Down 4 Life

Foreplay

2012-02-09T13:41:00.002-05:00

We are just getting her ready to get poured...

The Hustle

2012-02-02T16:21:00.006-05:00

It was decided to put in a full day to get this sucker fully layered. 10 hours later...

The BMFC showed up. Although he cited us for one violation, he gave it his full approval.

Petals

doubling up for her protection

2012-01-23T16:39:00.000-05:00

Skin

2012-01-18T20:15:00.005-05:00

Les Mis?

2012-01-06T09:26:00.001-05:00

"Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."

~Victor Hugo

Done and done, Mr. Hugo. On to the layering.

HOLY SHIT

2012-01-04T01:48:00.003-05:00

Not holy shit cause of what we are building, there is plenty of crazy shit, sick shit that people build out there. Holy shit cause we've gotten this much done!

Today was a good day.

2012-01-03T00:01:00.002-05:00

Finished the new corner and started to put the jigsaw puzzle together. We just have to finalize the layout and fill in the gaps and the framing will be done.

We never said we were perfect...

2011-12-30T22:06:00.006-05:00

This is about as good as it gets from us.

Right now you're probably asking "How do you know what radius to cut in those ribs?" Not telling.

Men at work

Not only is it a bigger space, it has plenty of power, taller ceilings, and most importantly in upstate NY - it's heated!

After working on it, we talk general layout. This is gonna be fun.

New Corner

2011-12-28T09:26:00.001-05:00

This will be the biggest corner we've built to date. Around 4 ft tall. Using the old extension for a template. The shelves above are coming out. Plenty of headroom this time around. And here you have it, some freshly cut templates, just like your Christmas tree.

New Space

2011-12-21T09:37:00.000-05:00

New garage spot. ...and this one's heated!

Big plans in the works. Or at least, not-so-mini-plans in the works.

Headache Inducer 2.0

2011-12-16T07:45:00.001-05:00

this type of footage never makes you feel good.

More from moving day...

2011-12-08T11:35:00.001-05:00

Cleared out our inventory. HUGE holiday sales going on.

These extensions are really priced to sell over the holidays. Great financing available and a really great looking model, as our friendly salesman is showing here.

movin day!

2011-12-05T10:11:00.004-05:00

Mini bowl yard sale.

Have a slice of pie. No, really, you earned it! Moving to a garage no where near you. Have fun in the snow this winter -- we're hybernating indoors. See you in April

Land of Phantoms

2011-12-04T22:53:00.003-05:00

A couple of post down I rambled on about a trip we took to Burlington. And then we built the china bank. Blessing made a video of those two things and some other stuff. This is his fourth vid I think, and each one gets better, combining his fine skill of drawing evil and the skateboarding he documents... enjoy

reverse 2

2011-12-02T08:56:00.002-05:00

took the decks off and got most of the coping unattached. also, since we never built a frame and it was basically attached to the garage, we had to get in some interesting positions last night (oh yeah!) in order to make the mini bowl mobile. still not sure we got every one but we'll see when we break our backs attempting to carry the pieces out. move is planned for this weekend- hopefully some more interesting pictures of a bowl on wheels soon. we'll build some party decks and frame her out, extend the flat a bit... and we'll be shredding in a heated garage with rum and egg nog in hand, hopefully before rudolph arrives! 'tis the season for the minibowl - best xmas present ever

Mini bowl in reverse

2011-11-18T08:59:00.003-05:00

Here's where we see if the plan to make the minibowl removable in a few simple steps really works out. So far so good. Took 3 layers off. Now just the decks and coping to come off, and hopefully after that we're hauling her to her new home. Long live the mini bowl.

Daddy Don't Skate

2011-10-18T12:33:00.007-04:00

So he has to make this...

PW was there to work his magic, but my neighbor, who doesn't skate, helped us too. Many hands make light work.

Forms will be coming off soon, then some kind of coping, and then some kind of skating.

