That’s my dad! Usually the dude is busy doing things for other people, but once in a while he cranks out a project for himself. He makes it seem easy to make this copper sunflowers sculpture, and for him it probably was. He’s got the gear, and the skills. Dad used a nibbler to cut everything out but you can definitely use a bandsaw with the right blade or maybe even a jigsaw. Snips? I doubt it, with copper this thick. Once he had all the pieces fabbed up he used an oxy-acetylene torch to braze everything together.

Now you know. Go make your own thing.

More photos of this copper sunflowers sculpture

Oh man, I hope doesn’t rain up in Gingerbread Town because those cookie people are going to get wet. Mary later decided to disguise this chasm on the gingerbread house roof with a Playmobil Santa, sleigh and reindeer. Clever. She makes one every Christmas and the kids join in.

Mary spent a few years living in Germany and has been to the Kristkindl market (giant Christmas market place) in some of the cities including the gingerbread capital of the world, Nürnberg.

And, our “neighbor” up the hill, Grove Park Inn, has a gingerbread house competition every year. We haven’t been yet this year, but I did find this video of some of the winners from a couple years ago. I don’t think we’re ready for the big leagues, yet.

Mumsy is back in the doll making game after a little hiatus. A while ago she made 20 rag dolls for a charity called Rag Dolls 2 Love, Inc from a pattern they provided. This one here is a Christmas gift for the latest grandchild, Oli, and it’s made from the scraps of another project. She’s a crafty crafter! This handmade rag doll is a combination of the charity’s pattern and her memory of a two-sided doll from her childhood.

From the Rag Dolls 2 Love site:

Rag Dolls 2 Love, Inc was started to put a soft cloth doll in the hands of children who live in countries ravaged by war, are orphaned or infected by HIV/ AIDS or traumatized by natural disasters. In the summer of 2003 as I listened to a report of Palestinian children shot during a raid by the Israeli army, and the death of Israeli children in a bus bombing, my frustration and anger spilled over at the loss of so many young lives.

Find out more about Rag Dolls 2 Love, Inc.

This one ain’t holding water. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed when I finished making it. But the people have spoken! It got a lot of compliments this Halloween from the large number of visitors we had. Halloween is big deal in our neighborhood. People come from all over to trick-or-treat here. I’m not sure why. The streets are jammed with drivers parking their cars anywhere they can. There are police patrolling on Segways! There was even a police car going up and down the street with its lighting flashing and blasting “Monster Mash.” One of our neighbors had a sign on his door by 8 PM that read:

Too Late!
We had 424 treat bags and now they’re gone.
See you next year. Maybe.

I used a drill to make this jack-o-lantern. I started with a big hole saw (hard to get the core out after each hole), a forstner bit (fast clean cut, but throws pumpkin chips everywhere), a spade bit, and a couple smaller drill bits (they can leave a ragged edge on the surface). There was no plan. I just freestyled around the pumpkin until it looked done. I put the opening on the bottom so I could work around the top.

And by “hard way” I mean this: This tree house is supported only by the tree. Sure, there’s a ladder there in the middle, but that’s not structural. I had read in a book about tree houses that a proper tree house did not have any posts in the ground supporting it. All tree, all the time. I built this at our last house, for my kids. Even though we didn’t have many tree options, and that it wouldn’t be that high, I was determined to build the real deal, not some simple elevated “tree fort” that only used the tree as another post in the ground. Here’s to the hard way!

I would go into the details (you know I would) if I could remember much about it. There are some great resources online. You’ll surely find them once you start looking. Keepin’ it real in Asheville.

T

(Click for big)

My mother, Jenny Sigler, made this crocheted and felted purse for my SIL, Kellie. Jenny/Mom crocheted this purse without a pattern, because she is a complete and total risk taker! Then, she felted it by washing it in very hot water. I know nothing about this “felting” but she says the object will shrink by about a third, and that it makes the weave (sorry if that’s the wrong word) of the yarn somewhat obscured. To finish it off she added some grosgrain ribbon to the strap so it wouldn’t stretch out. “Who dares, wins” and I think this purse turned out super-nice.

More by Mom

When Mary and I got married, almost 18 years ago, we had our wedding bands custom made by goldsmith Eason Price. Eason died a little too young earlier this year. When I called him about making these I told him that we had some general ideas about what we wanted and that we were getting our inspiration from an old book about Celtic art. He said “Yeah, I have that book. Come on down to the shop and we’ll talk about it.” I didn’t believe he actually had the book, because I hadn’t even mentioned the title, so I brought our copy with me. Sure enough, Eason had the exact same book: Celtic Art – The Methods of Construction by George Bain.

