I’ve had a looooong week. I felt like screaming, then moving to the beach. Instead, I decided to build something…which is something I haven’t done in ages. While walking around harbor freight my nephew and I picked up a swivel wheel. Daniel says “Why don’t we build a ripstick”.
A Ripstick is basically a skateboard that only has two swivel wheels and it twists in the middle. Sounds simple enough, right? hehehe.
So, to build ours, I decided to build it redneck style. This means we don’t make plans, we don’t measure and we certainly don’t make it pretty.
Our material list is:
Behold the masterpiece!
As you can see it is about as ugly as they come…hehehe.
This is the top of the front. You will notice my homemade washers…err…government minted washers. It is actually cheaper to use money for washers than to buy actual washers. You will be amazed how much in life can be actually made out of money…for less. Make magazine often explores this idea.
Here’s the bottom of the front. You will notice that the front has the conduit bolted straight on. The swiveling happens on the back. The conduit has a notch cut out that allows the wheel to swing freely.
Side view of the front.
This would be the back. Another few penny washers and the tops of the Ubolts.
Here’s the bottom of the back. You’ll see that I put a piece of all thread through the pipe. This serves two purposes: it limits the amount of twist in the board and it also keeps the pipe from slipping out.
Here’s a closer shot of the wheel mounted. You will see that we mounted it on a slight incline. This adds stability to the swivel…which is the same way the ripstick guys do 🙂
Now you will notice that I have counter wound bungie cords. This forces the RR to center itself.
Enough with the pictures, time for the video. Here’s me testing the board:
As you will notice, I snapped the back in half, so we had to modify it:
I used a little more scrap and fixed it up.
We also had trouble with the front part of the EMT bending, so I put a couple more bolts and an extra washer.
Finally, here is it in action:
Thanks to my redneck test pilots, Jamie and Daniel. They are my “country” nephews…I’m sure you couldn’t tell by their accent and insistence on saying redneck. hehehe.
I feel much better now. I hope you guys have as much fun laughing at me breaking it as I did building it. 😛
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