Bouldering wall book nook (process)
First I did a little bit of maths to help keep things to scale: an indoor bouldering wall is sometimes ~4m high, I want my book nook to be about 20cm high to fit comfortably among books on a book shelf. So I’ve worked out that 1.5-2m tall people using a 4m high wall would need to shrink down to 7.5-10cm for a 20cm high wall, and climbing holds that are, say, 5-50cm long should be 0.25-2.5cm for my book nook. Having worked this out I then started making my climbing holds.
I tore off some little pieces of polymer clay in various colours, shaped them roughly and textured them with a toothbrush, and pushed a little hole in each where the bolt would go.
I then brushed some of them with powder scraped off coloured pastels to act as chalk and grime, and then baked them.
I thought using little beads or something would be nice for the bolts but I didn’t plan for that so I just painted in the divots I’d made with metallic chromey paint with a tiny paintbrush.
The walls for the box itself I made from thin bits of wood which I (poorly) cut to size. With better tools this would have gone better. Bouldering walls are usually slightly textured so I replicated that by painting sandpaper with watered-down acrylic paint. I found it hard to get a clean line between the colours on one sheet as they’d bleed together.
So I glued the sandpaper onto the wood sheets, and then glued the climbing holds onto the sandpaper. I tried to place them in a way that could replicate actual bouldering routes.
The base is again made of that wood. The mat is made of a car washing sponge cut to size, and then covered in a sheet of foam and glued in place.
I then glued the box together. With better planning these would be attached together better. I painted a wooden skewer and cut to size on the top of the box to suspend the light and rings, and help keep the box together.
The gymnastics rings I made by painting a couple of small rubber O-rings a woodish brown (my attempt to make them out of balsa wood didn’t go well), and the straps for them are a bit of string I painted black (a narrow ribbon would have worked better for this but I didn’t want to go and buy stuff). Then they just got glued in place.
I got a little 3v LED which I connected to the battery pack with some very dodgy heat shrinking. That then got glued in place. With Better Planning, I would have hidden the wire at the back of the box somewhere, but I was late getting the LED and had already assembled the rest of it. I tried making a little lampshade out of sanded cellophane but decided not to use it in the end.
I glued that in place, and then I was done!
So final thoughts: Usual lack of planning. Initially I liked the idea of it hinged to open out and to have the holds magnetic or on push pins or something so they could be moved. Eventually I decided this was too ambitious for getting it done in a reasonable timeframe. I also lost track of the scale at various points.
If I was making it again I’d do the box better (probably buy a box), maybe make the back wall overhanging or something I think would look cool.
I think some of the holds in particular came out really cute. The mat and the textured walls worked quite well as well I think. And while the LED is not neatly done it’s only my second attempt, and first outside of a kit, so I’m still proud of it and using electronics makes the whole thing look better I think.