We picked out a bird-like creature we liked and Eason added a simple knot pattern. He made some sketches, we approved them, and after getting our sizes he went to work. He used white gold. We wanted platinum but at the time it was almost twice as expensive and way out of our budget. Eason put black enamel in all of the carved lines. I remember asking if the enamel would last. He assured me it would, but he didn’t know the ring and I were about to spend the next eight years working in a shipyard as a steelworker. All the enamel is long gone. I’m just happy to still have the finger.

Here’s the page with the birds we liked:

And the book, “lavishly illustrated with line drawings and photographs”:

My grandfather, Charles “Chick” Orndoff Sigler III, made this treasure chest as a Christmas gift for me when I was probably 10 or so. He also made one for my brother Grayson, and wisely painted our first initials inside the lid of each chest. It was filled silver coins, maybe even silver dollars when he gave them to us. But the real treasure to me is the handmade box my grandfather took time to make. This was no kit. He made everything and even painted the awesome Jolly Roger inside the lid. I should confirm that with the elders, maybe my uncle Robin helped with the painting.

Thirty-some years later it’s still with me. Now, I keep it on my bedside table and use it to hold pocket change. If I didn’t have pocket change I would find some because it looks so cool sitting in the treasure chest. For a brief period it was in the attic at our first house. A home invading squirrel got in, managed to find my treasured treasure chest and gnawed on a couple corners. He was evicted with a vengeance. Looking at the damage still hurts.

This is our favorite card so far, and not just because it’s a bunch of pictures of us. It took two days, three separate shooting sessions, and more wardrobe changes than a Cher concert.

We were having our usual dinner table brainstorm back in November when Mars came up with “candy cane.” And that was like a lightning bolt of silliness to my head. I have been wanting to do a card using our bodies as props, and I immediately realized that with our martial arts gear and street clothes we had everything we needed to be human red and white stripes. Almost everything that is. I didn’t have any red pants. It took some hunting but I was able to find some $10 Sporty Spice wind pants at the local discount store.

Our basement has a high ceiling. It also has a killer skateboard ramp. We put our low-buck “green screen,” about 10 yards of cheapo green fabric, in the middle of the ramp flat bottom. I put the camera on a tripod, but then lodged it in the plumbing running across the ceiling. This set up worked pretty well. If I had taken the time to tack down the fabric to get rid of the wrinkles it would have saved some time in the editing. Also using better lighting would have made this easier. I just used halogen construction lights placed on each deck of the ramp.

With everything in place we started posing. Mary, Paris and Mars would lie on the fabric first. Then, I would climb up a step ladder, start the timer, jump down and throw the ladder to side because it caused shadows, and try to get into position in time. The hardest part to get right was the radius. We used blue tape as guide, but it took some trial and error. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if it would work and be in scale until I was editing the pictures together. “Everybody put your stripe clothes back on.”

Previous cards: 2006, 2005, 2004

Image on back of card

Camera rig

“I know it’s cold down here. Bend to your left!”

This ramp is for sale! $1900

If you’re in the Asheville area, and want to save a ton of time and work, come check it out. It is incredibly well made, and designed to “knock down” for relocation. Moving it will not be a problem. See all the details below.

Contact me if you’re interested

Here is how I built a mini ramp for skateboarding in my basement. It’s less of a “how-to” than a “how-I-did-it.” I built a number of ramps growing up. Also, I was a steelworker in a shipyard through my twenties so I have my own methods of working from that experience that may be helpful to some folks.

I should have blogged this as I was doing it. I did post a project log in the forums at RampPlans.org, but even some of that was well after the fact. Even though I’ve built a number of ramps before, I learned a lot from many of the previous contributors to RPDO.

Let me state now that this is not the normal way to build a ramp. Usually, you complete the entire frame and then add the layers. For the reasons I mention below, I made this using modular construction. You know, the way aircraft carriers are built.

This ramp has been done for almost nine months and I skate it almost every day. I kept putting off posting it because I wanted to format it to be easier to understand, but now I just want to put out there.

