Quarter Pipe/Little Warped Wall

This is because the little one is into everything he watches on YouTube. He checks out videos on Saturday morning when dad(me) tries to steal an extra hour of sleep. I start out with kids on skateboards. Then crack my eyes open a little later and it's on American Ninja Warrior.

So, this Christmas, we did what most families do. Went to a Santa workshop, cookie eating extravaganza. When it was my sons turn to tell Santa what he wanted, he told Santa he wanted a Warped Wall. Santa was a little surprised, and so were his parents. So with a little under three weeks until Christmas, I rushed out one of my most exciting dad projects. Sure he's too young to need a 5' tall quarterpipe. And we're probably going to have some bumps, scrapes, and splinters. But kids are going to have fun and need to be challenged.

I started looking up some online tutorials about quarter pipes. It looked like they were well made with standard construction 2x4's. But the morning I was going to start working on it, someone on craigslist had some free pallets. There are two things I love using. Craigslist freebies and pallets. Now I have a truck load of weird sized pallets to start with.

the first pic is of me drawing a 4' arch. This was my plan until I stacked up 4' of pallets and realized it needed to be 5'. I didn't have a pic of the 5' drawing but I drew it the same as the 4'.

Me and the little guy go to lowes to get some plywood and light bulbs.

I end up using 4 sheets of plywood

I used construction grade 1/2" for the ramp, top, and back. And 3/4" for the sides. The reason is because I had the 3/4" left over from something else.

5- 8'2x4's cut to 46" legths for the ramp bracing that is screwed in from the plywood ends of the exterior shell.

The pallets are cut back a little with the curve. Making it really solid, and barely heavy enough to move around with a dolly. I used 3" decking screws for the 2x4 braces and 2" decking screws to screw the pallets together and the shell to the pallets.

As expected, 1/2" plywood does not want to be bent much. Over a 2 day span I used ratchet straps end to end for tension. Semi daily I would spray water on top and bottom. With a block in the center because it just looked necessary. The bend was a perfect match. Time to screw it down!

This Part looks a little weird but went together nicely. The last foot of the top of the plywood is not the same curve as the rest of the arch. I screwed the plywood down and with nothing up top to go by, just let the straightness of the plywood be the end product. For skating it will make drop ins easier. I stacked a few more pallets up to height and boxed it in.

As far as the plywood cuts go. The ramp is a full sheet. the top and back are 3' and 5' respectively. This works out great having little waste. The extra top on the sides are made from the drops from the ramp cut out.

Planing the bottom. To have a smooth skate transition I needed to make the bottom go to nothing. I put a guide line 3" from the end. Used an electric planer to go from nothing to 1/2" in the 3" wide distance. Then it's paint and get ready for Christmas. We had a cold spell the week before Christmas so I took the WW to work to paint during my lunch breaks.

The board on top is a hand hold to help my son grab and pull up. He's not quite able to get up by himself yet. But with a full head of steam he can touch the grab board. I help him pull himself the rest of the way up. On Christmas day, he must have done it 200 times. From the minute he woke up, until "one last time" right before bedtime. I hope you enjoy this and maybe inspires someone to make one too.