cat - Recycled car tire rubber for climbing material

Well...

I made a standard wraparound version of the recycled car tire rubber
climbing post and apparently it's working great. Being 1/4 inch thick,
it's difficult to work with. In fact, the hot melt glue did not stay
stuck on one side. But there is an easier method, just use screws. First
I clamped on both sides of the screw point, then drilled a pilot hole
down through the rubber and the wood, and then drove the screw through
both. I believe the car tire rubber is rip proof so the screws will
hold.

My rambunctious Norwegian Forest calico just hit the newly covered
climbing post on the fly (from the reverse direction of climbing). It
clearly looked like the cat took advantage of the climbing post's better
wrapping.

Judging by the damage they did to the old covering (with no evidence of
shedding onto the floor), 1/4 inch isn't necessary. A maximum of 3/16
thick recycled car tire rubber will do. Even 1/8 inch thick might do and
would be much easier to handle (besides being much cheaper).

--

I wrote:

We been using recycled car tire rubber 1/4 inch thick mat since March
2015. It works very well for climbing and it doesn't shed onto the
floor.

It was cut in strips and hot melt glued to 1x4s with about 1/2 inch
hanging over each side.

They have some trouble climbing down, like cats do on most any
material, but it can probably be made easier. I will plan to buy
enough so that it can be wrapped around the sides of the board. Then
either stapled or glued onto the back. That will probably give them a
lot more to sink their claws into than just trying to grab onto the
edge of the mat while descending.

I might have enough recycled car tire rubber mat left to experiment
with that idea.

Might be nice to purchase a tube of such material that would snugly
slide onto a 1 x 4 or 2 x 4. No work required except cutting it to
length. But oh well.