That's How I Roll! (Skeeball build)

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thatpurplestuff:
Saturday 3/28/09
I’m finally done with the hop ramp. Cutting these pieces was really repetitive. I actually found myself kinda zoning out a few times, which is not good when you’re operating a machine that has sharp metal spinning at over 25,000rpm. After every couple cuts I started just walking around the yard for a bit to get some air and clear my head.

In retrospect, I REALLY should have taken the extra time to make sure my pilot holes were dead-on. The time I saved speeding through that step isn’t worth the time I’m going to spend sanding this damn thing to get it evened out. Either way, once I’ve smoothed it out and the vinyl flooring is placed over the ramp I think it’s going to be perfect.

I didn’t use wood glue to secure the pieces together, but I don’t think it will be necessary as they seem to be very snug as they are. I’m also not planning on gluing the vinyl down, just laying it over the surface and then clamping down the top and bottom to hold it in place. We’ll see how that works on the sloped area.

One last thing… after further inspection I don’t think my flush trim bit actually broke on Thursday. The tiny little cap at the top of the bit that holds the bearing came off and I think it got sucked into the shop vac. I already purchased another bit, but I just might brave the insides of my powdered-MDF-filled shop vac to see if I can’t retrieve that little guy.

My buddy is coming over tomorrow to help out and I’m hoping to get the entire ramp at least cut out and who knows, maybe even halfway put together.

Thanks for reading my ramblings thus far. From here on out, my posts will be current. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how to do things better/easier/whatever don’t hesitate to chime in.

ivwshane:
Looking good! I think the extra game modes would be awesome!

I have a couple of questions though. Is there a reason why you didn't make a frame for the ramp and just lay 1/8 hardboard over it?

thatpurplestuff:
Hey ivwshane, thanks for taking interest in the project! To be honest, I have zero experience in shaping wood like that and I thought the angle of the curve was too sharp to actually make by bending thin wood over a frame. I could be totally wrong though, since like I said I really have no experience doing that. I also considered taking the Bondo route but one of my friends who is in construction talked me out of it. Not that he has anything against Bondo, he was just saying that I'd be sanding for hours trying to get the curve right.

In the end, I'm very happy with what I ended up with but it WAS a huge pain in the butt. Hopefully now with the scoring section and curve done, the rest of this build is going to seem easy... knock on wood.

Ralman:
Looks great.

The ramp came out great!. A lot of work for that, but it should be worth it.

My guess is that it would hold up better than curved hardboard. With the balls repeatedly hitting it I would worry the hardboard would crack from the stress. There will probably be less flex too from laminating all those pieces together.

And yeah, it looks like you just lost the screw and maybe a washer that was holding the bearing on the flush trim bit.

thatpurplestuff:
Thanks Ralman! I actually found the washers (there was one larger one and one smaller one) along with the bearing, so I think if I can find that screw I'll have an extra working flush trim bit. I'm 90% certain that I vacuumed that thing up thinking that it was a piece that broke off the bit, rather than just a part that unscrewed itself. Scrounging through all that MDF dust makes me a bit nervous, though.

It's REALLY windy here today, so I think I'm gonna pass on cutting the frame today and spare my neighbors from having MDF particles flying all around the neighborhood. I'm probably being overly cautious, but all of the cancer warnings on that stuff gives me the creeps.

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