HOW TO BUILD A FINGERBOARD (WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO CLIMB)

BY NATHEN FITCHEN

Warning: If you want a well-made fingerboard, just go and buy one. The enjoyment comes not only from the use

you get from the fingerboard, but the work put into making it. It isnt for everyone and a professionally made

fingerboard will be a lot better.

These past few weeks I have been staying with my parents on their homestead in Central Brittany, France. It is

lovely here; lots of fields and forests and very few people, but there is one major problem there is nothing to

climb. Ive kept up running and pulling up on the door frame, but I could swiftly feel my finger strength

diminishing. I set my fingers to a new challenge; the creation of a fingerboard.

Fortunately for me, we have a big workshop on the homestead and plenty of tools. However, if a workshop is not

available to you, most of the work can be done with very few tools. Now I am able to keep up my finger strength

and even improve it for when I get back to the walls in December. This post is going to outline how I went about

making my fingerboard and some extra tips (or things I would do the second time round).

Choosing your wood

I didnt have much choice; a plank of pine was about the only good piece of wood lying around. It has worked

pretty well; the wood is soft and easy to work with and has a nice finish. However, because the grain is so

prominent in this wood, it is prone to splitting which made fine chiseling a risky business. Beastmaker use tulip

wood to make their fingerboards, but lets face it, who has tulip wood hanging around. Harder wood like tulip

could be less prone to splitting and have a much nicer finish, but the effort you would have to put into make it

would be lot more. Beastmaker also have a super-efficient machine, which we wont have hanging around either.

"This is the piece of wood I started with. As you can see I have drawn on some lines to get an idea of the size I

need."

When you are choosing your piece of wood you also need to start picturing what you want the end result to look

like. This will determine what kind of length and width you want it to be. I wanted three sets of slopers and a set

of jugs which makes my wood about eight hands long. I also wanted to have some deeper pockets and some

less deep pockets, so with the slopers as well it needs to be about two hands wide. The piece of wood also

needs to be pretty sturdy I went for a piece 10cm in thickness.

The Tools

To get a pretty decent fingerboard you are probably going to have to invest in a few tools, but nothing too

specialized. Here is what I used:

~Saw

~Chisel

~Hammer

~TapeMeasure

~Drill

~32mm,25mm,22mmDrillBits

~GrindingDrillBits

~Pencil

~Ruler

~Sandpaper

~ Wood Glue

These are all pretty basic bits of kit and certainly useful to have around, so it is worth the investment. Make sure

the chisel is sharp, as much of the fine tuning of the holds will be done using this.

Measuring Out the Holds

By now you should have your length of wood which has been cut to allow for 4 different sets of hold. You need to

think about what kinds of holds you want on your fingerboard. If you are no Jan Hojer, youll probably want to

add on some bigger and deeper holds and of course a few harder ones for when you do finally become a beast.

Before you start drilling pockets in and sawing some slopes, it is vital that you work out the exact positions of all

of your holds and what angles they need to be at (in the case of the slopers). This is important for two reasons;

you do not want to mess up the fingerboard by putting holds too close to each other and the whole thing falling

apart and you also do not want to have different holds on each side of your board. The latter could lead to

uneven training and also injury.

"Here are my measurements (I drilled/cut off the hashed out bits) and a vague idea for jugs and pinches on the

edges. For the slopers I followed the beastmaker style of 45, 35 and 25 degrees. Also here you can see the

32mm and 25mm drill bits."

The slopers, jugs and pinches

These parts all require a bit of handy work with the saw and chisel. I started off with the slopers. Firstly, I cut the

angles as I had marked out

to make sure the grain would not split any further than I wanted it to. Once that is done its just a matter of

chipping out the wood until you get a nice smooth slope. I wont lie and say its easy; just take it slow and dont

dig in too deep. Mine sadly ended up with a few deep nicks in it which I didnt want. Once that is done you

should have three different sets of slopes and some blocks on the out edges of your boards. It takes a bit more

chisel work to turn these blocks into jugs, but by now you will have the hang of it!

"If you look closely you can see the little nicks I created by digging too deep with my chisel. This is the basic

outline for the slopes and jugs."

Finally, the pinches; these were a bit tricky. I had planned to have curved edges to the board and use the inner

pockets to form a variety of pinches. Sawing out a nice curve is just unrealistic though and I ended up with V

shapes instead it works actually works better I think. I did this right at the end because I wanted to get on with

the pocket, but Id suggest doing it first if you are going to mess up, it is likely going to be doing this.

The pockets

This is the simple bit and probably most enjoyable, as it all of a sudden starts to look like a real fingerboard! You

should have marked out where you want each hole to go and for bigger holes thought about how these holes will

link together. Make sure you make a dot at the centre of each hole to act as a guide for the drill bit, otherwise

you might end up drilling at an odd angle. Then off you go, drill all the holes and make sure that the depths are

the same on each side of the board. For the larger pockets, you are going to need to knock through with the

chisel, but in no time at all you will have your fingerboard in its rough form.

Congratulations!

"This is what mine looked like at this point. Now just some finishing touches."

Finishing it off

It should be pretty much usable now, but depending on the wood the holes might be pretty rough inside and the

slopers might be too slippery to hang on. Pine causes both of these problems. The grinding bits for the drill are

perfect for getting into the holes and smoothing the inside edges. This is going to make it a much more enjoyable

piece of equipment to use, but when was training ever enjoyable right? Make sure you are grinding with the

grain, otherwise you will not get a smooth finish. If things arent getting smoother, switch the drill motor to spin in

the opposite direction.

As for the slippery slopers, I decided to glue some sandpaper to them to add some grip. Any strong wood glue

should do the job, but once again just make sure youve measured it all out properly. I also sanded down the

front and sides to get rid of all the nasty edges and pencil marks. This takes the most time of all and is really just

a matter of how nice you want it to look. I then finished mine off with a lick of varnish, but this is not important.

"The final product! Not bad for a few days work."

HOW TO BUILD A FINGERBOARD (WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO CLIMB)BY NATHEN FITCHEN