The Rainbow was the first major project and one of the most creative to date. As I was still somewhat new to building things I had to learn a lot with this one. Somehow we were able to get some raw color pigments from the paint department at Home Depot and we mixed our own colors from scratch:
The colored boards are made of redwood for longevity and they needed to be sanded so that the paint would adhere as well as possible:
After sanding the boards were prepped for painting. Here’s a look at the workshop in the garage at that time:
Painting the boards was a challenging task because of the precision required and the number of coats. We used Glidden Porch & Floor paint with a friction additive:
Here’s Janel painting some of the small blocks:
In addition to the main redwood boards we painted some douglas fir 2x8s silver for the bouldering holds:
Everything had to be cut and drilled with meticulous accuracy in order for assembly to go smoothly. I learned to use my new DeWalt miter saw and a Skil drill press:
Here are all of the boards ready for assembly:
The assembly day was pretty scary. I thought for sure there would be major issues I’d have to deal with, but as it turned out a mallet was all that was needed to get it all together correctly:
Here’s a photo halfway through the assembly:
Here it is fully assembled:
After assembly we put the first few climbing holds on and we had our own home climbing wall! Yay!
