Making the Solid Surf UK post reminded me that I was sitting on some shots of a skateball installation at Solid Surf in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Tim Ebaugh sent me the scans from his friend, photographer AL Porterfield. Check ’em out after the jump. Tim has a site called Vintage Florida Skateboard as well as helping out with Grind For Life and Florida Skater. We also linked to his Bowl Rider’s Cup coverage.

What the heck is going on here? Mike from Old Man Army sent in a couple pics thoughtfully (and sensitively) titled Rainbows in the desert. It makes a lot more sense when you see them full frame.

Welcome to the second half of the Sonny Robertson photo archives. That’s Dan Wilkes on left and Jeff Phillips on the right, both at a spot called Flux, somewhere in Texas, sometime in the 80’s. Will there be a third – uh, err, half? I suppose that depends on how stoked Sonny is to dig through is archives. There’s more Wilkes and Phillps at Flux as well as a shot of Mike Crum at the Clown ramp after the jump.

It’s not always about the clarity or the technical execution. Sometimes I just like the way a shot looks, as is the case with this shot of Jeff Phillips taken in Houston. I like the blur and all the artifacts. The overall quality of the pic outweighs any faults. Photo by Sonny Robertson, 198… See the uncropped version here.

Man, I had to get some actual skating up on this site today. Sonny Robertson sent in a few pictures a long time ago: …my favorite part of skating has always been that sense of identity in time, place, friends, music, etc. that comes from a scene, be it centered around a ditch, a ramp, skatepark, etc. We had a ramp in our small town YMCA – the Box Ramp – that was in a raquetball court, touching all four walls, and we would get people dropping in from all over the place and it was just so great to be a part of. And then to go to Dallas or Houston and see the scenes at places like the Clown Ramp, which was in a sketchy-ass section of town, was just the coolest. The whole Zorlac scene was just nuts. Wish I had been a little older at the time. I have plans to add a section that will roughly equate to “this is/was your scene” but you know how it goes with so-called plans. Rather than let them rot in my inbox (?) I’ve posted them here for your enjoyment. I’m holding out one of them for a…

This week’s Shot of the Week is a 1986 picture of Rob Washburn at the Cito ramp, taken by Doug Pennsinger. Check it out.

Sheesh! What does it take to get some culture around here? Sure, we had a mini ramp outside of City Hall for a couple of hours, but nothing like this. In Liverpool England there is a nonprofit group called A Foundation whose purpose is to “to support the development, production and exhibition of contemporary visual art and, in particular, to focus on the enrichment and regeneration of Liverpool through culture and the arts.” How are they doing it? By hiring Simparch to install the Free Basin as well as a yet unnamed 40 foot wooden full pipe, which is rare, to say the least. I think there is one at Skatopia, but that may be it. Made using a similar construction method with a complex layering of multiple wooden spines and ribs, the full pipe’s impressive structure echoes a hull in dry dock. Hey, whatever you have to tell them to get it paid for… The best part is, the structure will be open for free public skating during gallery hours, from October 19th 2007 to April 20th, 2008. Details and consent forms can be found at A Foundation’s Drum ‘n Basin Greenland Street programme page. Hey UK readers.. let’s…

Somehow or other I got included on an email trail with Bruce Adams, whom I don’t know, but he replied this sequence of Terrell Schmidt going over the death hole at a spot I just saw in a magazine somewhere, but can’t remember where it is. These are just a few frames from the middle. You can see the whole thing after the jump.

Canada’s Much Music had an event on Go Skateboarding Day that featured something called the Hide-n-Skate Ramp. It’s not super ground breaking, but it’s still pretty cool, so you’d think you could find a few pictures of this ramp being set up, in transit or at the very least, being skated, but no, there doesn’t appear to be anything anywhere on the web. WTF? I wonder if the Much Music channel actually plays music videos, unlike any of the MTV channels. Coincidentally, I also recently stumbled across plans for a mini ramp that folds up into a shed(!?) on RampPlans.org. Michael Cheah’s got seven pages of instructions and photos, but amazingly, not one picture of the damn thing folded up into a shed. As weird an pointless as that sounds, I want to see it. Come on people, let’s follow through on the obvious! You could all use some pointers on documentation from Tracy Sigler.

Tracy Sigler built a mostly modular miniramp in his basement and documented the hell out of the whole process. It cost him about $800 to get all the materials delivered to his door to build what looks like a 12 foot wide 3 and a half foot tall mini ramp. I’ve built a handful of ramps in my day, and I’ve been known to over engineer my structures so that they could withstand large earthquakes (or small Grover-quakes.) Tracy builds them right. He’s more of a Yankee Workshop ramp builder than a measure once cut twice guy. Er, I assume tracy is a guy, or maybe I’m just a sexist pig. Tracy even has a nice diagram on how to set the coping (too low!), which is one area where a lot of first time ramp builders balk. Check out Tracy’s basement ramp break down, he/she is Heavy Duty.