Lattice Training, which keeps what it calls the biggest finger-strength dataset around, builds its assessments on a 20 millimeter edge, the depth most commonly used for testing. White Gorge’s board is that depth and nothing else.
White Gorge Designs makes it from a single plate of 1/8 inch 304 stainless steel. It weighs about 0.2 pounds and costs $60. There are no pockets and no pegboard, and you supply the frame yourself. It’s Silver on the index.
What the grip is made of
Lattice says the biggest uncontrolled variable in hangboarding is how much friction your skin generates. That is why its own edge has a large radius, to take away the extra friction that folding skin over a sharp corner would give, which makes the hang easier and skews the test.
Lattice’s Triple Rung is wood, handmade in the UK from tulip wood, and the company says wood is kinder to skin than plastic or resin. It also varies board to board. One customer complained that a newer board was softer and lower in friction than an older one, and Lattice replied that grain differs from piece to piece and that boards pick up moisture and chalk as they age.
Resin is the other route. Gym climbing holds are polyurethane or polyester resin, and sand mixed into the resin gives them their texture. I found no source on how resin hangboards wear, so I’ll leave that at what the page says about holds.
The steel board takes neither route. The maker says the stainless is textured with a heavy grit sand blast, so the surface is the metal. No tape, paint or coating sits on it to peel. The hand-polished edges are bare steel, and the maker expects the board to develop a patina.
What Silver means here
Nothing in the board itself is plastic, so there is no component left to argue about. The box is the one gap: the maker says the packaging is 100% recyclable paper and cardboard and says nothing about the tape or labels. If that tape is plastic, the board isn’t Gold. Everything here comes from the maker’s own page, with no second source.
That makes it an easy board to describe and a short one to check. You can see the whole object in a photo. A wood board with an oil finish or a resin board with a textured skin would take a longer list of questions, and the answers would depend on the maker’s willingness to give them.
What I can’t tell you
How it feels. The only source is the maker’s own page, and I found no owner reports or friction comparisons. Sandblasted steel against skin is a different thing from tulip wood against skin, and a surface that suits one person can shred another. Steel also gets cold, which matters if you train in a garage in January.
The loading pin you hang it from isn’t included and isn’t covered here, so check what yours is made of before you bolt it up.
Who it’s for
White Gorge makes it in the USA. At about 0.2 pounds it travels in a pocket, which suits someone who already has a frame, a beam or a loading pin and wants one honest edge for testing or warming up. It doesn’t suit someone who wants pockets, slopers or a progression of depths on one board, because it has exactly one depth, 20 millimeters. If you want variety, a wood board is the other route, and the questions about its finish come with it.
The pinch block
White Gorge also makes a 3 inch pinch block in the same steel, 3 by 3.75 by 4.75 inches and tapered, with the texture etched into the metal. It hangs from a loading pin or a cable machine, and carries the same finish and the same tier.
Where the plastic usually hides
A hangboard has only a surface to worry about, and a surface can be the material itself. Wood can be oiled or lacquered, and the lacquer is what to ask the maker about. A resin board is plastic all the way through.
The maker says it will last a lifetime. A plate with no coating has nothing to wear off, which makes that easy to believe.