How do I make a glue-up? / How do I glue holds to concrete? [back to top] [FAQ contents]

From: Mad Dog

First off, you might get busted. Or you might put in a ton of work only to have your gym discovered and eliminated by the cops. Or some punks might trash it.

I you still want to do it, here's some advice from an experienced law breaker ( I didn't say it was me):

1) The surface (cement, I assume) that you are glueing to must be clean. Take a scrub brush and a bucket of water and clean it well. If it is painted cement, don't be surprised if your holds pop off.

2) Likewise, if you plan to use real rock as holds, clean them well. Put them in a milk crate and go to a car wash. Just use water - no soap.

3) Let the holds and the wall dry completely.

4) I recommend epoxy as the adhesive. The kind you find in a hardware store will work but if you go to a boat shop, you might find a better product. Shell Epon or Dow DER-330 will work very well.

5) If you decide to add lead bolts, realize that the authorities usually treat such behavior in a more aggressive manor than glueing holds on a wall. If you are sneaky, you can glue holds on without getting caught. Drilling holes is slow and loud. I wouldn't recommend it.

6) Many cities just glop on a big dose of slick paint over the top of your holds.

From: Tim Marsh

For similar reasons, avoid the temptation to chip divots for footholds. And make sure you have a spotter until you are very sure of how well the glue has bonded.

For what it's worth, the same 2-part epoxies as are used for placing glue-in bolts are pretty good for this as well, though pricey. Hilti and Rawl both make some nice glues that are actually designed for sticking things to concrete. The styrene based ones smell 'orrible though.

From: Ed Esmond

PC-7 (available at all fine hardware stores)... works well. Make sure the wall and holds are very clean and free of paint. You may need to use duct tape (when all else fails...so will the duct tape) to keep the holds attached to the wall until the glue cures. There are other glues, (Ramset, Hilti) which use a special caulking gun and nozzles that may work better, but they are a lot more expensive.

From: Chris Wegener

We also used the PC-7 epoxy (originally formulated to hold bots dots to the freeways.) and had no trouble with it. As suggested using regular rocks apply the epoxy and duct tape the hold to the wall. It cures overnight and the hold becomes part of the wall. The only failures we experienced was occasionally the rocks themselves would break. In my experience the epoxy never failed. To make areas to smear on the slick concrete walls put a thin layer of epoxy on the cement and then toss sand onto it.

In California you need to keep a low profile as Caltrans is very cranky about people doing this sort of thing to their handiwork.

What ever you do do not chip holds or drill holds into the concrete. If the rebar becomes exposed it will rust causing a substantial reduction in strength the wall as a whole.

How can I turn a tree into a climbing wall? [back to top] [FAQ contents]

From: Jim Bowers

Petrogrips has a book and video on building climbing walls that are very useful. They both have a section on using trees as climbing walls. In essense, it's not bad for a tree to screw a few lag bolts in them.

From: Wade Lippman

Soak everything that goes into the tree in clorox before use, to avoid infection. (no, I am not kidding.) Just be aware that the tree will grow over anything small you attach to it in a couple years. I suppose you could remove everything and reattach it yearly, but that might be abusive.

From: John Laughlin

Your time would be much better spent building a structure on which you can do some real training.

Consider:

* You'll likely damage and possibly kill the tree.

* You'll quickly become bored with the limited and fixed climbing surface which will mostly be vertical.

* You'll quickly be wishing you could rearrange the holds.

From: Scott Erdman

Why not just build a small wall around the tree, using it to help stabilize the wall at the base and top. You could make something like an upside-down pyramid with some of the top (bottom of wall) cut off to make more trapezoidal sides. You'll want the thing to overhang some anyway which I doubt the tree does much. Could even make the top a deck/treehouse kind of platform if you have kids and use the inside for storage.

From: John Wagner

I have an old silver maple in the back yard that died, leaving a trunk that is three feet in diameter at the base. I cut the top off and left a stump that is twenty feet tall. I scraped all the bark off, sanded down the bumps, and installed anchors at the top. There is enough room around the trunk to have four totaly independant lines, and many others can be routed by selecting from two or more routes.

And there are even natural features! There are depressions under major limb stumps that will take a hand jam.

I left one major limb (at least a foot at the base), it goes up at about a 50 degree angle for 15 feet or so. This will be the overhang route, with clip points along the way so it can be lead.

From: Johb Wagner

I posted a short description of my dead tree converted into a climbing wall last year. Some people asked for pictures and construction info, so I finally got some together. Surf to

The Dead Tree Climbing Society

From: Duncan Thomson

One word: Termites

From: Tom the Tree Guy

As time goes by the silver maple will start do decay from the various roguish fungiis that are chowing down on that huge stick of candy that you have left them. There are scientific tools available that can graph and measure the decay in trees. With some training, a wooden mallet can be used as a pretty reliable decay sounder too. Like melons, trees ring with a certain sound when they are solid and another sound when they are decayed. Unfortunately, that is something that cannot be learned on the web.

If you EVER see mushrooms, either shelf or toadstools growing on the tree, it is past time to stop climbing. When conditions have decayed enough on the inside to support the various fungiis that show up like that, the tree has advanced decay and becomes a HIGH RISK tree. Now it is time to call in a crane to take the tree down because it might not be safe to put a climber in to rig out.

From: Ken Cline

One word of advice: waterseal. Works for us.

From: Nathan Sweet

You are asking the wrong people. There is a message board at:

Treeclimbing.com

There are many tree surgeons there, as well as recreational treeclimbers. They would be better suited to answer your question.

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