One of the advantages of relocating to rural shitsville (possibly apart from being able to go swimming butt-naked in total privacy whenever it takes your fancy), is the ability to take full use of the spaces afforded for purposes that would have been difficult to do in the middle of an urban setting. Friday night I decided to break the monotony of country-living and realise a childhood dream all in one fell swoop: I'm going to build my very own miniramp in one of the many barns scattered around my family's farm. I used to be an avid skateboarder in my teens and early twenties before London, drugs and partying took over. Since having moved out of the City of Filth to a 100% contrasting setting in hickstown, southern Sweden, I've had to fill my evenings and weekends with something other than fishing and moose counting. Luckily I brought my old deck with me, hence the plan and desire to start skating again.
Once a skater, always a skater as they say.
So, following some hard-fought negotiations with the family, I have been granted permission to build an indoor mini ramp in a suitably sized barn next to the main house. I will try to document its progress in this blog over the course of the next few weeks (well, ambitiously I am aiming to have it finished by the end of next weekend, but let's see, eh? As I am the only person working on it and I have no prior experience in the field, it might take longer than that).
I spent Friday night scouring t'internet looking for diagrams and how-too's, and I must admit it was more difficult at first than I had imagined. Ramp Plans Dot Org is a good starting point, but it contains no actual plans (not useful - trade descriptions fuck-up if you ask me) and many of the links are dead (not useful either). After a somewhat confusing browsing session, however, I came across and settled for plans provided by the following two websites:
Rick Dahlen's Mini Ramp
(has a great downloadable PDF with decent diagrams and a walk-through)
Pukeboy's Mini Ramp Plans
(confusing and cheap looking website, but once successfully navigated, extremely useful. Has some cool pics of the final product, too. Not too hot on diagrams, but well-explained)
As Rick Dahlen's ramp plans are loosely based on those provided by Pukeboy, I decided to make my ramp based on a bastardization of the two. The beauty of the plans provided on the two sites mentioned is that the ramp construction uses standard size wood, both lumber and plywood, which makes the process easier and quicker.
(I will go into the various techniques as and when they crop up in my construction over the next week or two.)
So, Day Zero of my ramp construction, I came up with the following rough outline, based on space restrictions in the barn (see below), and my liberal adaptation of the dimensions of the Dahlen/Pukeboy beast:
Total length: 6.5 m / 21'(ish)
Transition: 1.99m / 6.5' (supposedly quite mellow, perfect for 3' height)
Height: 0.91m / 3' (ish)
Width: 2.1 - 2.4m / 7' - 8' (not decided yet, space issues. Might be as wide as 10')
Flat: 1.8m / 6'
Platform width: 0.60 - 0.8 m / 2' - 2.5' (again, space issues, will decide once transition and flat is up)
Surface: either one or two layers of 1/2" plywood, covered by one layer of Masonite
Coping: yet to purchase, PVC is easier to work with, iron lasts longer... depending on availability etc.
I'm going to construct sideboard/frames first (draw and cut out gradient etc), then flat section. Planning to soak surface plywood in lake over night to enable it to bend properly (best method, apparently).
This is where I intend to fit the ramp:
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