50 sheets and ready 10/22-25

This week was all about getting the ramp ready for plywood. I got pretty sick on Tuesday so no work there. I was actually out there trying to do some work but the world was spinning and my breakfast kept flying out of my mouth. Not too fun!! But I am feeling way better now!

Thursday was spent doubling up the flat and getting more of the odds and ends tied up. Friday was very busy - had a Doc apt and then looked at an apartment which I took by the way!! Oh yes! Independence once again!



Friday afternoon, I went to pick up 40 sheets of 3/8" for the first two layers of the ramp. I had 10 already so I hope this will be enough. Most of those 10 are odd sheets though? I guess MR Karate used all the good and true 4' x 8' sheets to build the bank at the carwash?



Just as I arrived, a total down pour was in full form. I was so pissed that I just baja'd the van straight on back to the barn. (Not really but I was really worried all day that it would rain and then I would get stuck back there!) When I brought the first load of wood, it rained all weekend. I had to trailer it back with the lawn mower and a tarp. But luckily the ground was firm enough and the rain stopped for a bit!



So I got it all unloaded and ready for Saturday. My old buddy Dave Marevka came by to check out the ramp - he was stoked!



I am staying in the city all week cat sitting. So I had to head back to Bryn Mar after Man-Night at Eric's place. A very long day! I got back around 9am Saturday morning. I was kinda out of it, I could not sleep last night! All I could think about was the ramp. I was a bit worried about the truss situation again and may have to support the 3 inner truss once I take out the center beam.



I got a bunch done early - tying the north deck all together with the ramp and finishing all of that off. I also double braced the lower most transitions. I started to get worried about that. Mike Callahan showed up around noon and Pat sk8 appeared soon after so I got some great help today!! Thanks!



After much piddling around on my part I finally got the first layer of plywood going. It was really slow at first but once we got going it began to flow well. We got the flat bottom plyed and a few of the drills went dead and we were running out of time for the day. So, I called it. But we did take the form off of the concrete coping!







It was like X-mas day! only EVIL! The pour came out pretty RAD. There is only one spot where the 'crete did not separate properly and I have some pitting from the rocks falling out. I will patch that part up but the rest appears to be good. I'll have to do some polishing and grinding but for the most part, the coping seems to look like it should! I am gonna dream about that coping tonight!



So it was a good days work and more dudes are supposed to show tomorrow!! SO I hope we can get more progress 2mro!!!!! Thanks again to Mike and Pat!

Pour that coping FOO! 10/19

Finally the moment I have been dreaming about!! Let me tell you I lay awake many nights dreaming about doing some concrete work!! I so wish that I could score a summer job next year working for one of the crews out there and just pouring pools! Well, this is my first so hopefully it will work out!!

I got up bright and early this morning with one thing in mind, pour that coping boy! I got my wheel barrel out, a shiny new bucket, an empty 1 gallon milk jug and a stack of Quickcrete! I was ready to go! So the first batch well, it was windy and half of my material went across the land. SO I got smart the second time around and closed the barn door! It gets windy out here.



I mixed up according to directions and then added a little more water to get that nice workable mud. I hooked up my ladder so it was right next to wheel barrel. My plan was to shovel the crete into the bucket and carry it up the latter and dump the crete into the form. This went very well. It would have been less taxing with two or three guys there but for a one man show all was well!!.



I had fun using my little concrete trough and giggling the concrete into place. I had to shake the ramp and pound on the form with a hammer and 2 x 4. I eventually realized that if I ran the jigsaw on the edge of the ramp, that would get the vibrating feel a bit better to consolidate the crete. I'll do that next time I guess.




But all in all it went well. I did run out though, I was one bag short, so I had to rush out and get another. But the air bubbles started to come up and I giggled it again and it seems to be setting up pretty well. I just hope it stays up there and doesn't crack up and send little rocks flying everywhere on the ramp...

Build the forms - cook it up! 10/18

I must say that I have been feeling it all week. I think that with work, we are just finishing week 8 (midterm) and I am feeling that wearyness as well as all the work I put into the ramp and then skating on top of it all!! I just wish I had more energy and more time! I need to make art and play my guitar too!! I am looking forward to finishing this goliath so that I can get back to it all!!


random northewest

For Saturday, I finished up some odds and ends on the decks and suddenly realize, shit, I gotta get to working on that coping!! I got up really early, borrowed the carry all and headed out for supplies. 4 bags of commercial grade 5000 PSI Quickcrete, 12 2 x 4 x 8s, two boxes of screws and two 2 x 4 x 10s. I am in the nickel and dime-ing stage where you just get this here and that there and you spend 100bucks!


oregon

I spent the rest of Saturday building the form for the blessed concrete coping on the south end! I guess I wanted concrete coping on the south end so I could make an ode to Slayer every time I slash that shit! "South Of Heaven" is the entire embodiment of a frontside slasher on concrete coping!!

