Thanks for all the help, much appreciated.
cambournepete":18fw385g said:
Pressure treated pine can contain nasty chemicals you probably don't want your children grabbing hold of.
Oh, I hadn't thought of that
Pressumably the timber merchant should be able to give me some details about whether their product is safe?
Steel City Man":18fw385g said:
A lot of the climbing frames you buy are made with (Chinese) Cedar due to its natural weather resistance. Soft as anything though.
The ones I'm looking at (jungle gym) seem to use treated softwood.
I was going to make one a while back, but after researching the costs involved, it worked out cheaper to get one flat packed
There are some decent value climbing frames available, but I could still build one a fair bit cheaper if the wood is ok to use. But like you say, it's about the flexibility (of the design, not the structure
). The space I have for the frame is triangular with many limitations (like overlooking neighbours), so if the wood is ok, it would make sense form me to built it myself.
An option would be to use pressure treated planed wood, but paint it with a good quality exterior gloss/satin, perhaps sprinkled with sand where appropriate to provide additional grip.
I want to avoid painting it, because I don't want to have to repaint it every couple of years to stop it looking shabby. I plan to put climbing frame handles on it where necessary for grip.