bill rohan: hey,what's up guys? my name is billy rohan, andwe're here to show you today how to build a mini ramp. and we're going to be buildingone that's 4 feet high and 12 feet wide. you want to have a good hammerto start out with. you can find all these toolsat home depot or lowes. an impact drill is going to bekey, especially if you're drilling the ramps together.
you're also going to want tohave a jigsaw for cutting the transitions. also, very important is tohave your skilsaw because you're going to cut a lot of2x4s when you're building a mini ramp, so you definitelyare going to need one of these. also very key isa tape measure. you want to have a goodassortment of drill bits. this is a level.
you want to be on the levelwhen you're building, so that's really important. what this is calledis a chalk line. and the chalk line is used sothat when you put your 2x4s in later in the building processyou'll be able to see where they are under the plywood. it's good to have a prettyheavy duty pencil. i got this one from team pain. but you're going to be writingon wood, so a standard pencil
isn't good. this is a carpenters pencil. next up, your actualwood supplies. so whether you're buildinga 12-foot-wide ramp or a 24-foot-wide ramp, you'regenerally going to use plywood and 2x4s for your moststandard ramps. our ramp we're going to buildin an 8-foot section and a 4-foot section and combinethe two later. so right here we had to measurethe length of the 2x4s
along with the transitions. so it's really important thatyour 2x4 goes to the transition, and the distancebetween the two is 8 feet or 4 feet, depending onthe sections that you're going to build. a lot of people, they'll usestring and a pencil and try to run it from one end to the otherand come up with a nice circumference, but that'sactually not the best way to do it.
i'm going to introduceyou to curtis here. curtis is getting ready to builda transition right now. curtis rapp: on this particularramp, we're going to do a 7-foot transition. so put one screw in themiddle at 7 feet. so this whole 2x4 is goingto pivot at that point. drill a hole, the pencil's goingto fit right in there. and so you started out at 3and 1/2 inches, that's the height of the 2x4 that's goingto be at the bottom.
mark it out, get your pencilin there, and then you just drag it along. it just pivots niceand perfect, yeah. you've got a perfect tranny. bill rohan: there you go. it's about to drop. to save yourself some money,just flip it on to the other side and then you wouldtrace over it. so the next step in building aramp, you're going to want to
mark the transitions. the standard is usually every8 inches, but since we're doing this as a temporary ramp,we're going to do it every foot. so you're going to start outwith the bottom one. you want to make sure thatthese are level. when you go to put in, thatthis is flush with this. anytime you're going to put ina 2x4 into plywood, you want at least two screws.
most people use three whenthey're building a ramp, especially if it's goingto be more permanent. so we're going to go ahead anduse three in this, even though it's temporary. you always want to start withyour front and back so that the rest of the 2x4sfit in well. now, this is where the linescome in that we drew. the reason that we drew thoselines is so that we don't have to measure it every single timewe put in a new support.
since we're going every footinstead of every 8 inches, it's good to use two 2x4s everyother one so that way you have extra support. all right, so since the rampwe're building is 12 feet wide, we're buildingtwo sections. our section that we just workedon is 8 feet wide, this section's 4 feet-- 4 plus 8 is 12. so this is the flat bottom.
it's really a very basicbit of carpentry. you take a 2x4 on either side,you square it out to a box so you'd have one, two, three,and then four. in this ramp we're goingto use 8 feet of flat. some ramps are smaller flatif they are tighter. it depends how you like it. if you like it with a lot offlat, like we do, it gives you more time for setting up. so we're going to have 8 footof flat on this ramp.
so when you start your flatbottom, you're going to start with a rectangle. it's going to be 4 feet longhere, and 93 inches here. on your middle section your 2x4sare going to be 45 inches long, so they're different sized2x4s than the outside. and you want these 2x4sto be every 8 inches. this is the coping. this is the most essentialpart of the mini ramp. this is a 24-foot pieceof coping, and our
ramp's 12 feet wide. so we're going to cut the copingin half and use one on each side of the ramp. whenever you're going to cutcoping, you have to have a metal bit for your saw. you can't use the same one asthe wood or it will destroy the saw and the bit. you always want to make surealso that your coping is 2 inches at least.
