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.

Wieden+Kennedy, the add agency behind Nike and some other high profile companies has a series of original audio and video content. We’re here to talk about the series called D.I.Y. America: A serialized show focusing on leaders in the youth/punk/DIY movement. Subjects include over two decades of leaders from the skateboarding, punk, grafitti and hip-hop worlds. Assembled using footage shot for (but never included in) the Beautiful Losers film. Examples: Ian MacKaye, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Glen Friedman, Tony Hawk, etc. Now I get it. I watched the episodes before I read the description. It’s leftover footage from another project, and as such it comes off more as an extended trailer than an actual feature. There’s come good footage in there, and it’s very slick, but a little unfulfilling. The skateboarding episodes skip an installment, and are numbered in parts, so it’s a little confusing. (DIY America Episode 3 , Skate and Create Part 2….) Best begin at the beginning. Is it just me or does Ethan Fowler sound and look like he’s doing a Jason Schwartzman impression? (See episode 4). On the opposite end of the scale, check out this video from reader Tim Laidlaw. It’s actually a video…

Me, I swear by my Bones Bushings, but if I ever find myself in pinch, I could follow the advice over at Sa Ka Roulé and repurpose some of those newfangled plastic corks and make some bushings. In fact, maybe I’ll start building up a reserve of them tonight. I was saving these things for a while, I thought there must be something I could do with them, but this idea never crossed my mind.

This little piece of perfection can be yours. All you need is $1500, and maybe 4-8 more of these because it’s only four feet wide. The best part is, it was built for BMX. Holy cow. It’s in Mokena, IL. I think that other horribly crappy ramp for sale that we featured was in Illinois too. Remember that one? I can’t find it. At least this one looks really, really well built. It has a the smell of something built by a well meaning but clueless parent. I can imagine the surprise on the kid’s face. “Gee, uh, thanks Dad.” Where else but eBay? Craig’s list, maybe.

For some reason that translation made me chuckle. What work? What translation? Some German speaking guy was supposed be visiting Nepal for two years, so he made himself a miniramp. He was going to keep in his back yard until he opted for a more altruistic approach and decided to build it at a local athletic club so other people could use it. Since he was in Nepal, he couldn’t just “go to the DIY store and buy a suitable timber.” Something in the following German language sentence actually translates to “the DIY store.” Hier in Nepal kann ich leider nicht einfach in den Baumarkt gehen und mir das passende Holz kaufen. He made the structure out of bamboo and mango wood. I’m not sure what the top ply is though. He got an online skate shop called All You Can Skate to donate some boards for the local kids. Success! he got to skate it for a two weeks and then had to leave Nepal for some reason, he doesn’t go into the details. And it’s a slow comical process translating the web page 300 characters at a time through iGoogle. Interesting construction methods.I wish he’d gone into more…

A reader named Ollie (no really) sent in a few shots of his project which goes by the name Candy Ramp because of the piñata used in the christening ceremony. It’s two feet tall with a three foot tall section that goest to vert. Then there’s a six and a half foot tall tombstone made out of a coffee table. Hey, the whole thing was built in under a week, what do you expect? I expect to get hurt when I go over there to ride this thing, but I also expect to have fun. Pics after the jump.

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.

Scout Magazine out of Vancouver BC has some shots of a Victoria renegade park in progress. From the looks of it, they appear to know how to work the concrete. I hope the press doesn’t blow it for the locals. It’s bad enough that they have to worry about kooks in Oregon posting pictures, let alone local mainstream (alternative) publications. On that note… Uh, this project is in Tennessee. UPDATE: Oops! Forgot the link. Just added it.

This is a Dan Mathieu photo of Kevin Cann skating the more or less DIY fueled skatepark in Notre Dame de L’ile Perrot, a small town outside of Montreal, Quebec. Kevin is the guy who made this park happen, with the help of a host of others. Those of you who read my column in Concrete Wave know the story of this park, if not, I’ll be putting up a version of it here, soon.

As seen in the Philidelphia Enquirer: A skateboarding paradise at FDR Park. 1,649 words on how much they love it. – Thanks to Doc Murdock for the tip.