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....

!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…..

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 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.

Day 15: Almost Death, Cahos, and Progress

March 21, 2009 We all came back for another build day (Dan and Dylan) this time to try to add the next runway piece. I was hoping to have another builder assist Dylan today but we figured we get started while waiting on Rhett to come by a few hours later. There was a large storm system that was suppose to be rolling in again this evening and the clouds were a prominent reminder of that.

We started the day talking about getting the ramp lined up… see it’s been having this problem as you see from the pic above. We ended up disconnecting the flat-bottom so we could rotate the bottom transition piece. Mainly when we first started assembling the ramp back on day 9 and 10 the structure wasn’t completely lined up with the ramp and flat-bottom. So after much hustling and shoving pieces from the left to the right and the right to the left we got it into the right position. Thank God we didn’t concrete that section in yet! We also had a small offset with the last runway piece we installed last time and quickly resolved that issue.
Next on the agenda was getting that beastly runway section up the ramp. Good thing Rhett showed up…he wasn’t even really planning on being here to build today. So with his butt on the ramp we got started. I felt like we were playing football. Rhett and Dylan were in the back going to lift the runway piece over the support legs I was positioned upfront doing the finesse work and lining up the mounting bolts while Dan was walking the piece up the ramp. Dylan and Rhett were tripping out and they had good reason too. They only had a few 2x4s to stand on and I even added another one for them to help them feel more comfortable. This is defiantly one of the most difficult and dangerous times of the project.

After muscling it up and getting it rested in place we started adjusting the legs to the correct height. Me and Dylan butted heads quite a bit today. Both of us were bickering over how the legs were to be mounted to the support frame. After wasting time, I decided to let it go and go his way to prove my point. It was a valid idea/point he was making and it wouldn’t hurt to do it. Maybe I was just too set in my ways.

We did have a very scary moment while leveling out the piece, Dylan almost had a tragic fall back 10 feet. It was the most hilarious moment at the same time also. Cause he was sitting down and lifting up one of the legs of the runway with his foot helping me adjust it so it was leveled. An as he was leaning back, I quote! “Man I can hold this position for days.” Whoosh! The 2x4 came out! It was not screwed down and it slipped out! His foot flew up and his body flew back with his arms above his head. Luckily and I don’t know how, but his arms caught another 2x4 that was about 3ft behind him. It was a miracle literally… I tried to re-enact it and that 2x4 behind him was extremely hard to catch.

Anyways got that out of the way and finished installing the piece. There was just a few for the cross braces, we didn’t get in. Anyways a good day everyone had to leave somewhat early and well. We ran out of tape we had to conserve through the day because I lost the other blank tapes we had. So sadly we didn’t get Dylan falling on video…sigh… it happens.

Till next time!

Day 13: Workin on the Second Half

February 28, 2009
Well today it was obvious we weren’t going to get all the builders together in one place for putting up the runway. So the prep work I did the week before setting up the landing bank was put to good use. We had a new young builder Rhett Renburg coming to help out a friend of our filmer Dan Stolling.
After grabbing a few Monsters we got to work. Rhett assisted me in leveling out the new flat bottom piece and along with the launch ramp which was sinking to one side likely the work of all the rain we’ve had lately. Rhett displayed his hulk skills today lifting some massive pieces so I could get pieced of wood under to help level the ramp out. Seriously though leveling may seem small but it is one of the most serious things to do and therefore takes a longtime to make sure everything is fine.




Next on the agenda was to rebuild some of the supporting structure for the launch ramp itself since we stripped it of its main 4x4 supports. We sawed off the additional wood that was left over, took out the 2x4s that were next and replaced them with the 4x4s we used before. Made sure the tip of the ramp was leveled and screw our cross braces in. It was funny and a bit serious at the same time. Rhett was holding the wood in placed while I screwed in a few 3inch screws to the 4x4 and we forgot the 6ft long level on the ramp……It came down hit the camera lens and Rhett on top of the head! Luckily the camera was fine and Rhett had a little red line on top of his head along with a good sized bump. All in all everything was fine and we continued building.
Before we moved on to start plying up the landing bank myself and Rhett tried chugging a MIXX Monster drink, we both fell half a can short of it all in one breath. An Rhett feeling empowered by his hulk skills lifting the ramps tried smashing the can using his forehead…..It didn’t go so well. We ended up putting 2 sheets up on the bank when the cameras battery ran out and the days light was getting darker. We decided what the hell! Lets have some fun and plyed the bank up just enough so we could ride down it onto one of the large runway pieces.

It was a fun treat just being able to ride a section of it and we got some serious speed off the bank also…Soon after the filmer and Rhett had to leave and we made plans for the next build day…Hopeful to attack the runway again and get some of it finished. After they left I took a break and continued on the bank screwing 2 additional sheets in. Still needs a full sheet at the bottom and a partial at the end.

For more photos of DAY 13 visit www.flickr.com/minimegaramp

Day 10: Video Update

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