Capital Region Skatepark

2011-09-16T14:47:00.002-04:00

visit on facebook and "like" us. even if you don't

It's just a bunch of frontside grinds

2011-09-13T21:46:00.001-04:00

but Legal says I have to post it anyways...

Snowboards

2011-09-05T11:10:00.007-04:00

Most of us in our "crew" snowboard. Or at least used to. Growing up skateboarding in the Northeast leads to a lot of down time in the winters- 8 months of down time and skating in 12x18 garages. So when the mountains started to allow snowboarding (yes, when we were young, snowboarding wasn't really around)we all jumped at the chance to get some in the powder. Of course it's the Northeast, so its more ice than anything else. But it filled a need non-the-less.

Then we got old. and wives. and kids. and houses. and jobs. and more drunk.

All this leads to a lot of not snowboarding, or maybe once a year. Add all that with a bitterness toward the mountains and the cost of snowboarding and the time it consumes... well, lets just say that we don't snowboard anymore.

Thankfully, lots of people still do. And that is good for a company like Burton Snowboards. And good for us. Because up at their headquarters in Burlington, VT with all the profits from their overly marked up products, they built one of the best wooden bowls I've skated.

And that was the plan. Road trip up to Burton factory, grill out, and then back to the Creature's Man Cave for debauchery.

When we head north we like to hook up with our buddies Caus and Rich. They're always down to skate. These two are Caus. He's got a key and has this thing pretty wired.

The Creature. this one gives you an pretty good overview of the bowl. The 'shallow end' is 5' deep, the next section is 6', and the 'deep end' is 9' with pool block.

We were gonna hit a park and grill but then thought it would be a better idea to hit the barrier they have up there and grill. And it was.

There is a bunch of stuff on this abandoned high way. PW displays his street skills. No comply over this thing.

When ever you see a hippy working a grill, you know you're in good hands.

Marshall ends it properly with front d budweiser smash.

Some awesome cell phone footage...

Hype Machine

2011-08-31T23:38:00.001-04:00

summer crete

2011-08-05T00:05:00.004-04:00

We've been trying to get out...

Yonkers, NY

Bondville, VT

Never stop searching for Chin...

2011-05-03T07:31:00.004-04:00

Occasionally he actually turns up.

Colorado Conrete

2011-04-25T12:44:00.003-04:00

I'm not much of a filmer and even less of an editor. As this clip proves. But it does prove that we went out there and did our thing... even if our thing ain't much.

old man winter be damned

2011-03-27T23:18:00.004-04:00

the sonofabitch won't leave, it's a hardy 37 degrees out - but eff em...

WE BE BBQ'ing!!!

Roxboro, Motts

2011-02-25T07:39:00.003-05:00

No editing. The only criteria is that you wear a white t-shirt and the song length matches the video length. Will this please the masses?

It's effin' old up here..

2011-02-19T19:19:00.003-05:00

spb donny hall

It's effin' cold up here

2011-01-14T07:49:00.004-05:00

Finally getting to this...

2010-12-24T10:31:00.003-05:00

Gardenskate streetstyle

2010-12-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

Don't vote

2010-11-04T11:18:00.003-04:00

Don't try, nothing will change...

Go skateboarding instead...

We have no idea why kids have the day off from school on election day - they can't vote. But we decided that they shouldn't have all the fun... took the day and heading down to Bristol, CT to skate Rockwell Park. Good times

coping killers wanted

2010-10-13T11:17:00.003-04:00

let's see whatcha got:

I consider it a success just because the blocks held to the deck. That aside, I created quite a lip. In fact, I had to put so much mortar underneath to compensate, that essentially, I added about 2-5 inches of abrupt vert to the top of the ramp. SICK!

old and new

2010-10-04T10:18:00.012-04:00

Ry sent me an email this weekend with some good pics of the qp being prepped for the first pour. Also a couple of me and him shralpin' for the first time.

The homies gather for some serious planning and development prior to the pour.

Some more of the seriousness.

Seriously though, here's a good shot of the qp just before we started to mix.

