DIY Hangboard (for climbers)

Introduction

My youngest son is an avid climber and boulderer and he wanted a hangboard in his room to strengthen is arm, hands and fingers etc. I had a lot of wood left from previous projects so I used some of it to build the hangboard. After searching the internet and seeing a lot of examples we came up with the drawing below.

My son using his newly acquired hangboard for training.

Simple hangboard design.

The backplate and frontplate are made of 12 mm (1/2") plywood while the beams and support beams are made of 30mm (1 1/4") scaffolding wood. The rails are of pine wood of various thickness, 1 1/4" being the thickest and 18mm (3/4") the thinnest. The support beams strengthen the construction considerably.

Parts list

Here are the parts that are needed for this build.
1 x backplate 90 x 61 cm (3' x 2') plywood (12mm or 1/2")
1 x frontplate 90 x 31 cm (3' x 1') plywood (12mm or 1/2")
2 x beam 30 x 19 cm (12"x 7.5") scaffolding wood (30mm or 1 1/4")
2 x support beam 41.5 x 6.2 cm (14" x 2") scaffolding wood (30mm or 1 1/4")
2 x rails 90 x 5 cm (3' x 2") pinewood of various thickness
8 x carriage bolts 6mm (1/2")
8 x wingnut 6mm (1/2")
4 x lag screws 7 x 60mm (5/16" x 2.5")
4 x wall plug fisher 10 mm (3/8")
18 x twinfast screw 4.5 x 40mm (3/16" x 1 1/2")

Building the board

Building the board is straight forward. First I'd cut the plywood to the plates with the size indicated above. Next I'd cut the scaffolding wood for the beams. I used a simple Dremel DSM20 for this but any circular saw will do. Lastly I'd cut the pinewood beams. I used a router to make a radius on one side of the beams. This radius ensures that the beams are easier on the hands.

With all the pieces cut, I drilled the holes in the backplate, frontplate and rails. Next I assembled all the parts. Starting with the backplate and the beams. I used a 3mm drill before fastening the beams and the plywood with the twinfast screws. This avoids that the wood splits open. The beam and supportbeam were fastened with a single twinfast screw. Next I fastened the frontplate to the beams again using twinfast screws. To finish the hangboard I fastened the beams to the frontplate using the carriage bolts and wingnuts. Lastly I applied a transparent oil to the hangboard to provide protection It's more pleasing to look at too.

Fastening the hangboard to the wall may differ from situation to situation but since we have concrete walls I used four large wall plugs (Fisher brand). The board was then attached to the wall using the lag screws with washers to protect the wood.

Assembling the hangboard. Clamps of various size are very useful in situations like this.

The finished hangboard attached to concrete wall with four large wall plugs, lag screws and washers.

Inside view of the hangboard. By removing four wingnuts the beams can be exchanged for smaller of wider ones.

Detailed view of the lag screw and washer on the plywood backplate.

Conclusion

The hangboard proves to be strong enough for my son (he weights approximately 65kg). I tried it myself (I'm 90kg) but my fingers just aren't strong enough to keep my weight. Nevertheless I'm confident that the construction is more than enough to keep a weight well over 65kg. As for esthetics the board looks pretty good (for a hangboard that is).
 

Peddle wheel boat (3D printed)

Important

This blog post has been reposted and updated on my current blog: https://homehack.nl/peddle-wheel-boat-3d-printed/. The files are also available on Printables here: https://www.printables.com/model/286241-peddle-wheel-boat

Introduction

At the moment I'm making 3D design and 3D printing lessons for schools. A good idea that I'm exploring is the Paddle Wheel Boat. I found an example on Thingiverse, a rubber band powered boat with two peddle wheels, but it has two problems. First of all the author only provides .stl files and second the design is a bit flawed. I therefore decided to design the boat from the ground up with OpenSCAD. With OpenSCAD I'm not only able to edit my models quickly, I'm also able to share the OpenSCAD script allowing other to use and change it.

Assembled Paddle Wheel Boat.

Paddle Wheel Boat

The Paddle Wheel Boat that I created consists of four parts: the boat, the shaft and two peddles. The main change of the boat that I designed is the position of the shaft. It's been shifted to the middle of the boat providing more balance. I also enforced the attachment point of the rubber band to the boat making it impossible to break it.

The redesigned Paddle Wheel Boat with shifted positon of the shaft and enforced attachment point for the rubber band.

I also increased the size of the paddles enabling the boat to move faster. The shape of the paddles are rounded instead of square improving the dynamics of the paddles through the water. A problem with the old design is that the rubber band has to be fixed to the shaft with some tape. Not a very elegant solution. I added a square hole to the design of the shaft. The rubber band can be inserted through the hole and fixed to the shaft. No tape needed.

Simple square hole in the shaft. The rubber band fits right through the hole making it easy to fix it to the shaft.

Changes to the models are easily made. The OpenSCAD script is simple and the result of a change can be reviewed immediatly by pressing F5. E.g to move the shaft to the back of the boat can be achieved by just one simple change in the script.

Peddle wheel loaded in Cura 2.3.1.

Just four parts, the boat, shaft and two peddles, are needed to make the boat. If you don't want to make changes to the design just download the provided .stl files and open them in your favorite slicer. After printing the Peddle wheel boat can be assembled and tested. Have fun.

All printed parts plus the rubber band.