!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…..

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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…

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 17: The Last Piece is Always the Hardest

View all photos from today at our Flickr site!

Sorry for the late post guys. 2 weeks late, not good! Today was a crazy day! Most certainly the most dangerous day for myself and difficult for the both of us. Rhett was out late in the mountains the night before and Cesar refused to wake up early (8am) so it was just Dylan and myself today with Dan rockin the Canon, but John (the photographer) made prior arrangements and had to be somewhere else. So all the photos you see in this post is the day after our progress.

Well mainly today we were going to finish the runway and add the last 6ft piece. Sounds easy right? Well we tried walking it up the existing runway…didn’t work. We kept sliding backwards and we were thinking how the hell we were going to get it up 15ft to its new home. The rope we had was too thin, ok then, our last option…. heave it up the side of the structure. Yep this 6x4ft 40lbs chunk was going to be heaved upward. With Dylan on the bottom he pumps it up and starts pushing it against the structure till it get up to my hands and I was pulling with practically all my back could handle. It was not an easy task I finally took all it into my hands and pulled it the rest of the way up.

Whew! Ok great it’s up. Now let’s get it in place. I was going to have to butt it against the other piece and rest it on the back supporting 2x4s. Another problem now I’m 5’9” and the piece it needs to butt against is 7ft tall. Crap! and it was rotated the wrong way. What we were about to do could have been done a much easier way, but no, blindly chose the more difficult and fastest to pursue route.

Dylan managed to get himself ontop the runway barley hold on. I was going to heave the piece up towards him and balance it halfway on the tip of the runway. Don’t forget Dylan is consistently fighting to hold his grip on the slope of the ramp. Once balanced on top we rotated it 180(flatspin) and then the most sketchy part of the day we had to flip it also (cause it was laying on its back) so we pushed it halfway over the edge and I put myself off the side of the ramp just standing on a few measly 2x4s 16ft above the ground with nothing underneath. I tried to find the most comfortable position I could.

Dylan and I were talking constantly throughout this making sure everything was fine and I was slightly yelling at him cause if he didn’t do what I instructed of him it put me in greater risk of falling or losing my grip. He was stubborn but I’m guessing it was because we didn’t feel to safe either trying to keep this piece of wood from slipping and sliding down towards him. So the plan was once I got on the side wear the piece was overhanging Dylan would hold down the edge on his end and I would push up forcing the piece to stand up and then we rotate it again once I and bring it down flat again. Wow! Easier said than done! Dylan wasn’t able to hold it in place while keeping his grip on the runway and kept sliding the piece kept on sliding back at an angle now and then it hit him. It was so obvious! Grab a freakin 2x4 and screw it down into the ramp to keep you from falling. But that left me in a tight spot.

When Dylan sled off he left the whole piece to me, hanging off the side. I was clasping onto the runway and holding the piece up with the one available hand I had while Dylan rushed around grabbin the screws, screw gun, and wood. It felt like a good 5 minutes went by before he got back up, my abs were sore and my body began to vibrate from holding the piece in place… it was slowly slipping. Dylan finally got the 2x4 in! Thank god we let it slide back a few inches to the 2x4 and began to roll it over again. It worked and Dylan wasn’t slipping anymore. Finally rotating it over we pushed it back up and heaved it up and over the back supporting studs. A few minutes later it was in place and needed to be screwed and secured. I was just happy to get that piece done with! Man sketchiest day ever on the project and I’m sure both Dan and Dylan would agree.

Simple enough next on the agenda for the day was to install the second main piece of the roll-in and mount it down into the existing 4x4. In about an hour we did that and added a set of horizontal braces to keep the width the same on both ends. All in all it was an exhausting 5hrs of work and I really wish John was there to catch the photos of it but you’ll see it when the DVD comes out of this documentary film. Till next week!

-Jason Huewe

Giant Assembly

So basically today I assembled the giant support legs for the side of the rollin. Measuring 16ft long their like giant prongs, the purpose of these is to take stress off the back end where the majority of weight will be. I have 2 built for each side, I'm thinking I might need to get 2 in for the back end also.

They will connect to the 4x4 legs on the roll-in and then slant down and bolt into a 4x4 piece that's been concreted into the ground securing it all together.

More Building

So after the windy day I got back to doing more prep and built the next runway piece for the runway only 6ft long this time around. Again re-using some old 2x4s and scrap plywood it was assembled in no time. I also pre cut the support legs for the piece and the the bottom braces to fully mount the bottom of the rollin. I love these days just me and my tools, peace and quite, working out everything in my head without having to worry about other things...