1. Ramp Specs
2. Materials
3. Transition Sections
   • Coping Notch Diagram
   • Scribing the Radius
   • Framing Layout and Prep Work
   • Cutting Out the Templates
   • Framing the Transitions
   • Transition Base Layers
4. Flat Bottom
5. Decks
6. Coping
7. Surfacing

Ramp Specs

• Working space: 12 ft x 24 ft
• Width: 12 ft
• Flat: 8 ft
• Trans: 6.5 ft
• Trans ht: 36 in.
• Total ht: ~ 40 in.
• Decks: ~ 30 in. deep

Other requirements

We’re remodeling this house and I want to be able to move the ramp outside when the time comes. I’m building it in a away that will allow me to remove only the top layer to get each module out the door, which also means the decks couldn’t be an integral part of the transitions.

Materials

Below is a list of the material I ordered. And I say “ordered” because I picked up the phone, told Home Depot what I wanted and when. I don’t have a truck and I think $59 to have it brought right to my door is a good deal. You don’t have to stand in line to check out or schlep all the wood around, load, unload etc. I got maybe a dozen extra 2x4s, and a couple extra sheets of 3/8 ply.

Here’s how the lumber arrived. One nice chunk wrapped in plastic in case it rains.

Something not on the list above is screws. Someone on the RPDO forums recommended “Deck Mate” screws. I’ll be eternally grateful to that guy, whoever he was. These things are the best. I got three 5 lb boxes of different lengths. Those are about $26 each but worth it. No slipping, no snapping screw heads off, they have some kinda lube that makes them easy to drive. Here’s a pic so you know what to look for. I haven’t seen them at Lowes, only Home Depot. Maybe it’s their house brand.

Transition Sections

Coping Notch

I made this diagram to help figure out the notch in the transition pieces for my coping. It’s pretty straightforward, but I thought some folks might find it helpful.

Some builders say that no matter how careful you are in planning and construction that you will end shimming the coping into place. That may be true but you gotta start somewhere. Since this ramp was built on a near perfectly flat slab, and I was really uptight about the cuts and fit up, it worked for me.

Scribing the Transition Radius

Most folks like to use the good ol’ string and pencil method to draw the curve on their transition templates. Back when I was a youngster I did that plenty times when we were building ramps. For the transition template on this ramp I used trammel points. You can buy them at a lot of places and there are many types. The ones I have are some ancient hand-me-downs. Each one has a metal pointer for scribing or scratching, but you can replace one with a pencil. If you don’t have those you can also use a scrap 2×4 by putting a screw through one end and drilling a hole for a pencil at the other end.

Then you just clamp those babies to something like a 2×4 and dial in the radius you want.

My transition pieces don’t have the deck area as an integral part because I need to be able to get them out the basement door eventually. So, I started by laying two sheets together and snapping a line at 81.5 inches, 3.5 for the 2×4 on the bottom plus my radius of 78. Then, I put the pencil point at the top of the transition and put the other point on the chalk line. That was an easy way to find the center point for the radius. I measured from there to edge to get the bottom dead center, where my template would end. And then transferred that measurement to the other sheet.

With everything in place we started swinging an arc.

Framing Layout and Prep Work

Here’s how I did the rest of the work on the transition pieces. I put my ribs on 8 inch centers. To step off where they should go I used dividers. This may look like a compass, but trust me, they’re called dividers. This is a pic of my ancient dividers.

I used the scale from my combination square to set the dividers to 8 inches. It’s not a ruler, it’s called a scale.

Then stepped off the 8 inch centers, making a scratch to mark each one.

After that I grabbed a piece of scrap 2×4, centered it by eye on my marks, and traced around it to help me mark the screw holes.

I quickly eyeballed the screw holes and marked it with a pencil. You can measure if you want, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I drilled those out first.

Cutting Out the Templates

Finally, I cut out the whole transition piece with a jig saw. Take your time and be as accurate as possible with this one. You’ll use it as a template for the rest. Once that’s done I clamped it to the other side of the plywood sheet. Sometimes plywood is not as square or as machine-perfect as you might expect. It’s important that the bottom edge and the top corner line up as closely as possible. I used a framing square hung over the side to make sure everything was even.

Once everything was lined up I used some quick clamps to keep it in place.

First I traced the outline. Then, I used the holes I drilled in the first piece as a hole template and drilled through those.

When that was done I removed the original template and cut the next piece out. Rinse and repeat until you have all your pieces. For this ramp I needed 12.

