!Road Block!

Documented: May 3, 2009

So the other day I was heading over to my local state farmer agent to pay for my car insurance. I figured since I was here I should talk to him about possibly raising the insurance coverage on the house to cover us for the Jump Day. Turned out to be not such a good turnout. According to the agent if State Farm new we were planning on building this ramp to jump it. They would cancel the home owners insurance on the house and since the mortgage is still being paid off the bank would take over the house and sell it. Kicking my parents out of there home(yes the ramp is on my parents property.) Not good new and a douche kind of a move to make. See I understand there concern, being afraid that if someone would sue if they go hurt and then State Farm would have to pay for that.

But truthfully, they don’t know skateboarding. And skateboarding has the lowest sue rate compared to everything else they deal with. Plus as skateboarders we know what were getting into, so if we break our arm its because of our fault and were not going to blame anyone else for it. State Farm is just so use to dealing will all the other sue happy morons out there.

Anyways trying to think of some ideas around this so we can still jump it here at the house. If that doesn’t work, I’m working on some other ideas as second and last resorts. It might come to be we will need to relocate it, if it comes to that. Its sad to think this is the second time this has happened. Right when we near the completion of the ramp something stupid comes up to hinder its progress…..

Scoff Project Photo Tee - Avaliable Soon!

Here it is! This tee will be avaliable in under a week at our online shop.

BUY HERE

It will be only $12 and avaliable in Black, White, and Chocolate from Small to X-Large. Be on the look out twoards the end of this week begining of the next for these guys to be on sale!
To see the FULL SIZE graphic visit this link

Taking a Break

Build Weekend: May 2-3, 2009

We hoped to build this week but we decided to take a break. Everyone this weekend had something going on. We’ve been really busy though so I agree that everyone deserves a weekend off.

In the meantime I've been working on a graphic for The project to print to t-shirts. It will be acompliation of photos and blueprints highlighting the epic moments, chill times, and landmarks in the project journey. All sales from these tee will fo directly back into the project to help finish it and upkeep the ramp. Be on the look out for it soon!

Till next week.

Prep Work: Ladders, supports, and rollout decks. Oh my!

Work done between: April 27 - May 1, 2009

This week I began designing the ladder its design along with the pre-construction of the rails to be added to the sides of the roll-in. I designed the ladder to come up through the hole we created and have 2 large posts used for the back to help support the ladder and keep it from bending when someone walks up it. Mainly composed of 3 large pieces over 20ft long each!

The rails were pretty standard (4ft high and 8ft wide). I tried building the first one on top of the rollin and assembled it perfectly. It was a bit windy and I set it on the edge of the surface it was to be mounted to. The rail sat perfectly. I was amped and decided to go under and screw in the first part of it before clamping it down. My stupid mistake was grabbing the 2x4 hoping that I could hold it in place while I put the 3inch screw down. Soon to find out my hand couldn’t keep the 2x4 from being pushed back and the whole thing tipped over and fell 19ft to the ground hitting a small section of the ladder I just built!

I was disappointed in myself and climbed down to check the damage. Luckily the damage was quite minimal. Only one of the 2x4s had splintered off on the side of the rail. I started constructing the other 2 rail walls and one of the support legs for the ladder.

Later this week I would finish the other support leg and finish the rest of the rails in time for the next build day

Day 20: Lets get this straight NOW!

Documented: April 25, 2009
Photos coming soon.....

Today it was just Cesar and myself. Dylan still in high school, had prom this weekend so he wasn’t here. I was joking with the guys acting like I was talking to Dylan saying “Since I was never able to go to prom never will you! You are being forced to work today!” haha it was funny.

We did the important work today of aligning the roll-in. Remember how it was shifting off to the side about 5 inches. Well it’s fixed now. Mainly the top piece was resting ontop of the next. First step of what we did was unscrew the majority of the cross braces in the next lower piece so we could shift it around. Shoved it over into place and directly lined it up with the straight piece. It was such a pain in the ass. Once it was aligned Cesar held it into place while I quickly went around putting the entire cross braces back in to hold it in place.

Once that was complete I removed the end 2x4 and grabbed my handsaw. I began to saw away the top layer of ply butting against where the top runway piece was resting on it. I was doing this so when I finished the top section would just slip down and be a perfect fit to the next piece. An it worked! Came out great re-screwed the 2x4 back in and secured that section completely. Next was to continue down and just follow the pattern of unscrewing the sections shifting them over and screwing them back in once aligned correctly. We finished in a matter of just a few hours!

I was psyched to see a smooth slope finally established. Rhett then showed up soon after and a bit late for work haha We were about to go on break for lunch and head to Qdoba, but an idea I had long ago on a prep day came back to mind. (Riding down the ramp on a saucer). You know those snow saucers? The round neon colored disk. Well heck yes we did! It was so much fun. Everyone had a blast and even Dan our filmer took a go. You got a lot of speed but not enough to leave the launch ramp, just to go up it half way really. Cesar had the mouth of a sailor when we got up there. He’s a bit afraid of heights and even flipped of a horse that neighed at him when he was about to go haha.

All in all it was a good day. Couldn’t really see any progress but the runway was now aligned but need to be leveled out again. We’ll leave those to the next build days to come…

Cellphone Videos of the Mini Mega Ramp

Every once in a while I pop out my little blackberry and take videos of the project to share with friends and family that want to see it. So I uploaded them to youtube so I can share them with all of you too! Hope you enjoy!

Working on the Support Legs

So back to the giant support legs. I have them attached to the roll-in and concreted down into the ground. So what’s next?! Oh’ a whole lot more my friends! See if pressure is applied to them then they will want to bend mostly outwards. So the time I spent today and over this week was finishing up the cross braces for the support braces (which I didn’t accomplish much on) and fully screwing in all the ply on top of the roll-in. I got a lot of the wood cut for the supports but the fun part was hauling a big sheet of plywood 19ft up to the roll-in. My solution, I found a long rope and tied it around the ply and the sides so if I pulled it up it would remain straight and steady.
This was fun and scary at the same time because I had that dead weight I was pulling up and had to keep my balance so it didn’t pull me over. Its not like I had any safety bars to keep me from going over. So at last with the rope all wrangled and tangled around my hand I got it topside safe and sound and finished screwing the piece in. It fit like a glove, now the legs needed some love but I became busy with a few other matters and the 20th build day was approaching soon…..