[Duma]

No doubt they're cheap, won't stop them being too big. Basically, if they're usable on your 50 TT, then they're not suitable as a hard set on a 25. Could be good as intermediate or easy set though.

[SA Chris]

I've got the slats from an old garden chair, they were free, doesn't mean they are good.

[James Malloch]

Thanks for the recommendations - I ordered some core micro jugs last week for warming up. Probably too late to add anything to my order now unfortunately. Might see if the timber yard has any hardwood offcuts when I pick to wood up later today. Might be able to fashion some crap foot holds with a mitre saw too if needed.

Chris - I might take you up on that offer though, thanks. I'll drop you a whatsapp.

 

I rate the Core screw ons. They're the intermediate option on my 40 board but they are all angled positive-side up. You could certainly make good use of them by playing with the different angles on your horrible 25 degree board ( ).
If you've the cash to splash, get some of the "screw on feet micros" from the same range. I have these angled edge-side up as the hard setting. You could experiment with the slopey side but that might be too gnarly.

Are these the ones you mean, Will: https://coreclimbing.co.uk/buy-holds/shop-by-type/footholds/geo-screw-on-feet-micros_1/

The test of all of this will be if I can get up First Arete in a few months time.

[Will Hunt]

Those are the ones.

[Steve R]

I flog these on eBay as part of my 'retired by 40' plan:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/293949864848
Harder feet for less steep walls especially on slopey side.  Cheap, more resilient than domes, had good feedback.  Message direct for UKB discount 

[James Malloch]

Another question...

What do people use for home matting?

Our board (now made - YYFY!) is on the first floor so I’d like to and preserve the plaster on the ceiling beneath. We’ve got 3 pads but I’m wondering if something softer (gym crash mat) could be better, or used in conjunction with a pad maybe?

[dunnyg]

For preserving plaster, I would imagine a big sheet of ply under all the pads would help spread the load. A friend has some gym crashmats, thought I havent tried them out, and another just uses bouldering pads and a mattress. Might be hard getring a mattress in to the loft though. Got any snaps?

[webbo]

I have an old double mattress that I use as a base and cover with the 4 pads I’ve got. 2 are pretty knackered though. I could get away with the mattress and 2 pads but using 4 means I’m not moving pads around all the time. When I had a wider board I had a couple of clapped out single mattresses as well.

[James Malloch]

We’ve gone for it in the spare bedroom rather than the loft. Floor will be plenty strong enough I think but just worried about the plaster. Will get some photos up once the final few holds are on and we’ve cleared all the crap from around it. Really happy with how it’s ended up - think the difficulty will be about right for us.

We’re going to try the first session with the 3 pads we’ve got. Hopefully they will suffice.

[SA Chris]

Agree on sheet of ply. It's for spreading load on the flat, so just go for the thinnest available.

I've got old cushions from an old sofa we "discarded" Properly soft to flop into. The old feet are holds on the wall too.

[Oldmanmatt]

Agree on sheet of ply. It's for spreading load on the flat, so just go for the thinnest available.

I've got old cushions from an old sofa we "discarded" Properly soft to flop into. The old feet are holds on the wall too.

cot mattresses, covered in pvc table cloth fabric.
Or a double foam mattress covered in the same. I pick them up on Facebook marketplace. Got the double for £30.
I have padded out areas with cot mattresses, gaffered together and wrapped in cheap carpet. If you use loop stitch carpet, you can fix it all up with velcro.

[webbo]

At one time one of the local climbing walls used mattresses with foam on top covered with a  plastic covering on their bouldering walls.

[Oldmanmatt]

Here.
*Obviously* we use “real” mats to land on, but where I’ve padded up the wall beside the Moonboard, I’ve used for the upper a cot mattress and the lower is a double foam.

Honestly though, an 8’x4’ crash mat is ~£300 or less (for 200mm thickness).





So, I spent £30 on the double mattress, the cot mattress I got free and the black cloth backed PVC I spent another £30 on. All fixed with black gaffer tape (B&Q cheapest).

Loop stitch carpet and velcro, is the way to go for more permanent, landing, mats though.
Even our main “real” mats are carpeted like that.

Take this bit, 120m², carpeted and linked up with velcro for just under £500 (a 25m roll of 100mm wide velcro is around £30 and you’ll find it all online). We’ll get ~2 years out of each section of carpet, even in a commercial setting.





Nowt fancy needed.

[Will Hunt]

Shagged out, low quality, single-bed mattresses that my neighbour was throwing out when I built the board. A single layer of bouldering pads over this (but only at the back or you'll be dabbing). Falling arse first off the first moves onto the mattresses is fine, but I wouldn't want to fall on them from height without the pads there.

[James Malloch]

Here's the final product! Few holds left to put on but I ran out of screws...

[Will Hunt]

Tidy. Some nice looking wooden holds there.

Edit: that photo is a bit grainy. I think you need the Full Image BBcode?

[James Malloch]

Hopefully that's worked out okay. We had a spare mattress which we've put under our pads and it seems to be fine for now. Not taken any proper falls yet and always climbed with a spot (some nasty corners of drawers/desks etc behind...).

Got a set of core micro jugs which gives a nice 16 move warm up circuit.

Have 50-60 holds from Taylor Made Holds - really nice to climb on and look real pretty as well.
He made some campus rungs too (not used them yet but think they will work nicely at 25 degrees.
Also have 35 footholds from him mix of the 50mm domes and some with tops cut off.

Got a few sillygoat holds which a friend sent (these are real nice too).

And a bunch of holds that my mate sent me - largely ones he made himself and then a few Hardwood Holds & Crusher (I think).