Framing the Transitions

Once I had my plywood transition pieces cut out I started on the 2×4 ribs next. I used some scrap as a table and screwed the base of my miter saw to it. Then, I set up a work stop to the length of my ribs so I didn’t have to keep measuring. I just screwed some more scrap pieces together to make something. This saves so much time over marking and lining up each piece.

I cut my pieces to come out about 1/16 inch short of 48 inches once the sides are attached (48 – 3/4 Plywood – 3/4 Plywood – 1/16 Fudge = 46 7/16 Ribs). That seems to make up for various imperfections, like inconsistently thick plywood. I have six transition sections and each needed 13 ribs (I added another later, so 14). Henry Ford would be proud…

Prior to assembly I started the screws in all the holes. It takes some time, but it really saves time.

If a screw hole ends up on a knot in the plywood it’s best to countersink or counter bore it with a large drill bit. Knots are so hard that the screws always seem to strip out the 2×4 before they can pull the screw head flush. And it’s gotta be flush if you’re putting sections together. Same goes for surface layers too.

When I put these together I like to start with the back bottom brace. It’s the least critical as far as fit-up, and then at least the pieces can hold up themselves.

And here’s a section all framed up. I put my ribs on 8″ centers. That’s plenty close enough considering I’m laying all of my plywood layers with the grain going up the transition.

Transition Base Layers

I decided to put plywood on with the the grain running perpendicular to the ribs, also known as the hard way. I grew up building vert ramps with larger transitions and that’s just how we did it. Also, if you were sheathing a roof or floor on a house you would never lay plywood parallel to the framing, it would just be too weak. I want this ramp to be as rigid and fast as possible. I’m old and I need all the speed I can get.

In hindsight, this was probably at least five times as much work. My transition radius is 78 inches and the plywood was only 3/8 but it was very difficult to bend it into shape. That said, I was able to do it working mostly by myself. I only had two pieces crack and that was on very cold days. I just put an extra rib where the cracks were.

To start I screwed a scrap 2×4 to the front of the transition section to hold the first layer in place. Then, I put some extra studs under the section to raise it so there was room for the quick clamps. I laid a 2×4 across the middle of the plywood and used some screws to hold it in place. I made sure the screws didn’t stick through the back of the plywood. Finally, I started squeezing it down as I stood on it. Once it was down tight to the transition I popped some lines and screwed it down. I only used 5 screws per rib since each subsequent layer would add more.

I offset my second layer six inches in both directions. Maybe I should’ve done a little more but since I need to keep this somewhat modular I rolled with that. Since you can’t pop a line on a curved shape I set my combination square to 6 inches minus a bit for the width of the pencil line and stroked a line on two sides, left and bottom.

Then, I repeated the process on the second layer. This time I used the scrap 2×4 at the 6 inch line to hold the piece in place. The second layer is harder to clamp because of the offset but if you’re patient you can find a way to get clamps to reach.

After each section was done I slid them together. This pic shows them before I screwed them together, snapped a line, and trimmed off the excess at the top. I know a lot of people install the coping before the initial layers, but I don’t know why. That said, I will install the coping before the final layer so I can butt it up to it.

One downside of running the grain in this direction is that there is so much tension on the frame that it deflected the top rib, which was laid flat. This left the ramp wavy at the top. To fix it I installed another rib as a T-brace behind it and jacked it in there as well as I could. It’s decent now, but what a pain. I never had this problem on vert ramps because of the bigger transition and the fact that by the time you get to the last rib it’s going vert or flat so there isn’t as much tension. Bottom line is this ramp is very stiff, but it was lot of work. It may not be worth it to you.

Flat Bottom

Again, I’m building this ramp in a way that will allow me to move it easily when the time comes. Some of this won’t make sense for a typical build.

My flat is 8 feet long. I built each section to support a 4×8 sheet of CDX. Since I was tired of crawling around on my knees I built them on the saw horses. First, I snapped a grid for all my screws. Since this ramp will sit flat on a concrete floor I went with 12 inch centers.

Next, I attached the long 2x4s first by clamping them to the sheet, and driving the screws from a comfortable position, for a change. I used a framing square to make sure the edges were flush.

On these long pieces I offset the screws along the edge a bit so they wouldn’t foul the screws that go into the ribs.

Then, I flipped the whole thing over and attached ribs to the long side studs.

