I built my first smooth curved quarter pipe in 7th grade. I took a 4x8 sheet of plywood leaned it against a tree, watered it, staked the base, walked up it and bent it into a curve. I proped a couple 2x4's against each edge, tacked a couple nails into the tree and started riding my bike on it. Later I turned it into a half pipe by adding a sheet of plywood on the ground for flat bottom and made a new 8' wide quarter-pipe for the other side. Seen below is that first quarter pipe after being widened and re-built to free stand. I just stood up a plywood sheet along the ramp surface and traced the curve, cut two support transitions, put 2x4's in between them and extended the ramp to 8' wide just in time for skateboarding...
The image below is the opposite side of my first true skatable half pipe that touched vert. The power company had just placed a new yellow plastic tube on the support wire of the pole on the edge of our property so I took it off and tried to make a coping edge with it, as you can see below it didn't work too well first try because it went behind the plywood. That's ok, we couldn't grind yet anyway and on the next several ramps I built I mastered coping placement.
After a couple more mini ramp design/builds in my yard, I had to move elsewhere. My dad didn't allow any more builds in the yard - "too noisy and too many kids...". Next ramp was Foster's. We got enough wood and his parent's let us build one in his side yard, they had plenty of nice property. I took a look at what we had and started going for a 12' wide x 9' high ramp but realized we didn't have enough wood so I had to settle for 8' wide. I went with 8.5' transitions and 6" of vert for 9' high overall. This is one of the best images I have of Fosters, it was fun and I learned a lot of tricks on it, backside, mute and Indy airs, 50/50's, handplants, bs boneless, lien to tails, etc. We finished the ramp in the summer and every day after 9th grade I'd throw my skateboard on the handlebars of my GT and ride 4 miles to Fosters house and skate till dark. Good times.
There were many many other ramps after or around the same time as Fosters: Carrolton X2 or 3, Chicks, Smith's yard, SL, The field, CRIT - abondoned store, Dean's, etc. - ones I designed and built for friends, ones that parents hired me to build for their kids and just constantly building ramps anywhere and everywhere I could. It was always the most fun deciding on the curve or shape of the transition, as that helps to characterize the individual ramp. Sometimes I used string compass for specific radius and other times I would just freehand the curve to make it more unique. Hopefully I can dig up pics of all these ramps from peeps on facebook or something....! TBC
The Woods Ramp 1: We couldn't build in my yard anymore so I had to find more options because I wanted to build bigger and wider. I scoped out a nice clearing in the woods, it was close to my house and a 7-11. This was a perfect spot and ended up being the perfect 8 foot tranny/6 foot tall/16 foot wide with extension ramp.
Woods Ramp 2: I got bored with Woods Ramp 1, other ramps were starting to be built with that same transition, height and width and it just felt too "standard" but it was a very fun ramp, we just needed a new layer of ply and more options. I wanted to add a new channel and spine section and the bigger the ramp the more it took so I went smaller and more unique with a complete mini ramp rebuild on the second design for woods 2. I had to rotate it 180 degrees to allow for the spine addition. I eyed it and hand drew the transitions, added a roll in channel and a spine for more options. Also we put a tarp over it cause it rained so much and going a day without skating was torture.
TBC...
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