And now for some shred.

Headless horseman rock n roll.

Ry's tail stalls from time to time.

Now and again we all get lucky.

Ry also sent some other cool shit he created. enjoi

for a little under $30

2010-09-30T11:31:00.002-04:00

I got this stuff. 4 patio blocks, a 3ft parking curb, and some cheap primer. also got me some extra angle grinder masonry disks....and away i went

Clack clack clack.....

clackity clack clack.

shit should do the trick, no? it's almost october, no time to pour any more. gotta shred while we can.

sessions

2010-09-29T10:52:00.004-04:00

went out and scored a 3 ft wide parking curb.

then one two tree foh patio blocks to be made into some pour man's pool coping for the qp with cheese.

we been skatin'. parking block and pour man's pool coping to be painted and set this weekend. stop by for a sesh if you're bored fools

Round 3

2010-09-20T11:02:00.008-04:00

Seeing piles of rubble on the side of the street doesn't get your average person all that excited.

But as you can tell from the previous 100 D4L posts, we're not your average people.

Me, Ry and C loaded up the truck with shale in between sips of budweiser on a recent saturday -- I mean, what better way to spend the weekend than moving around large heavy objects.

I cobbed together some templates, hammered in some ridiculously bright organge stakes, and held my breath with each pour that the "templates" would hold.

My truck is only a half ton, and we needed about 50, 60 lb bags of crete to finish the entire bank. So we filled my truck up with 3/4 of a ton and poured as much as we could. I think we've progressed tremendously since the first pour. We've probably got another 1/4 - 1/2 ton of crete to pick up and mix in order to finish the job. Hopefully we'll be able to post some pics of dudes skating this spot, real soon. Until then, we'll leave you with a pic of a dude who looks like he was TKO'd in rd 3. This is what happens when you build and skate a manny pad (after 20 beers), instead of pouring some sick crete:

Blue Collar weekends are all the rage these days. Pour it n' Destroy it.

Retry

2010-09-02T09:55:00.006-04:00

Some of you may remember that I posted a video of a mini-monster bowl sesh. It was a cute little video that had a Bob Dylan song as the sound track that added to the silliness of the bowl. I guess Sony had issues with that, I mean, it got nearly 300 views, clearly I was taking advantage of Sony and Bob Dylan. Not only did they have issues with the soundtrack, they also, for unknown reasons, had issue with the video... Youtube promptly removed the entire video. This pissed me off quite a bit. I understand the legality of the stupid song, but the video? Fuck you Sony, that was me and my boys having fun, you have no right to remove my video (well, maybe they do, Lance will have to look into that one). But whatever, here's the video again, with no soundtrack. Like I said, fuck Sony, fuck Bob Dylan, and fuck Celine Dion (she fucked me on another video regarding my mom - R.I.P.). It's no wonder that people constantly steal music - the recording industry is fucked and they get what they deserve.

Then again, you might get lucky

How could I forget?

2010-08-31T10:58:00.006-04:00

We heading up north to check out Slayer, but before we did, we hit the Creature Dome...

Then more blood shed...

Pier 62

2010-08-24T20:14:00.007-04:00

I let Lance ponder his back yard while I pondered this...

Irene was there... she's better than you.

Marshall has "tricks"

Black Slab-bath

2010-08-23T11:38:00.008-04:00

19 bags of crete. myself and the little guy in the back had some work ahead of us the other morning. not so great view of the form and the gravel leveled up to the bottom of the form, on the left hand side. i supported the forms with hand-made stakes, screwed into the form...and with large rocks dug into the ground. pretty janky. at the end of a couple hours, this is where i was....

got a little artsy while i was trying to send a message to my boys ...

but this is a good view of where i was after screeding, mag troweling and finally, using the pool trowel to finish..

this is the seam connecting the slab to the previously poured quarter pipe. a little sweeping then grinding after she's cured and it'll be good to go.

