Building a free-standing, adjustable climbing wall
It’s day 95 of lockdown here in Sydney and I’m publishing my first blog entry in over two years! Haha, I guess lockdown pushes you to do things you’ve been neglecting to do… or sometimes it can even push you to do new things - like building a climbing wall!
Rock climbing is an activity that I discovered last year, just after we were released from the first lockdown. It’s an activity that, along with many other things (including BTS), helped whip my ass back into shape.
Climbing my DIY climbing wall.
I feel like events in the last five years of my life not only made me spiral into a dark and depressing pit of hell, but it also made me gain so much weight and made me super unfit. I guess that’s what happens when everything in your life falls apart and you feel like you have no purpose to be alive.
But anyways, that’s a blog post for another day. I’m much healthier and happier these days, and I do owe a lot of that to rock climbing. I even lost over 10 kgs since climbing! Yay…
So when we went into another lockdown at the end of June, I knew I was going to struggle without being able to go climbing. Prior to lockdown, I was climbing at least two times a week. It was something that I looked forward to in my routine, especially during stressful days. I could literally just climb the stress away…
Day 50 of lockdown - that’s when I woke up and entertained the idea of building my own outdoor, free-standing climbing wall. I discussed it with my brother… and by day 59 of lockdown, I had ordered all the materials.
Anyways, I’ll let you watch the process of building the wall in this video:
Here’s the pdf document of the blueprint in case anyone else is interested in building their own free-standing, adjustable climbing wall.
Materials:
2 x Structural Plywood - 2400mm x 1200mm x 21mm
1 x Structural Plywood Cut - 670mm x 2400mm and 530mm x 2400mm
7 x Structural Treated Pine - 90mm x 45mm - 3m
8 x Structural Treated Pine - 90mm x 45mm - 2.4m
1 x S Hook Tie Down Ratchet Set - 2 Pack - 25mm x 4.5m
1 x ½” and M12 Zinc Plated Flat Washer - 20 Pack
2 x M12 x 120mm Stainless Steel Hex Head Bolt and Nut
1 x M12 x 65mm Hot Dipped Galvanised Hex Head Bolts and Nuts - 12 Pack
1 x 10 - 8 x 50mm Galvanised Countersunk Rib Head Timber Screws - 500 Pack
1 x 14 - 10 x 75mm Galvanised Bugle Head Type 17 Timber Screws - 50 Pack
1 x UNi-PRO Skeleton Caulking Gun
3 x Liquid Nails 320g
1 x 3L White 3 In 1 Interior And Exterior Primer Undercoat Sealer
1 x 1L Black Low Sheen All Weather Exterior Paint
1 x Folding Saw Horse - 2 Pack
1 x 300mm 2 Piece Quick Action Clamp
1 x Craftright 25 Piece Metric Drill Bit Set
1 x Metolius Residential PU 60 Hold Mega Pack
Drill
Power Saw
Screwdriver
You can tell I’m a huge BTS fan… hehe.
What else is there to say… well, life has drastically changed since my last few blog posts, so maybe I’ll need to do an update. But to be honest, life has been so busy for me that I struggle to find the time to fit everything that I want/need to do into my schedule... But I think it would be nice to start writing blog posts again.
Although, judging by the abysmal writing in this one… maybe not.
Hmm. OK, that’s all for now :)