This is probably obvious to some folks out there, but if any of your 2×4 pieces have a knot like this, be sure to put the knot on top. The 2×4 will be a lot weaker if it’s on the bottom. It wouldn’t really matter on this flat section since it’s directly on the concrete, but I put them in the right way out of habit.

With all the ribs in place I flipped the section back over and finished screwing down the plywood.

Once all the three flat sections were done I laid them in place and started aligning them with the transition sections. I used the second layer of plywood to hold everything thing together.

Decks

OK. The next thing I did was build the decks and attached the coping. The decks are about 30 inches deep. I started by building the frame, working in the flat section which at this point only has the first two layers on it.

As I’ve mentioned, I will eventually need to get this ramp out the back door. So, in my tranny sections the 3/4 plywood doesn’t come all the way back as integral part of the deck. Normally it would, but in this case it would be impossible to get the transitions out the door sideways.

I used quick clamps to the hold frame to the transition sections and I also clamped studs on the back. After I checked it with a level I screwed it all together. Then I went back with a reciprocating saw and cut the studs flush. All that’s similar to building a deck for your house.

To keep this thing solid I added jack studs like this on the end.

Where the 8 ft section met the 4 ft section I turned the jack stud sideways to catch both.

I was running out of plywood so I used my scraps from the tranny templates. They weren’t quite big enough so I ended up with some clipped corners. I just put those on the back. To make installing the coping a little easier I left these off until that job was done.

Coping

While the deck was still open I installed the coping. I chose EMT (electrical conduit). It’s about 2.375″ OD, galvanized, and maybe a little too slick. It comes in 10 ft sections, so I had to add a 2 ft piece on each side of this 12 ft wide ramp. To connect it to the ramp I used clothesline bolts. I think they’re easier to work with and stronger than toggle bolts. Some folks like the sill plate bolts used in concrete foundations, but those can be harder to find at some stores. Clothesline bolts also come in a variety of sizes.

I drilled my holes in the framing first, then transferred those to the EMT. I put three bolts in each 10 ft piece and only 1 in the 2 footers. EMT is pretty thin-walled so once you have a pilot hole drilling the big hole is pretty easy. Here’s a bolt locked and loaded.

Put the coping in place on the ramp, add some fender washers and the nuts and you’re set.

The joints in the EMT came out pretty tight. I shimmed one side to get it perfect, but since it’s only 2 ft from the end I doubt any small bumps would bother anyone.

Surfacing

Of course, as soon as this thing was barely together I started skating. In fact, I started skating as soon as I had one transition section done. Try to resist that urge and you’ll finish the ramp sooner.

Anyhow, you definitely want to put on the final layer after the coping is in place. That way you can butt it up nice and tight to the coping. I used B/C plywood with the B side up, of course. I would have rather used some Skatelight or similar but who has that budget? The ramp is inside so plywood was good enough. I will say that the B/C still has some voids in the inner plys. Once it had been skated for a while some of those collapsed leaving small, but annoying dents. Definitely put the grain on your top going with the direction your skating, or your ramp will be pretty slow.

Since I was using full sheets I used a tape to measure 8 ft down the transition in couple place and marked it. Then, I temporarily screwed a 2×4 in place.

That way the 2×4 can hold the sheet in place, allowing you to walk on it to get it into place. Once you get the plywood to snap past the coping it will probably hold itself in position. To make it easier you may want to add a half inch or so to your measurement. That will make it slacker, and easier to get the plywood under the coping.

Once in place start some screws on the top edge. Work your way down each rib and any slackness will almost certainly be eliminated. I suggest you start by screwing each rib in the center. If you work from the same edge each time there is a tendency for the sheet to get out of alignment. Once all the transition sheets were on I measured the middle of the flat, which was less than a full sheet and cut those pieced to fit.

I had to buy extra screws a couple times and I lost track of exactly how many and what sizes I used. I think you can get away with using shorter screws for this last layer, and they’re easier to drive home.

The last thing I did was roll on some flat white paint. It helps keep the dust down and minimizes splinters.

This is a pic of the transition. The skateboard should help with scale. It looks a little slacker than it feels. For me, a radius of 6.5 ft. turned out to be perfect. And the few neighborhood rats I’ve let in to check it out like it too.

Here’s a standing skater’s eye view from the deck.

A view from the basement stairs before the ramp was painted.

Another pre-paint view, from across the room.

Behold… the beginning! When you think about it, do you really need a laundry room?

That’s all there is to it. Go big!