With the quality and variety of commercially made holds, and with the versatility offered by the single-bolt, modular systems that allow spinning and switching the holds, anything you manufacture yourself will probably be inferior.

	Don Mellor Don Mellor Don Mellor has been climbing, writing about climbing, and teaching climbing for more than 25 years. Meet Don Expert Answers

Still, I'm a cheapskate too and I enjoy tinkering, so I have some experience. Moreover, we started our climbing wall here many years before I had ever even heard of a climbing wall, much less envisioned commercially available handholds. We built our wall simply because the winters in the Adirondacks are so darn long.

The simplest holds are blocks of wood. Take a board, set your power-saw blade angle steeply, and randomly cut a series of four-inch pieces. The angled blade will give you a choice of sloper or incut holds, and even more variety if you alternate the angle of the cut, giving you all kinds of shapes. Screw them to the wall with sheet-rock screws and you are off.

Cleverer, however, is the bondo special. Lay a gob of fiberglass car-body filler on a piece of wax paper, sort of like an over-sized chocolate chip cookie, and slide in a piece of real rock. Make sure the rock is well exposed on the top, with the bondo enveloping it like a pita sandwich, leaving at least an inch on three sides of the rock for screwing. Use a popsicle stick to fully coat the bottom half of the rock so that it's held solidly in place.

If you want a more rock-like feel to the bondo, dump sand onto the hold as it is hardening. This will eliminate the normally shiny surface of the fiberglass goop.

When the bondo hardens (only five minutes if you use excessive hardener in the mix), screw the hold to the wall with sheet rock screws and a power drill. Pre-drilling isn't necessary. You won't be able to spin or move the hold easily, but you'll be climbing on real rock, having invested about fifty cents and ten minutes per hold.

—Don

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