I got a bunch of info from this dude who goes by TheCreature on Concrete Disciples. Big thanks to that dude, whoever, where ever you come from!! That is the cool thing about the web! I also looked some stuff up on Old Man Army. There is so much good info on both of those sites. I am forever grateful!!



So I tried to use the best ideas from all the sources I had. I went with the 5000psi high early strength Quickcrete. I was reading all kinds of stuff about how stuff doesn't set up or it chunks out as if you ride it too soon. I got the Commercial Grade because it sounds like it might be strong? But it probably is just for fast setting shit. I just hope it doesn't chunk out. We'll have to just shred it and see I guess.





So I got it all formed up on Saturday. I cut a piece of 2" PVC in half with a circular saw. Then screwed each piece from the inside to a long strip of 3/4" plywood. In the future I would go with 1/2" cause that shit is heavy.



The ironic thing is the plywood I chose was originally used to form the foundation of my parents house! I love putting that personal shit into construction of ramps. As I said before, I have wood from the original ramp from when I was a kid in this thing (just a piece or two).



I am using 2 x 4s to space the form out from the ramp surface. I have not put the plywood on the ramp yet so this plus a layer of 1/4" masonite gave me 1 3/4" of coping off the lip. SO when you subtract the surface of the ramp the coping should stick out somewhere around 5/8" - 3/4". I hope!!



Once I got the form built I used the old wood clamps to get the 2 x 4 x 10s up near the lip. Once they were in place I screwed them in. It is so nice to have clamps around when you need a 3rd and 4th hand! Clamps rule!!



I had to use the tie downs again to actually repel the form off of the lip! It was just dangling there. The funny thing about the weight was that since the already heavy 3/4" was used to pour the foundation, it was impregnated with concrete. The shit is soooo heavy that I could barely get the form up on the deck!



But as you can see, it all worked out in the end. I screwed it all together and it actually turned out Ok!




I have a nice bed to lay the concrete and form up some GRRRRALP!

all decked out 10/16

I have been working on the decks all week. I started on Tuesday and worked all day Thursday and Friday. With afternoon/evening sessions at Wilson of course! It has been a bit of a draggy week though. No big sessions or anything. Kind of a bummer, more of the same as the outdoor season dies down. I keep missing the morning sessions so my buddies are no where to be seen!!



The decks were pretty straight forward. I did have to cut them down a bit. I stretched out the flat bottom to a true 16' but I had assembled them before I made that decision. The north deck is screwed into the 6 x 6" posts that are part of the barn frame. I made a joist hanger out of 2 x 6" and have the back rail laying on that. The rest of the frame is supported by vertical posts. The decks are made out of 2 x 6s that I had laying around. Mostly scrap wood or old wood but it is sturdy.

The south deck was a little tricky. I had to hang it up with tie downs and slowly swing it into space. It was too heavy to prop up and with only one body and two hands I couldn't do it all at once. So the beam and roll up door rails came in handy. I am glad that I didn't cut them out just yet!!



I used these 3" x 7" rough cut cherry beams for the vertical supports. My father got them from somewhere 30 years ago. We had a bunch more but one of his work buddies bought them off of him years ago. The shit my dad used to have, he either gives it away, lets it rot or burns it. Strange!



SO after I got all that together, I realized I had one sturdy but ugly ass deck! The old posts are gnarly as hell, even warped and bowed out. They must be 100 years old!! But they are so strong still! I think I am gonna cover them up because I used brandy new wood for everything else and the frame looks sooooo sweet. It is solid though so no worries people!

Well, I finally got the frame together. After many weeks I can look at the ramp and get a true feel for what it will be. I spent the morning leveling off the North end of the ramp. I had some trouble though. The metal shelves were taking up about 1/2” that I needed. The frame for the barn was sticking out a bit and left no room to move the shelves back. SO I had to notch them out. This took about 2 hours.



