Jakob Mini
[ Thanks to Jakob Wikman, Finland ]
“Some months ago me and my friends built a 2'mini ramp. I'm from Finland. It's very cold in the winter here, so we decided to build it indoor. The whole process took 2 days. The result was really good. We used plywood as top layer. I don't want to send in plans because my English language is not so good.” -- Jakob Wikman
We wrote Jakob back but our email to him bounced. We wanted to let him know that even if he wanted to send us plans in Finish, that would be fine, we'll post them for any Finish readers. Maybe he'll respond to this page.
A few comments on Jakob's mini:
Cheap
It probably didn't cost very much to build. You'll note on our FAQs page. We mentioned we didn't think you could build a mini for much less than we did. However we didn't consider a ramp that might have no framing for flat bottom or one that would have only one layer of plywood. Jakob also seems to have used square wood, smaller than a 2x4 for the joists. (or however it would be measured in proper countries with the metric system ). This smaller joist probably cost less.
Of course these trade offs have their disadvantages. For instance the ramp can tend to spring up near the bottom where the transition hits the ground. This spring causes movement that can help the plywood to crack faster. The second similar draw back is that with only one layer of plywood the strength of the over all surface is less and can lead to holes right between the joists. Finally the smaller joist size can also cause the ramp to flex more allowing the surface to crack and wear more. ( BTW, a joist gets it's strength more from it's height than it's width )
Those tradeoffs aside, it's definitely ridable. and cheap. I'm sure Jakob hasn't minded.
Attach the coping
Another thing worth noticing is there's a good picture of the "screw through" method of attaching coping. In the "Coping and framing detail" picture you can see the large hole in the front and the smaller hole in the back. Jakob did something smart here that many people often mess up when using this method. He made the holes go straight back rather than from the top down. When you make the holes from the top down, trucks and pegs can get hung up on them.
Support the Joists
Lastly, Jakob used the notched template method for supporting his joists. This involves a bit more cutting but it is a very strong way to support the joists when compared to screwing them in from the sides. However it looks like the joists aren't attached to the templates in any way. You can see them popping up in the frontside 180 picture. Some folks make extra templates without the notches and put them on the outside of the ramp. Then they screw through the sides of that into the ends of the joists just as if they were not doing the notch method. We recently received a very unique idea which is halfway between these two methods.
