Wood

tacubaya said:

Anyone know where I can get some cheap/free wood for ladders, ramps, skinnys etc etc? Also does anyone know the cost of wood when its new?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Any Home Depot sells either planks or lumbers. You may want something like a 2" X 4"

As far as I remember, wood ain't cheap. Visit a carpentry shop. You get 2nd quality Pine wood and ask them to cut it to pieces for you.

I'd use some diesel and a brush to coat them. The wood will absorb the diesel and will resist better to weather and bugs. This is a trick my old man taught me. They use this trick with light poles (my dad was a lineman). It's better with chapopote (tar) but that's hard to get and apply. Diesel will do just as fine.

Good luck!
Wish I could help designing and building.

Thanks warp, well this summer i'm starting to plan a small freeride section in the ajusco and i need lots and lots of wood. I've been thinking of going to construction sites to see if they have some spare wood or used wood...

All ive got now is 6 pices of wood, 1 meter long, 15cm wide and 2 maybe 3 cm thick...

I think i'll be using them to do a ramp or something but If you go to the Ajusco one of these days or somewhere we can get to work and build some things.

tacubaya said:

Thanks warp, well this summer i'm starting to plan a small freeride section in the ajusco and i need lots and lots of wood. I've been thinking of going to construction sites to see if they have some spare wood or used wood...

All ive got now is 6 pices of wood, 1 meter long, 15cm wide and 2 maybe 3 cm thick...

I think i'll be using them to do a ramp or something but If you go to the Ajusco one of these days or somewhere we can get to work and build some things.

Click to expand...

Yeah, construction sites are good places to start.

They use either poles of like 4" X 4" which would do very good for your main supports, beams and such and they also use triplay in like 1/2" or 3/4"... there's little use for that, except for some ramps, but you need lots of reinforcements beneath triplay for continous loading.

Oh, and triplay is no good for humid weather... it expands, the ply's delaminate and the wood fails.

Other than that, no much wood is used on construction... but precisely, the 4X4's could be the more expensive at a shop.

what kind of structures are u planning on building? perhaps some northshore stuff would work, id suggest u stay off triplay.
check out how these guys build theirs... http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=205799
im not familiar with the ajusco scenery though, you could ask the locals for some sponsouring, and they could charge a few pesos for access

tacubaya said:

Anyone know where I can get some cheap/free wood for ladders, ramps, skinnys etc etc? Also does anyone know the cost of wood when its new?

Thanks

Click to expand...

As far as i know, you have to use some hard wood (that one is the expensive) in order to make the ladders safe and long lasting. Pino and other soft woods will only last a couple of week after all the rain and riding abuse during a summer (dunno if Warp's trick will work, but it is better to try) . The guys on the NS are lucky to have an old tree forest with lots of hard wood lying around to their disposal.

For a trail building tutorial go to NSMBA , they are very resourceful.

I'll start finding out about getting a patrocinio and see if some downhilleros are interested in these and would like to help out...

tacubaya said:

I'll start finding out about getting a patrocinio and see if some downhilleros are interested in these and would like to help out...

Click to expand...

The other day I saw a DHer going down with a shovel in his back. I think there is already some people doing maintanance and building work in Ajusco (SNT)

Yes there is, but I've seen only once Dhers doing ramps and stunts... so maybe I can fit there