Building a Climbing Wall

I spent a couple of weeks during a summer in Rochester rebuilding an unsafe aging climbing wall with two of my coworkers at the climbing gym. The gym is located in a dairy barn that’s over 100 years old, but the walls themselves are only about 5-30 years old, depending on the section. The panels were deflecting several inches when people hung on them and the wood was beginning to splinter. After taking off all of the panels, it was clear that the entire structure supporting the wall would also have to be replaced, not just the panels.

After taking down and discarding all previous panels and structure, we got to work on rebuilding the frame. A similar design was used, with a couple of small changes in the angle of the wall. At this point we also contacted the manager of a local climbing gym who has built several climbing walls. He provided a lot of insight at this stage for how to safely construct the supporting structure. With his help constructing the frame, we were ready to start making the panels.

We had about 575 ft² of wall to cover and we spent several weeks cutting, sanding, and applying two coats of clear coat the panels. Each panel had a unique shape to accommodate the geometry of the wall and ensure a good fit. Additionally, each panel needed several dozen T-nuts installed to attach climbing holds to the wall. This was by far the longest and most labor intensive part of the project.

With a couple of finishing touches to remove sharp corners, we began assembling the wall. After a few slight tweaks in the panel geometry, we finished just in time for the start of the fall semester.