Building a cheap setup for practicing placements

I'm thinking of building a small (a couple feet by a couple feet) setup to practice setting trad gear so I can size up placements more efficiently and get a better feel for what works best and where. As a beginner, I understand that the best way to do so is to follow good leaders, practice setting from the ground, practice on easier terrain, and so on, but it's winter and I think it could be a fun and convenient project.

My current thought is to build a wooden frame containing a variety of other wood pieces, with spaces between working as parallel or tapering "cracks" and maybe drilling some pockets/holes as well, but I'm definitely open to other options and would love to hear other ideas, suggestions, or potential risks.

If there's already a thread similar to this one I haven't found it but would be glad to follow a link.

Placing pro from the ground on local crack climbs would probably give you a better idea of "real" placements. You can even bounce test them safely.

I hear you. I remember getting my 2nd cam for christmas and trying to place it in a stone wall.

I think your time would be better spent going to the nearest piece of real rock and messing around with your gear. Bring a sling or two and try standing on the gear you place to see how it holds.

Don't waste your time or money. Spend that time and money getting to your local crag and just start plugging gear. Grab an aider or long sling and place gear and stand in it to see if it holds. Place gear in every imaginable way and even ways you can't ever imaging using it and bounce test it. You will soon learn what holds, what doesn't. BTW don't bounce test if your local crag is soft rock, find some out of the way cracks that don't get much traffic and go nuts.

John Ryter wrote: My current thought is to build a wooden frame containing a variety of other wood pieces, with spaces between working as parallel or tapering "cracks" and maybe drilling some pockets/holes as well, but I'm definitely open to other options and would love to hear other ideas, suggestions, or potential risks. If there's already a thread similar to this one I haven't found it but would be glad to follow a link.

I can't find where I posted it, but last summer I made a wooden box with a variable crack (I dubbed it the "Crack-in-a-box") for newbies to try out different jams. With the wood spacers I have, it can go from tight tips to hand stacks. There's no reason you couldn't set this on a bookshelf and practice selecting cams by feel. The grey things are pavers from Home Depot. They're available in various sizes; mine are 7x7".



EDIT - found the post:
mountainproject.com/v/crack…

I understand your excitement but looking at perfect crack you built won't teach you how to read rock and place gear. If you can't get to a crag your time would be better spent gauging your rack to your jamb size. Shadows and light can sometimes make a placement look larger or smaller than it actually is. Being familiar with what piece matches thin fingers or solid hands for you can be very beneficial.

If you don't have any natural rock nearby, try getting creative. When I get desperate to plug some gear, I'll look for cracks in the road, retaining walls, etc around the city. I've thought about making something like that before, but the trouble is that you'll probably blow through the placement options for whatever you make pretty quickly, plus you'll be tailoring the designs to be usable for placements, which is unnatural. Walking around, even in a city looking for cracks in asphalt or concrete, forces you to read the rock and adapt your pro to fit it, rather than the reverse, which is a poor substitute.

What Gunkie described is the best thing you can do from home...I used a wood clamp ($10 from Home Depot) to practice my jam/pro sizing. When the snow thawed and I got back outside, being able to shove my hand in a crack and figure out what size cam to grab was VERY helpful.

I'm also just starting out amd I found that I'm driving around with nuts, cams, hexes and some slings. Place some gear, clip on sling and hang out as I'm placing various gear while I'm slung on. Just a couple feet off the ground so if it goes bad I'm not gunna die. Good confidence booster when nothing moves and it goes as planned.

With a setup like that and some practice, you will get very good at selecting cam by hand jam size quickly. The trouble is that it will not do anything for the other, I dunno, say 65-70% of placements you will need to make once you get out on real rock. Its not all splitter out there. You will need to practice placements in flares, pockets, and a huge variety of other variable situations for which there is no indoor substitute. Save your time and money and head for the crag. No better way.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, and I'm enjoying the concept of the crack-in-a-box - great name. I'll definitely spend some time hanging on my gear once the snow melts as well!

I don't think you can build anything that will help much with nut placements---you have to go out into the real world to get any practice of value. But cams are a different story. I think the best option is a cheap woodworking vise (~$20), which will give you a range from 0" to 6" or so.

It's not that hard... You don't need much practice with the mechanics of how a cam works. It's climbing above gear that takes some repetition before comfort arrives!

To your whole winter note. It's cold, so what. Put on a jacket, go anyway, and then nobody will be there to watch you fumble with your wires.