Build
DIY climbing wall materials in the UK
2440 by 1220 mm plywood, why 18 mm comes up so often, M10 T-nuts, and what the frame is for. Prices stay yours.
A home wall is a timber frame, a plywood skin, a grid of T-nuts, bolts and holds, and a mat. Everything else is optional. This page is the materials list a UK builder's merchant will recognise. It is not a structural specification. Centres, bolt sizes into the wall, and whether your floor can take a freestanding frame are decisions for a competent person once they have seen the room.
The sheet
Structural plywood in the UK is sold in sheets of 2440 × 1220 mm. That is the number to plan with. The fit planner counts whole sheets in either orientation. A 244 cm wide panel is one sheet across. The length along the slope is almost always more than 1220 mm, so you are joining courses and the joint needs a stud behind it.
Thickness is the next argument. Moon's DIY kit describes the kickboard panels as 18 mm birch plywood. An M10 T-nut of the sort linked below is 13 mm deep, so an 18 mm sheet leaves some timber behind the flange when the nut is drawn in from the back. Thinner sheet can leave the nut short of wood or proud of the back. Thicker sheet, including the 24 mm panels some adjustable-wall makers advertise, is a different product with a different frame.
18 mm is a common skin. It is not a guarantee the panel will feel solid. A sheet spanning a wide bay will flex however thick the stamp looks. The frame spacing is what stops that, and the spacing belongs to the person designing the frame for your angle and your span.
The stamp also carries a use class. Garages, sheds and unheated rooms are humid. Use a sheet the maker rates for those conditions. Plankley is the sister site if you want the sheet arithmetic, cutting lists and fixing counts worked as timber maths rather than climbing folklore.
The frame
The frame does two jobs. It holds the plywood at the angle you chose, and it takes the pull of an overhang back into a wall or a floor that can accept it. A conversation with a builder often starts with CLS studs, fixed to masonry or built as a freestanding A-frame. The section and the centres are the output of that conversation, not an input from a blog.
Do not screw the skin to the shed's cladding or to plasterboard and call it framed. The fixings page is the boundary between a finish and a structure.
T-nuts and bolts
UK holds and Moon's metric kits use M10 bolts. A hold drilled for 3/8 inch is a different thread. A children's set that arrives with M8 bolts is a different product again. Match the nut to the hold before you drill a hundred holes.
One real UK listing for this job is the ALPIDEX pack of 100 zinc-plated M10 T-nuts, 13 mm deep, with four prongs. The maker's installation note says to drill a 12 mm hole from the back, and not to take the bolt past 30 Nm. They also describe a 10 cm grid or a 15 cm grid, with alternate rows offset. That is their suggestion for a free wall. A Moon, Kilter or Tension layout uses the pattern in the maker's drawing, which will not match a homemade 200 mm grid. The grid page is how the count works either way.
Bolts are sold by length. The right length reaches through the hold and into the nut, and clamps the hold before the bolt bottoms out. The hold maker's bolt is the one that fits that hold. A universal "50 mm bolt" is how people strip threads.
What this list leaves out
Paint or a texture coat, screws from the plywood into the frame, the anchors into the building, chalk, and the mat. The mat is not a finishing touch. Price it with the timber, using the area from the planner and a price you have actually seen. The planner will multiply sheet, T-nut, hold and mat prices you type. It will not invent a "typical UK wall costs £X" line, because that number would be ours, and it would be wrong by the time you reached the merchant.