Ben Warren sent this pic of a ramp he built FOR FREE from donated and discarded materials:
The ramp is built out of wood that is anywhere from 15 years old to pretty new but it was all free! Thanks to the Dew Tour, Mesh Skatepark in Longwood Florida and some local donations! Im stoaked and i want to spread the word that if you just take some time and initiative, anybody can build something to skate with no cash!! Hell Yes!!!
So thanks to Ben, and hopefully this will stoke some of you out there to do a little scrounging and build something. Which reminds me of another successful scrounge (and I mean that in the best possible way…) from Florida, Tim Kulas. Ben’s ramp is in Casselberry, Florida. He sent me a link (www.hereforkicks.com) but it appears to be dead. Don’t forget about Enlarge-o- rama.
We’ve featured the ramp handywork of Tim Kulas here a few times. His latest ongoing project is something called the Goat Ramp. It’s a sectional miniramp made from vacuum-formed laminates… I think. The sections are sturdy, but hollow and comparatively lightweight, so it can be transported and set up at a place like this beach. Slide show with gratuitous bikini shots after the jump.
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Most of us in the Northwest are partial to a particular brand of coping, but if you live at the opposite end of the country or are self-motivated you can always hand pour your own. Tim Kulas appears to have the continuous pour method wired. He’s got a video up as well as a series of pictures. Right now the pics are at the top of the blog, but Blogger’s interface kind of sucks as far as providing links and reading, so if you are reading this post after he’s made a bunch of updates you’ll need to navigate back to the month of November, 2008.
What can you do with under $1000, some patience, and a whole lot of salvaged wood? Tim Kulas’ old bowl is long gone, but his new project is going strong under the name of the Pumpkin Bowl. When finished, it will have over 80 feet of continuous hand-poured coping. Check it out at Bowl Surgeon. Did you know that Tim is the sole pro for Beer City Skateboards? [Photos: Bennystee and Kulas]
Skate and Annoy, your repository for deceased skate spots, brings you the Chavez bowl. Actually, Dave V is bringing it to you.
The video of the ceral bowl in Texas reminds me of Joel and Dave Chavez’s old bowl in Richmond, Ca. These were taken about 4 years ago. The bowl was built completly from found materials…they didnt put a cent into it. It’s no longer there due to noise complaints but it was fun while it lasted. It includede a plexiglass light for viewing and weird angled coping… not that easy to skate but no cereal bowl either.
Does anyone remember that band Chavez? They were pretty good.
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Yesterday I was checking out Tim Kulas’ new bowl progress at Bowl Surgeon. I noticed Tim had a few computer renders of his work in progress. I was surprised by the high-tech at first, given his philosophy of dumpster diving for the majority of his wood. Then I learned it was done with some free 3D software called Google SketchUp. It inspired me to download it and work out a sketch for an idea I have for some home improvement on my garage. Originally I had dreams (delusions, really) of tearing down my small garage and re-pouring the foundation to make it wider, and adding a second story for a mini ramp. Besides money, the biggest drawback is the massive pine tree (bigger in scale than the picture above) about 5 feet away from the back corner. I couldn’t reliably dig up the sidewalk that separates the garage from the tree. I don’t want to damage the tree. It’s gigantic and I don’t want it falling on my house. It’s already causing the sidewalk to the back alley to buckle up a little. Tim’s approach and free software inspired me to have a look at tearing off the existing roof and building an overhanging top floor with a ramp.
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Remember the Experiments in backyard maximilism? I misread Tim’s email and it turns out the bowl was in Orlando after all, which is the perfect excuse to bring up two more videos. One is classic local news crew coverage talking about a secret skateboarding society (I kid you not!) and the other is a collage of sessions that starts with Tim Kulas narrating the story of the ramp over Super 8 film footage. In true D.I.Y. fashion, both the Super 8 footage and the news coverage is captured by pointing a video camera at the projected wall and the TV respectively. Watch the videos after the jump, and don’t forget to check out Bowl Surgeon for progress on the new bowl. I’m sure Tim could use some manpower. [Source: Beer City]
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Tim Kulas is a man of few words. At least on the Interweb™ he is. He built a large wooden bowl (I’m sure he had help) in the back yard of a house he was renting in Orlando Florida, completely out of scrap wood. Renting, you say? Sure, why not. It’s the old fish pond argument we’ve seen before. A landlord would have to be very hands-off, absentee, or just plain naive to fall for that one. The bowl even has had some cement coping custom fitted (see pic above) and poured in long sections. Then there’s the save a tree ride. That’s Tim saving a tree in the shot above, left. There are a bunch of pictures and videos on the Bowl Surgeon blog. The only words you’ll find are the post titles, which are always to the point, as in “More Skateboarding in yard.” or “clicky dippy hippy fo viddy…” Don’t go looking for this spot because it’s already been torn down. Tim is moving to other parts of Florida and has already started documenting the next project. The tag line at the bottom of the page says it all: “Thanks for checkin’ it, now go find a dumpster with some wood in it and build something!”
Update: I decided to embed Mac’s video link. Check it out after the jump.
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