The Rain Comes Again

So the first big rain of the later part of year 2009 has hit. Recieving 1-2 of rain on the valley floor, it was pretty intense. I was luckly able to take all the masonite off the ramp before the ramp and store it in the shed. That would of been a lot of money to waste on the fragile masonite sheets.

Don't worry we already layed in a order for some tarps to come in and protect the ramp from the blunt of the upcoming storms. Bought what we needed at http://www.tarpsplus.com/
We got some nice HEAVY DUTY tarps for the mini mega, if you want to see which kind we got click the link Right Here

Here are a few photos of the ramp the afternoon after the rain....

360 Degree view of the Project

Myself and my brother John, our photographer finally got some time to take these photographs on labor day. I was so stoked to see how it all turned out! Took a bit of math and about 1 hr 30mins to take all 37 well placed photographs. But the end result is stunning.
You be able to see this new view of the ramp in our latest video released on youtube.
www.youtube.com/skatescoff its guaranteed epic/ entertainment.

NEW VIDEO Updates!!! Prep Work

I know its been a while since any video on the project has been posted. So here it is my friends.
A 3 part series of some of the prep work done prior to Build Days that I do to ensure the build day goes by as smooth as possible. This prep day happens right before DAY 11 where we installed the rollin back in October 28, 2008. These videos go more indepth with the build, design, and decision made on the projects building. Alot more juice in these 3 videos than the past updates combined....Well almost. Anyways enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


You can find these videos and more at our YOUTUBE channel www.youtube.com/skatescoff

!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.

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…..

Day 19: Still Working on the Roll-in

Documented: April 19, 2009

Today was the day to finish the roll-in. But it didn’t happen. How many days are we going to spend on this roll-in! Well recapping on the day it was Dan, Dylan, Cesar, and myself(John wasn't available today). Man we filmed a pretty funny and bad intro for the day all due to myself not talking correctly for a short time haha. You’ll see it in the video update……..maybe.

So we got to work, the plan was too widen the roll-in out and add 2, 2ft sections to the side and secure them down then add there curved counter parts which makes for our smooth transition to the bank. We began hauling the sections up the ramp by the small 16ft ladder we had piling them up. Cesar was hanging partially hanging off the side of the ramp. haha The poor guy is afraid of heights so he was sorta freakin out with nothing under his feet but a 15ft drop. We started with the roll section first and I pounded them full of screws to make sure they were secured.

After those two were finished came the hard part. Dylan came up to the top and both of them were hanging off the sides. I was going to slowly push the 2x8ft section off the side of the roll-in and they were going to hold it against the side of the roll-in. I was laying on top of the bones of it making sure everything lined up. I quickly layed 2 clamps in place to hold it down and gave them a break while I threw in about 30 screws then moved over to the next side and did it all over again. Pretty much like clockwork.

Now that everything was secured I started taking measurements for the plywood that would be sitting on top of it. One was going to simply be screwed in but the other I had to make cuts for. At the backside of the roll-in we have a hole for you to climb through to the deck. A few cuts later I was trekked back to the ramp and we started getting the first full ply sheet up. But for some reason why. (That’s what I get for taking 2 weeks to write these) The builders had to leave early and so we called it a day and only got a few screws in before the ply before everyone cleaned up and headed out….

Day 18: We have gone Astray

The plan for the day was to finally finish the roll-in. I pre-cut a lot of wood the day before and did a good 6hrs of prep work trying to make sure I had the majority of everything set and ready. Truth is, I should know by now when I think we can finish something by a due date it isn’t going to happen according to plan.

We started off the day installing the cross braces for the new roll-in and while I was finishing up the last of them I had Dylan and Cesar go work on getting few new pieces cut top off the structure. Next we all got up on the top section of the roll-in and hoisted the roll section up and started putting it into its correct spot. See it was a bit difficult getting this piece into place not because of it having to be leveled but this was a critical section for the roll-in and had to be perfect installed in every way. Took us a good 30mins to get it set up and installed and then mounting the last runway piece to the new roll-section seemed to be where the majority of our time was spent today.

See the runway is off to the side about 5inches once the front of the roll-out was installed it gave a legit top marker to align everything with. So then over the next few hours on that one runway section along we experimented taking out screws of certain tension 2x4s(lumber that keeps the runway piece from swaying and falling apart) and even disconnected the support braces to so the only thing holding it together was the roll-in it was screwed to! It was becoming extremely frustrating. We had almost everything disconnected from the top runway and it needed to be moved over another inch or two, but it was magically staying in place with nothing holding it in. Eventually I moved myself on top of the second runway section and lifted up the one we were trying to move. It finally budged! Apparently there was a 2x4 that was just blocked and jammed against the runway.

Now with that being out of the way it was actually sitting on top of the next runway piece. That was unexpected. So I’m thinking we will have to unhinge all the other sections and scoot them down on top of shifting them over till they are straight. *sigh* seriously this aligning is a large pain in the ass. It’s the most importantt work though.

It was pretty awesome while we were moving a section of the ramp over. The lowest section actually a white tailed bunny rabbit came bolting from underneath the ramp! Oh snaps! Dan grab the camera! But it was too late. About 2hrs later Dan was shooting me doing some work when we saw our neighbors dog catch and kill the rabbit on my property and carry it over to their side haha Felt bad for the rabbit, but it was pretty cool at the same time. So Dan was on a schedule and had to leave practically as we were finishing up with re-aligning/ checking the sections. Plus his battery was just about out.

I did the end of day speech and closed it off but I insisted that we at least get the main roll-out platform up and in place. Cesar came and sawed part of the top 4x4 posts so that the 4x8ft piece would slide on nicely. Next was a fun operation, you see in the photos we have a large wooden ladder that our neighbor kindly gave to us to use. I stood halfway up that while Dylan was going to push the piece up to me and I would carry it above my head and hand it to Cesar who was a few feet above me. Then I quickly crawled to the top and Dylan and Cesar pushed it up to me. After we got the most of it over the post we started shoving it into place until it butted against the other piece. We threw a few screws in and called it a day. It was a good 6.5hr build day that day. Everyone was craving some Qdoba after that and we met up after at the skatepark to finish the day.

Check out the FLICKR SITE to view all photos from DAY 18