The 1/4 Pipe (Part two)
(Updated/Improved Tips added 6-12-03)

Materials:
Go to the Main 1/4 pipe page.

How to: First, GO GET SOME REFRIGERATOR BOXES!!! Call around to appliance stores and see if they have any you can pickup, usually for free. These make wonderful templates to draw your pattens on. Find a 1/4 pipe that has a transistion you love, take your big ole peice of refrigerator cardboard and a Sharpie with you and trace the transistion. You are welcome to use the following instructions to create a transition from scratch, but my skaters aren't too hot on the transition you get from these diminsions, they say it is too grandual and slow.

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Here is how I came up with the transition for our first 1/4 pipe, turned out to be too slow and not steep enough. Keep that in mind, 'k? Make a huge compass. I used two 1 X 4's, attatched together to make a 10" 6" long board. Drill holes in both ends, the holes need to be exactly 10' apart, the diameter of the circle. One of the holes is gonna be for a pencil, the other hole is gonna be for a big nail, the compasses pivot point. Hammer the nail into whatever the surface is your using the draw on, I conveniently used the wood skatepark decking area to use my compass on. The hole you drilled for the nail should be large enough that the compass can pivot around the nail. Ta-Da! You're ready to draw a huge circle. Now take you fridge box cardboard and figure out where you want it so that the pencil in the compass draws an arc on the cardboard where you want and how you like.

I set mine up so I could get both sides of the ramp out of one peice of plywood. See the drawing of how I laid the cardboard template out on the plywood. Note the dotted circle areas, indicating where the two sides met on the plywood. I allowed a 2" area on the tops and front lips of the ramp sides, for 2 X 4 framing. I just used a normal skill saw to cut out the two peices. (UPDATED TIP: If you are cutting a steeper arch than this template, you may end up having to use a jig-saw, the sharper arc of a better transition will bind a skill saw.) Cut the notches for the 2 X 4's after cutting the main arc. (UPDATED TIP: Because my notches weren't perfectly accurate, some of my 2 X 4's sat too low and some too high. I have found that forgoing the notches makes it much easier to get the 2 X 4 flush with the curve of the side, to make for a much better ramp surface!) Put the 2 X 4's 6" on center and on edge so that the 2" side faces up to the sky. (Originally I had said to put them 8" on center but I had some 2 X 4's break at that gap so now recommend the smaller space).

Screwing should be a crowd event!
Seriously, when it comes time to start screwing down the masonite surface, beg and plead and invite as many people as possible to come and "screw with you." This is the most time consuming task, I'm talking several days. We've used over 20 pounds of screws. Some of you may be talented enough carpenters to just use your power driver and set the screws flush without a second thought. Than there are those of us who have to do the following three steps to successfully get a screw in tight and flush. Please note that this is the first time we have done this, and I'm kinda concerned about just how well this will survive. Only time will tell.

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FIRST create a counter sink hole for the head of the screw to sit down in. I know there are actual bits for this, but we just used an extra huge bit and were careful to drill in just enough to make a shallow dimple. SECOND drill a pilot hole. Make sure the hole is skinnier than the screw so that the screw will still be able to dig into the sides of the hole and stay tight. (Note: We found that drilling the pilot hole before the countersink hole caused the huge bit on the drill to tear out too much masonite, making a bad countersink.) LASTput the screw in! We got quite the system down, had one person using a weak cordless drill with the huge bit to drill the countersink hole, had another person use a normal electric drill to drill the pilot hole, and had a third person use a powerful cordless drill driver to put the screw in.

Diagonal Masonite?
I had seen many quality wooden ramps where the top layers of Skatelite/Masonite was put on diagaonly and I wondered why, wondered if we should bother taking the extra time and effort to put ours down that way? After researching the reasoning behind the diagonal pattern, it all made sense and we definitely decided to lay all our masonite this way. The edges of the masonite sheet are what wear out first, they puff up and fray, making bumps in the surface. Putting the sheets down diagonally presents less of an edge to get constantly abused. The diagonal seams between sheets also keeps the rain water draining down hill. It is definitely more difficult to lay the sheeting this way, takes more cuts and more people to wrestle the sheets snugglly into the curves.

A couple things to make the wrestling match more likely to succeed. Nail some spacer nails in along the edge of previously attached masonite, to maintain necessary spacing between the sheets. Once two or three people got the sheet in position, pushed down into the curve and all, have a third person put some temporary nails in to hold the top edge in place. This will hold the masonite as you slowly put the screws in, working down, to pull the sheeting tight without leaving gaps between the sheeting and plywood underlayment.

You may want to start with the 45 degree corner pieces lined up next to the coping, so you get the nice edge along the coping and don't have to mess with trying to trim the sheeting next to the coping later.

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Coping
Getting the coping the right height in relation to the ramp surfaces is rather important. Since I'm not a skater, I make sure my skaters are present to help overlap the masonite and the landing platform just enough and not too much. We've been using galvanized pipe with a 1 3/4" outside diameter (appoximate). Attaching the pipe/coping can be tricky, you sure the heck don't want anything that is going to stick up and mess up the surface. The trick we were taught: drill a hole big enough for the head of a long screw to fit through in the top of the coping. Next, using a tiny pilot hole-size drill bit, drill a pilot hole through the inside bottom of the coping. Now you can put the screw through the top of the coping, and screw it down through the pilot hole, ending up with the screw head flush and hidden inside the coping. We've occasionally had success with also using L brackets on both ends of the pipe, to sorta clamp the pipe down by sticking one end of the L inside the open end of the pipe, and screwing the other end to the side of the ramp.

Back to:
The 1/4 Pipe Part One

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL CARPENTER, ALL THE IDEAS ON THESE PAGES ARE JUST MY PERSONAL WAY OF BUILDING SKATEBOARDING RAMPS. MY WAY MAY NOT PROVE TO BE THE BEST, THE LEGALIST, THE MOST ENDURING, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. IN OTHER WORDS, IF ANYTHING BAD HAPPENS AS A RESULT OF USING MY IDEAS, DON'T BLAME ME, YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN, BABY. 'K?

While I'm at it...PLEASE DON'T RIP ME OFF! THESE ARE MY IDEAS AND DRAWINGS, FOR BETTER OR WORSE. USE THEM FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE, BUT PLEASE DON'T TRY TO MAKE A BUCK FROM MY STUFF OR PRETEND THESE IDEAS AND DRAWINGS ARE YOURS. GET IT? GOT IT? GOOD.