Budget-ish 8x12 System Board: TB2 Wood Only vs Moonboard 2024 vs Beastmaker Set

Hey everyone, 

I am planning on making a 40 degree 8x12 board in the coming weeks, and I just wanted to hear opinions on my system hold options. I'm a broke and busy medical student, so I am shying away from setting my own problems. If its important, my general grades are between v4-v7 on red rock sandstone, and I'm trying to firmly get myself in V7-8. I wanted to keep the holds budget in a reasonable level

TB2 Wood: Love that they're screw ons and ergonomics, but I wonder if i'm missing out by not having the plastic set

Moon2024: Idk when they'll be back in stock, but these are the cheapest for a whole set +huge database. I'm just dreading the t-nut drilling. 

Beastmaker: Best value for holds, as well as seemingly the best commercial wooden hold-makers. Screw-on is a plus, but I would have to set my own routes. 

I welcome your opinions, thank you!

Drilling and installing T-nuts is the easiest part of building a board.

You would be missing out a ton by only getting the TB2 wood holds. With wood holds only on the mirror layout at 40 degrees, there's only 230 established climbs and 11 classics. With the full set, there's 4,000+ established climbs and 100+ classics. You can download the app for free and see how many problems you would have with each setup.

If I were trying to get the cheapest commercial 8x12 system board possible, I'd go Moonboard 2016 with no LEDs. Used hold sets go on sale all the time.

I have a mixed Beastmaker / wood / plastic 8x12 spray wall at home and have climbed a lot on the 2016, 2019, and 2024 Moon Boards at the gym. Personally I prefer having a board I can set exactly for my needs, but it does take time and effort, and I do find value in occasionally checking in on a commercial board at the gym. It's a bigger investment than it sounds like you're ready for right now.

If you just want a standardized board, the 2024 Moon is excellent—best of the Moons by far and my favorite over the Kilter / TB1. Great hold quality and variety, good problems, good app, great community, etc. There are a lot of good training problems at your level and there's plenty of free space in which to slot extra holds / feet if you want to customize it. (E.g. for circuits.) The holds are also really good and you'd be happy to include most of them on a future spray layout. (Plus, with lonestars or some other adapter, you can turn them into screw-ins.)

I have heard good things about the TB2 and appreciate that there are dedicated footholds, but I absolutely would not go for just the woods. You're going to massively limit your options if you do that — just get the full set.

^ Same preference here. 

You either put in some session time setting problems once in a while or money buying into an established system board. Spray wall is by far the cheaper option (especially with used resin holds from gym sell offs which are nicer for the skin). I recommend climbing on spray walls in gyms first to see whether you like coming up with problems and what type of holds you favor or dislike before buying. Another advantage of spray walls is that you can set dedicated feet (different types and sizes, different colors) in grids and not use the handholds for feet, which is a lot more like outdoor climbing. 

I have a spray wall with 200+ problems on it saved, many of them memorized by now for training drills. The board is set with a mixture of wood and resin holds and partially symmetric, using dedicated footholds for feet only. I would never trade it for a moonboard or kilter board. Feet follow hands on the moonboard gets boring fast, and there is way too much jumping, huge footholds and too few ratty crimps on the kilter. A good spray walls will be better preparation for climbing on rock - if that is your objective.

Pino Pepino wrote:

Feet follow hands on the moonboard gets boring fast, and there is way too much jumping, huge footholds and too few ratty crimps on the kilter.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I will say the 2024 Moon set is way less jumpy because the holds are generally slopier and less blocky, so you can't just huck and latch. Even when you do have to jump I find I have to take a better path and control the swing more gracefully than on 2016. Honestly, I would use a LOT of the holds as-is on a spray wall, too. They're just good board holds.

Dan Schmidt wrote:

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I will say the 2024 Moon set is way less jumpy because the holds are generally slopier and less blocky, so you can't just huck and latch. Even when you do have to jump I find I have to take a better path and control the swing more gracefully than on 2016. Honestly, I would use a LOT of the holds as-is on a spray wall, too. They're just good board holds.

I fully agree, I've climbed on the new blue set a couple of times and I think the holds are more versatile than previous iterations. Best of both worlds would be to just use the moonboard holds on their 20x20 grid and add screw-ons in between (or just drill 10x10 so you could fill with whatever). Not sure how much the moonboard holds cost these days, but they used to be about the same price or cheaper than other new resin holds anyways, so this would be a good option to buy holds either way (unlike tension or kilter which command a hefty premium). TB2 looks very nice but I've only tried the old one.

More board nerd talk: Other holds manufacturers (like Beastmaker) that offer both symmetric and asymmetric board sets are Hardwoodholds and Waatah (Dojo series, resin, screw on only). I have many of the hardwoodholds on my board and really rate them, and added some of the dojo holds over time. The individual dojo series are numbered and get progessively worse, so when setting replicas you can make holds worse as you improve (I'm quite bad on pockets and have found this to be really helpful for projects involving pockets). My favorite holds are probably the eGrips/Trango comfy crimps though.

Pino Pepino wrote:

I fully agree, I've climbed on the new blue set a couple of times and I think the holds are more versatile than previous iterations. Best of both worlds would be to just use the moonboard holds on their 20x20 grid and add screw-ons in between (or just drill 10x10 so you could fill with whatever). Not sure how much the moonboard holds cost these days, but they used to be about the same price or cheaper than other new resin holds anyways, so this would be a good option to buy holds either way (unlike tension or kilter which command a hefty premium). 

Thanks so much everyone. 

Upon further research I was thinking just this, using the main moonboard grid and then after climbing on it for a while (and saving up) I can ask Beastmaker to make holds that I can fit between the existing grid that complements the hold types. I was leaning toward 2024 for the exact reason that I want more high-tension moves and less huck to bad crimps. It's 2.3k for a full Moon set, and its 2.6K for JUST the TB2 wooden holds, so it's a no-brainer. 

For the moonboard, or just a system board in general, how short can I make the kicker without making the starts too bullshit-y? I was going to try to make the kicker out of just 2x6's (to save money on plywood), which would lead to an actual dimensional height of 7".

I have a 9" kicker on a Mini Moonboard. I wouldn't want to go with less. The t-nuts are 3" down from the apex to make them 'regulation' and if you feel the extra 3" of heel room is cheating, you can slide a 3" pad under your feet to cramp the space 

I currently have a mini moonboard but my old place I had the 2016 set. I shortened the kicker down to 11” and absolutely would not go lower than that on one of their 8x12 boards. Just my take! 

I have an 18cm (~= 7 inches) kicker on a 45 degree spraywall. It works for a spraywall (unless you are very tall and have large feet). For a moonboard, you may want a slightly larger kicker.