Preventing Splinters on Old Wooden Swing Sets

Our swing set is old, I mean really OLD. We got it used from my hairdresser six or seven years ago and her children had outgrown it years before that. So it has seen lots of use and abuse. The bars above the slide and the rungs for climbing were beginning to get a little rough.

I sanded them at first, and that lasted a little while, but then we began to see more splinters again. The set was still in sound shape and I hated to discard it when my boys still enjoy it. So I wrapped the rungs with electrical tape and it has worked very nicely! I wondered if the tape would hold up to the amount of boy traffic they would see, but it has been two years, and the tape is still working nicely!

The fun things is, electrical tape comes in all different colors, so you could pick whatever bright colors you like to dress up your swing set. We just happen to like the natural look, and using plain old black lets it blend into the yard and woods.