Day Three

Painting

Before assembling the ramp, I decided to paint all exposed undersides for weather-proofing, as well as the outside of the ramp structure. I used Glidden Speed-Kote exterior flat, basic beige color, $11 per can. I needed four cans. I also bought two cans of deck and patio paint for the skating surface.

Tipping the structures on their sides allowed me to paint all exposed surface.
The side resting on the grass doesn't need painting, since it
will be flush up against its sister piece and therefore not exposed.

I also painted the pressure-treated base structure for the flat center section (pictured below). The pressure treated wood soaks up a lot more paint than the regular fir stuff, which is why I needed 4 cans of paint. I don't know that you have to paint the pressure treated stuff, but I wanted to avoid rot in this rugged central California climate. ;-)

Final Ground Prep

Before assembling the structure, I needed to create a completely level gravel area for the flat central structure and a gravel "track" for the footprint of the four ramp structures.

The area is level, and we're ready for assembly.

In the above picture, you see my first mistake. I did not pay attention to the location of the cross-members when joining the two platforms. Only later did I realize that this would make screwing down the decking to the platform more difficult. We had to measure from each screw along the sides and snap chalk lines to tell us where to sink the deck screws. Save yourself the trouble; align the cross members before connecting the two halves of the platform.

Ramp Structure Assembly

This is the really fun part...

Dan gets the platform perfectly level. And I mean perfectly level...

And we can now bring in the ramp structures and tie it all together with 3" screws.

This detail shows how we sunk 3" screws at an angle at the top of one 2x4,
through both plywood sheets, and into the opposing 2x4 to secure the structures to each other.

Painting the underside of the decking. Many hands make light work. Messy, but light.