2nd pour came and went. hopefully it'll be cured enough to skate by the end of the week. this pour was a little extra wet (nice) because i was a little afraid that the crete would go off too quickly like with the last pour. 3rd time's the charm. until next time

--d4L

Concrete

2010-08-16T14:25:00.004-04:00

The shit rules. Right?

Well I for one do not get to grind nearly enough of it lately. So we got the hell outta the Gayrage, headed out back, and grabbed a couple of these.

I cleared a spot. PJ designed and cut the forms.

Keith and Ry joined me 'n PJ one Sunday when we could've all been spending some quality time with our beloved families. On top of that, none of us has any real experience with pouring concrete. But with a little (little??) hard work, some tips from youtube, multiple Budweisers and some luck, we came up with this. It's a tough angle, but the ramp is roughly 3 ft high and a little over 5 ft wide.

Actually, we came up with something a lot worse than that at the end of the day. The quarterpipe was (is?) in rough shape on the surface. I'll spare you the details, but concrete goes off fast, particularly when you mix some dry crete on a real hot day....that's lesson 1 for today.

So, we had a really shitty surface. Totally not skateable at first. Depression set in, but shit, if we can build a bowl in a one-car garage, we can pour a quarter pipe. Right? Bueller?

Anyway, I've spent the past couple weeks resurfacing the quarter with some real good, life saving shit for all inexperienced masons, called Cement All. The rest of the time I've been leveling out the flat area. This is where we're at....

What in the hell are we building out back? God only knows. We have no idea. But we'll share the photos as we progress.

-D4L

Family Vacation

2010-07-18T08:58:00.005-04:00

Wild in the Park

Slayreville

pdubbsz-it

2010-06-22T08:49:00.004-04:00

Creature Dome

2010-06-01T23:49:00.004-04:00

Little skateboarding lately, and even less documentation... but ideas are marinating at the moment... we might bring old roads back to life. Until then, check out the Creature.

shredgnarly

2010-03-26T16:33:00.002-04:00

the mini bowl got shredded to pieces the other night by two former One-In-A-Million finalist... John Marshall and White... but you'll just have to believe me - not one camera was pulled out.

Over a year ago...

2010-03-21T21:15:00.005-04:00

we went and skated vert in New Jersey, then....

A gentleman who runs the site The House of Steam grabbed some photos of mine from a trip to the DWGVR and he recently asked for some more. It made me look thru some stuff from said mish to Jersey, which led me to remember that I never posted those photos. I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone of viewing my spectacularly crappy photos...

Vert is hard work, some people (me) make it look hard, other people (see below) make it look easy.

Friday at Garden Skate

Allen's is a hard place to take photos... who wants to stand around and not skate (even if you're a coping scratcher) and because it's such a massive ramp, it's hard to be in the right place at the right time. Did I mention that I take crappy photos?

Are you feeling slow?

2010-03-19T20:01:00.004-04:00

This ramp is retarded. Well, it actually makes you feel retarded, stupid, like you can't skate.

That's not really true, but everything is so quick you have to set up for your trick about 3 runs ahead of time. And if you actually make your planned trick, you better think fast about the next one, cause you got about a nano-second to figure it out. If you don't, that's when the stupid feeling kicks in.

We haven't been in here for awhile and we all forgot how fun it is (despite the stupid feeling). I'm trying to think of a way to explain it, but I'm at a loss. It's just fun. Maybe because it's different... you can mini-ramp it or go after a corner. Maybe it's because you're hanging with your friends kickin' it and laughing at each other and getting each other psyched to make a trick.

Maybe it's because of the skateboard and skateboarding is fun. Yup, that's it. I think.

All these photos were poached from Qua's site. He took all the photos except for the one of him. Not only does he take really good photos, but he makes sure everyone gets a trick.

