Home climbing woody/small climbing gym

Hey all!

I have a question/situation I was hoping someone could shed some light on. I'll jump to the chase: I work at a school climbing gym but whoever designed the bouldering wall didn't leave room between the actual walls of the building and the backs of the climbing wall. Due to this, it's impossible to replace popped out T-nuts without literally taking off the entire climbing wall panel and changing them out.

Does anyone have any alternatives to T-nuts? Or somehow replacing them from the outside of the wall? I've been looking at "threaded inserts" for a T-nut alternative. anyone with experience with these, are these load bearing? I've linked them at the bottom of this thread. My main concern with these are with the super overhanging walls. Any advice is helpful!

"Threaded Inserts" link: amazon.com/Z-Threaded-Hex-F…;linkCode=df0&hvadid=312395299137&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16820579486564976107&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031119&hvtargid=pla-569771166473&psc=1

So you're limited to screw ons.  Two options.  One is to buy screw-on only holds.  Atomik has a solid lineup:
https://www.atomikclimbingholds.com/screw-on-holds

The other option is impressive.  Escape Climbing just came out with the Lonestar.  Turn any hold into a screw on!
https://escapeclimbing.com/collections/hardware/products/the-lonestar-pack

I've used the Lonestar on my home wall; it's pretty nice to fill some gaps, but would be quite expensive to buy a large number of them.

Though it might not look nice, you could attach a small section of panel (piece of plywood) directly over the old. Put t-nuts in the new section, then screw the new section over the old. 

Jed Ngo wrote: Hey all!

I have a question/situation I was hoping someone could shed some light on. I'll jump to the chase: I work at a school climbing gym but whoever designed the bouldering wall didn't leave room between the actual walls of the building and the backs of the climbing wall. Due to this, it's impossible to replace popped out T-nuts without literally taking off the entire climbing wall panel and changing them out.

Since it's not your wall, the owners need to decide if they only want you to patch it for the short term, or fix it for the long haul.    

I don't think that threaded inserts would be a strong enough connection in plywood

I’d trust those inserts to hold up a picture frame, maybe. No way they can hold up to a person yanking on them. I’d be surprised if they lasted one pull, and, even if they did last for a couple days they are definitely going to pull out eventually. When they do, the wall will be ruined. 

An alternative to attaching plywood as a patch would be to acquire some volumes.

This is just the first link that came up for me, but just for clarity these kinds of things... dimensionvolumes.com/

Thanks for all the replies and input!!! It means a lot that people are willing to help. 

Is the wall framed with vertical 2x6s behind it? If so, you could cut an inch tall hole just above the wall's bottom plate. Then you could thread a weighted cord into the old hole, attach a t-nut by threading through the t-nut hole, and pull the t-nut up to the back side of the wall. With and awl or other slender tool, you could position the t-nut back in the hole. If you could get the t-nut to stick enough to thread a bolt & washer, you could reset the nut by cranking down on the bolt. Might take a bit of trial and error and in the end may be more work than pulling down the offending panels.

Jon Nelson wrote: Though it might not look nice, you could attach a small section of panel (piece of plywood) directly over the old. Put t-nuts in the new section, then screw the new section over the old. 

This would leave you with the problem of only being able to use bolts of a fairly precise length.

It seems to me that most of these work arounds aren't much easier than just taking down the panels and reinstalling the t-nuts. I mean, how often do they really need changing? Alternatively you could just move the frame out from the wall a couple feet so that you have room to replace them.

Ryan Pfleger wrote:

This would leave you with the problem of only being able to use bolts of a fairly precise length.

Not if you line up the new hole with the old one. 

Aaron Willett wrote:

Not if you line up the new hole with the old one. 

Hadn't thought of that. Lining them up might be tricky.

You can just drill the hole in the new piece, then stick a bolt through it to line them up before affixing the new one.

Walt Heenan wrote: Is the wall framed with vertical 2x6s behind it? If so, you could cut an inch tall hole just above the wall's bottom plate. Then you could thread a weighted cord into the old hole, attach a t-nut by threading through the t-nut hole, and pull the t-nut up to the back side of the wall. With and awl or other slender tool, you could position the t-nut back in the hole. If you could get the t-nut to stick enough to thread a bolt & washer, you could reset the nut by cranking down on the bolt. Might take a bit of trial and error and in the end may be more work than pulling down the offending panels.

have you done this before? it's genius. i'm def going to give this a go.