top from the original post that isn't showing, I see if I can fix that one.

There. I fixed the one at the top.

Looks great man. I'm not a crack climber and wouldn't know the first thing about building one but t looks damn cool and well done.

Looks great man. I'm not a crack climber and wouldn't know the first thing about building one but t looks damn cool and well done.

Very nice looking wall and looks to be a great use of space. Saving this away for reference for a future project.

Hey Todd,
I'm batting around this same idea with the cracks in a home wall I'm designing. Having climbed on it for a while now, is there anything you would change or parts that you think are a must have for a wall?

Thanks!

Todd, I've got a couple of questions about the steps in shaping the inside of the cracks and matching the plywood, did you shape those together or did you match the plywood after you hung it? Ps, rad build.