Lance - BS Blunt to axel

BS 5-0 around the corner

Qua - front feebs

Dane - it was his first time in the gayrage and ripped it. He has a lot of tricks, a lot of good tricks, unfortunately he did them before the camera came out. But Qua got this one, front pivot pop to fakie

Doubles - RnR

FS RnR

Pdubbsz - Satan's FS slasher

Linkage

2010-03-17T16:35:00.006-04:00

My buddy Qua is a professional photographer and a skateboarder. Occasionally he does both together. The other day he did so in Saugerties and now he's got the bug to do it more often. Which is good because he makes everyone look good. He's got a blog of the pictures. You should check it.

Here are a couple from the other day, but really, go to his blog, there's a lot more there.

White

Coilean

Me

Marshall

the mind of a 14 year old...

2010-02-27T12:59:00.010-05:00

...with a body of a 60 year old .

Normally, when we're lacking updates it's because we simply just aren't documenting our radical adventures. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Rather, the body has been breaking down a lot lately, either from injuries or just plain old winter sickness resulting in little, if any skating. But we did manage to get a sesh in with a newbie to the gayrage... Benj. Not only does he have a nice camera and lense, he also knows how to use it. I took a couple to document his smoothness, but he then took over and got all artsy on me. Benj kills it with effortless grace, something I really enjoy watching.

Qua

Benj

Me

And finally, as is often the case, most of this dudes are not only skilled on the stunt wood but also in the artistic world. John Marshall (EG) is one of these guys. He's got a site, you should check it out... www.defleotard.com. Click thru the animated gif's. Fun stuff.

MLK, gonna find a way

2010-01-31T12:30:00.005-05:00

So we made the MLK holiday weekend even longer. We took off Friday and headed down to Connecticut to hit the new bowl at Haven Skatepark. This thing is sick, probably the best wooden bowl in the North East. Once me and pdubbsz did an upgrade to our wheels, things went faster and better!

Lance

Me (photo/creature)

The BMFC

The General Idea

2010-01-29T15:14:00.002-05:00

Please click here

If people wanted to get an idea of what it's like to skate this thing, hopeful this gives you an idea

The most fun you can have with two and a half feet

2009-12-30T01:24:00.005-05:00

What can be said? Things are going well. We're stoked. We're glad we did it. We're happy the way it came out (for the most part). We're having fun.

Lance, BS Five-O around the corner.

I went and took a stab at the new and improved Delaware Water Gap Vert Ramp during the holiday's. It now has 12' corners to close off the deep end.

The amount of speed needed to huck yourself around these corners was just insane. And that's just to get to the top of the damn thing. And if you are really skating it, you're on a level that few can touch. I'm not sure who came up with the term "vert jock", but who ever did never stood on a deck 12 feet up and had someone kick a backside air in their face. Do that and then talk shit. Until then, vert is tops in my book - and should be in yours.

Brian

Mark

Allen (the lucky owner)

Irene (watching her skate might be one of the most amazing things ever)

During that same time, there were rumblings in the gayrage as well, but no evidence to prove such a thing. Not that it matters.

the pen is mightier than the saw

2009-12-11T23:55:00.006-05:00

Blessing came over and did some work, thankfully it wasn't with a saw.

More of this to come and hopefully it'll make it look really done.

He skated too

Pdubbsz feeble attempt to get around the corner.

He mini-ramped this hurricane to fakie, but we'll let it go... this time!

(just to be clear, these are legit tricks, I'm just a wise ass)

Lance showing off how his LA Kick Boxing classes are paying off

It's Official... Almost

2009-12-04T09:59:00.003-05:00

I think it's safe to say that this puppy is done. We still have a few pieces to tack down to complete the decks, but we're not gonna worry too much about it. Right now it's fully skateable and that's what we plan on doing. We might get to finishing the decks, but after the session we had last night, it's really not a big deal. Furthermore, based on how much fun this thing is, the skating might distract us from ever getting to the decks.

This thing might be one of the craziest things I ever skated, and there are lines to be had, it might take a bit to find em', but they are there! It took awhile to actually get to this point, but it's well worth it. A regular back-n-forth ramp would have been fine, but would've gotten dull pretty quick. On this thing, every time you drop in, you're in for a surprise - and a challenge.

hustle and flow

2009-11-18T13:03:00.004-05:00

If you never wanted to skate like Ray Barbee, then i suggest you get the fuck off my blog.