you don't want anythingsmaller than 2 inches. it's a really good size for yourtrucks to lock into for smith grinds and stufflike that. curtis rapp: all right,so this is our deck. the deck is just what you'regoing to stand on, and some people do 2 feet. i like 4 feet. you can get somestanding room. they're not exactly the sameas the flat bottom.
they're a little smaller becausethey've got to fit in between the templates. what you do is you make it 94and 1/2 inches so it fits in-between the templateand can butt up right against the coping. there's going to be 4 feet fromthe coping, plywood will fit right on top. put the studs every 16 inches. there's going to be 3/4-inchplywood on it.
that's it. bill rohan: so there you go. we got the skeletonready to go. and we're going to continue toput the skin and the other layers on at thenext location. all right, so we got here to thespot, and we're having to build on a slope. so we have to build a falsefloor first, and then once we're done with that then we canget started with the ramp.
so it'll be a little bit of amission, but it should take about an hour or two tofinish up, i hope. all right, so right now we'regetting the other two transitions to connect it tothe flat bottom, and then we'll be able to startplying this ramp. it's really important whenyou're getting to this part of building the mini ramp where youconnect the transitions to the flat bottom thatit's all level. so you want to push it up.
you guys can push this up. when you push it up, then you'regoing to screw in right there from the transitionto the flat bottom. you do about four of them inthere and you should be good. how these 2x4s made a transitionand a flat bottom, there's a line that's a perfectguide for your plywood to match up with. and that's when youstart using the 2-inch screws for shooting.
every sheet's going to haveat least four screws-- four screws on eachrim going across. when you put your transitionfirst layer up to the flat bottom layer, youcan stand on it. and you always want to work fromthe bottom up so that it doesn't get warpedin the middle. so you just start with yourfirst 2x4, second 2x4, third on up so that it bends with thewood rather than starting on the top and going down.
you want to basically havea screw at least every foot on your ply. so now we're moving into oursecond layer of ply. a lot of people try to get awaywith using less wood, but it's good to use a 1/2-inchsheet of ply, and then another 1/2-inch sheet of ply. and then your third layer,whether it's masonite indoors, or ramp armor, orwhatever it is. but it's good to have threelayers so that you don't break
through and thenhurt yourself. so you want to start on theflat bottom and then work your way up. our top piece here is going to16 inches because we put our center piece 24 incheson either side. so on our second layer we useda sheet of plywood in the exact middle of the ramp. you don't want it to followseam-over-seam. and so you could layer itseam-over-seam which a lot of
people do, but it's not goingto be as solid of a ramp. so if you change the structureof the plys so that they don't go over each other, you'regoing to have a much stronger ramp. so this is the platformwe built yesterday. we just slid it in, make sureit's flush with your transition, and then give it acouple of screws in there. you want to make sure that it'slevel as well so that your platform isn't sittingat an angle.
and then once you get it lockedto the transition, you put a couple 2x4s in and thenscrew those into the corners so that it's supported well. when you go to put your screw infor the coping, you want to have a longer drill bit. usually about 6 incheswill be good. so the reason you put a smallerscrew there-- that's a 3/8 size bit-- is so that the screw headdoesn't go through as well.
all right, so it's a total ofeight holes that you have to drill into the coping. we do one every three feet, sowe do four holes that you actually are puttingthe screws into. the other four holes arecountersinked so that the screw heads go throughthe coping. all right, so we're almostfinished with our second layer, and then we're going tomove on to our third layer which is the ramp armor.
ramp armor is a compositematerial. it's super strong and also verysmooth, so it's perfect. it's made for skate ramps. on this one i like to start atthe top with it right up to the coping because it's easyfor it to slide down. but if it's your thirdlayer, it's usually going to be all right. all right, so these guys arefinishing up the deck. you want 3/4-inch ply whenyou're decking the ramp,
because you don't wantto fall through it. you're going to have all you andyour friends standing on it, so it's good to getreal thick plywood. even 1 inch thick is fine forthe deck because you're not bending it. so this is the finishedproduct. we got the ramp done andwe ended up having it done a day early. so we're all reallyexcited about it.
now the best part iswe get to skate it. also check with your neighborsand make sure you have an epic party to celebrateyour new ramp. male speaker: isthat all right? male speaker: it looks good. male speaker: sweet. well done. male speaker: i'm psyched. i'm so psyched, dude.