I'm finding it's small (I can reach the top) so need to do some odd problems, but I can also do 3-4 moves just going up. Had some good sessions with my partner on it and I think the mix of holds allows us to both find ways to try hard. Definitely going to be more of a longer problem board to get harder problems that I'll fail on more - but I'm pretty keen for that really.

Hopefully the second image is clearer?

[SA Chris]

You'll start figuring it out and managed to get longer probs in, especially if you start doing across and up or diagonally up then across. And start creating arbitrary rules..

[webbo]

Told you it needed to be steeper.

[James Malloch]

Told you it needed to be steeper.

I think that steeper would probably be better - but it's already testing my wrist injury at this angle so I'm hoping to emerge in a few month back to the mediocre, fairly fit, fairly weak climber that seems to be able to use some technique and lank to climb above my strength levels

[IanP]

Looks like you're sorted on the matting front but for info my brother built a fairly low but wide wall in his cellar.  He matted the cellar floor with 40mm thick 9lb reconstituted foam from Efoam (sort of thing that can used for gym mats).  He got 3.8m by 2.2 m for approx £200, topped with
some carpet offcut it makes a really good base and together with a couple of old memory foam mattresses it works really well for a lowish wall.

[Oldmanmatt]

I’ve just spent the morning rejigging my board, because I received some new holds from Artemis (he has a FB store/page under Daniel Ward).
(I built it at 30⁰, mainly because I have a 40⁰ Moonboard, a 20⁰ Lattice board and a huge 30⁰ chaos board, but this is my 2.44x2.44 mtr board that I usually train on).




No kick board, but I have a couple movable “Friction bars” that are made from nonslip decking strips on a piece of framing C16, cut so the strip is vertical.




I have made a lot of holds, myself, from reclaimed hardwood furniture, that I find from time to time on FB marketplace, the mahogany came from an old pub bar that was ripped out, for instance.
But the purchased holds are always better.
There are loads of Crusher crimps and pinches, but the only pockets were the pair I made from the old bar. I saw the Artemis pockets on FB and wanted them. A pair of two finger and a pair of three finger, very nice, deep, and yet not too easy to pull on.
 Two finger:



Three:



Also needed some intermediate edges (I had warm up Jugs and minging crimps and nowt in between) so put some “Woodies” on. Biggish (vary from a 28mm pair to a 37mm pair), the shape means they’re not too easy to pull on, but still comfortable.
My Tuffa is a bit of an oddity, perhaps, for a board; but it was something I wanted to work on, so it went on. It’s also useful for compression stuff with some of the vertical pinches either side of it.

Pretty much doubled up the foot jibs too.

A mix now of the Crusher  round wooden jibs and Artemis resins.
The later can be rotated to increase/decrease positivity. This one is minimum pos. turn it 90⁰ and it’s a flat edge, turn it 180⁰ and it’s slightly incut.



Oh and I’ve managed to improve my “Crack machine” which took too much chocking to use, in it’s first iteration. The scissor jack connection to the moving bar was too wobbly and so it had to be chocked with an appropriately sized block. Which meant a limit to the sizes it could be set to. That and the jacks were shit for closing it again. So a little stainless work, with a few quids wort of eye bolts, trampoline springs and joining nuts and it’s sorted.





I would like to find a better surface for the inside of the crack, though.
I think the wood is a little too smooth and Coo-Var, too sharp/rough.
I’m toying with a gritted/non slip lino, glued in. Anyone tried this or have a recommendation?

I know this isn’t strictly a home board, but it’s definitely “home made” and it’s amazing how these holds stand up to commercial use, some of those Crusher holds have been on this board for 8/9 years of commercial use.

Edit:

On the subject of foam.
It’s very expensive to buy foam. A crash mat, approximately 8’ x 4’ is less than £300. On our board, I’ve got one of those, behind two 4’ x 4’ 50mm thick gym mats, that cost £30 ea.
You’d be hard put to buy the foam alone at hose prices and whilst, yes, an old foam mattress would do the job, even a King size isn’t quite big enough.
You’d probably spend that sort of money on pads for the crag, too.

[Carl]

[Jealousy-inducing images removed]

I would like to find a better surface for the inside of the crack, though.
I think the wood is a little too smooth and Coo-Var, too sharp/rough.
I’m toying with a gritted/non slip lino, glued in. Anyone tried this or have a recommendation?

Nice setup! For the crack are you taping up/wearing crack gloves, or going barehanded? I found for my crack that  bare hands was pretty savage, and taping up or wearing gloves was a necessity if I wanted the session to last any length of time without pretty much bruising the back of my hands. Can't help with alternative materials I'm afraid though, have only used the wood.

[Oldmanmatt]

[Jealousy-inducing images removed]

I would like to find a better surface for the inside of the crack, though.
I think the wood is a little too smooth and Coo-Var, too sharp/rough.
I’m toying with a gritted/non slip lino, glued in. Anyone tried this or have a recommendation?

Nice setup! For the crack are you taping up/wearing crack gloves, or going barehanded? I found for my crack that  bare hands was pretty savage, and taping up or wearing gloves was a necessity if I wanted the session to last any length of time without pretty much bruising the back of my hands. Can't help with alternative materials I'm afraid though, have only used the wood.

No, bare hand, which is probably daft.
I must see about some gloves, if only for training.
Tapping up sounds waaay to expensive, in the long run.

[remus]

Tapping up sounds waaay to expensive, in the long run.

Usually you'll cut the wrist strap off a tape glove so you can re-use it. Just takes a single wrap around the wrist to fix it back on again for the next session.