What a big pain, especially because I had to work with the barn closed up to avoid another allergy attack. It was like really hot in there today. Especially working with the grinder and getting in an enclosed spot under the transition.




After all that, the flat bottom was easy enough to level off. I will have to do some shifting though. The North Quarter pipe is shifted about 1 1/2" to the East. Close enough though, I'll just have to mush it over a bit.

So for next week, I’ll have to finish getting the bricks in throughout the entire frame. I also need to figure out the 8’ sections of flat. I was not anticipating the raising of the whole ramp. I’ll need to do some bracing. I may double brace every two or?? Research.



I hope to have the decks installed by the end of next week and begin pouring the coping and getting the metal coping together as well. Then it will be time to get the plywood and masonite. I’ll need some help sheeting the ramp so whoever can spare some time – chime in…

Flat Bottom ugh ugh

I watched Fight Club with Man Night Eric and now all I want to do is kick my own ass! Well, I kinda did this morning. I have been having so many allergy attacks lately that I finally broke down and got some of that Zyrtech and it made my head spin the last few days. So I have been a bit off.




This morning when I got out to the ramp I climbed up to the top to measure the distance between the lip and the rafter. As I was climbing up I went to grab for the 2 x 4" on top and it was a 2 x 10" so I missed the grab and fell backwards. As I was decending in a panic, trying to run down the 2 x 4" surface I slipped my foot between two of them and immediately went into leg slap mode. SO luckily I kinda loosened up and pushed up with my arms and torso, trying to relieve the pressure my weight would have put on my leg. So, I did not hear a snap. But I was kinda jacked up from that one. I got some nice swelling and my ankle is all week now. Nice.

So after I got my shit back together, I climbed up again and telling myself to grab for a 2 x 10". My fears of yesterday and the past caught up with me. The ramp was too close to the joist. SHit. SO, the only thing to do was to wipe yesterday's work clean and move the ramp back. It is going to work a lot better though. I decided to move the quarter pipe section back enough to allow for 16' of flat. Which I really needed anyway. I was just trying to get more deck on that side and had to deal with the rails for the roll up door.



SO I am only gonna have 3' of deck on that side and will just cut off the rails all together. I'll weld them back up later. But now, the flat should be good and hopefully everything will line up.

I spent the rest of the morning re-leveling that whole side and getting it square. Then I had to extend the flat out 9 1/2". I decided to just take apart the whole thing and add longer rails to each flat bottom piece. I didn't want to risk adding a new smaller piece in and then have it shift or crack and later get a kink in the ramp. So I did the pain in the ass thing, but the better thing for the ramp.

I was able to level out half of the flat too so then I feel like I made a little progress today. I got a true 16' of flat, no future head smacks on the joists and a level ramp.

Tomorrow, I'll level off the rest of it and try to get the decks secured to the ramp.



Also, I started to get another pain in the ass allergy attack and decided it was time to quit for the day. I was trying to get a sesh going at Wilson. SO, I drove to Chi with one eye exploding and my head feeing like it was dipped in pepper. I got to the park and it was just as bad as when I left. Of course there was a rad sesh going on. I took one run and realized that I was about to die in there. Having blurred vision, disorienation, and histamine overload. sucks.

Flat Flat Flat

This week it is the Flat Bottom express. And not J-Lo.

I began building the Flatbottom on Thursday and got half of it done. I got the other half built by 11am Friday and spent the rest of today leveling the ramp off. It looks like I'll be leveling all day tomorrow as well. But things are going as planned. However, I will have to raise the ramp about 3" which will cut down on head room again.. Ugh!!



I am also starting to get an anxiety attack over the distance between the joist for the barn roof and the lip of the ramp. I checked it out before and should have room but I always get all spazzy. I let the cat out of the bag at Wilson the other night. I wanted to wait until I had the frame completely built. So hopefully, I'll be able to tie everything together tomorrow (Saturday) and then take some pics of the ramp in its skeletal state and then blow it out to Chicago!



I am not to worried about people randomly showing up here. I doubt that very many people will make the drive anyway. Even though I did it every day this summer!! The funny thing is that most will probably not like the ramp. But I am glad that I was finally able to build something that I wanted. I talked to Bill last night and he was totally stoked on the ramp. As soon as I explained the dimensions he said "Fuck thats an old school vert ramp!" "I used to ride that shit all the time!" So if he is in agreement then I have nothing to worry about!!



I took a bunch of pics some step by step stuff but it is self explanatory.