Saugerties, NY

2009-11-16T11:04:00.005-05:00

Finally got some concrete within "I'll be home by lunch" range...

...more to come
(skater:zilla/photo:qua)

the bowl is back

2009-11-14T23:30:00.005-05:00

Well, we took the summer off from the bowl. Not because we don't like it, but rather we like outdoor 'crete for the summer. I may have mentioned it before, but whatever. The point of all this drivel is not random skate documentation (there's plenty of that on the interweb) but documentation of this crazy idea we had and what we did about it. But it doesn't matter, so I'll just get into it.

We had holes

We patched the holes

We covered the holes

We skated the hole

Lucky for some of us, there's a little more 'crete left to be had. You'll see.

a small, bright light.

2009-11-09T23:33:00.012-05:00

This happened 2 weekends ago... we thought it was pretty sweet, but then we saw this (we'll report back on that soon).

Whatever the case, this is still pretty sweet. Considering it's a ghetto land fill, we're hopeful that it'll be bust-free for a little bit. Plus, E.G. John Marshall helps a lot too.

now you can hear it....

2009-11-04T10:01:00.001-05:00

was messin' around a little bit and did this....

wall to wall

2009-10-29T23:22:00.003-04:00

this is going on too...

The Creature's 2009 Fall Classic

2009-10-28T13:57:00.001-04:00

updates on the bowl soon... well, hopefully.

"and just rushed it"

2009-09-22T22:36:00.002-04:00

I had to post this.

Thrasher Skateboard Magazine

Oh, Canada!

2009-09-11T10:49:00.003-04:00

Another good reason to not be in the garage... Canadians! Met up with some fellow old dudes who shredded Bunnyside to bits.

Kevin is a kindred spirit... he's got this in his garage.

Lewiston, ME

2009-08-25T11:18:00.003-04:00

Being the old man that I am, road trips that I once took with the bro's are now designated to road trips with the family. So, my entire family (moms, pops, sisters, nephew's, etc) headed up to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Not too far north there is an old mill town called Lewiston. Some how, way up there, the kids were able to organize and get a skatepark. It's a pretty damn sick Sloppy Sam creation. If you ever have the chance, you should check it out. Here are some shots that my 10 year old nephew took with my DSLR... and some live action.

a little footage for the family to see... G Rated

Lance's Bachelor Bowl Bash Party

2009-08-04T00:31:00.004-04:00

Lance is making it official this weekend and gonna make an honest woman out of his girlfriend. Sucks for her. But good for us. We got to party in Northampton, MA to celebrate such a fine occasion.

We rolled in 8 deep with coolers full of red and whites... erh, coffees for the entire day. it was wicked hot but I think we had 3 or 4 different sessions. skate, drink, skate, drink, and so on. We were there pretty much all afternoon. Great times.

I'm also trying something new. It's a called a slideshow. Let's say it all together now... slideshow. I thought it would lake less time to upload. whatever.

All work is put on hold

2009-07-31T13:40:00.002-04:00

Well, not really, but we just haven't done a whole lot in the garage lately. It's summer here so we're trying to get outdoors. But to all those visiting from all over the globe, sorry. You probably get pretty bummed when you see it's just a bunch of old turds. But rest assured, the bowl is getting shredded, literally. The plan is to finish the decks at some point this summer, and then come fall, focus what we're gonna do about the surface. Probably gonna go with plywood as the masonite is just not holding up.

Anyways, we're heading over to Northampton, MA for Lance's bachelor party bowl bash, so hopefully I'll have some documentation of that trip up shortly. In the mean time, here's some older footage.

footage

2009-07-23T00:07:00.004-04:00

As you can tell, we're still try to figure out this little monster. Rest assured, ish is going down, just not documented... yet.

Damn right it was a good day

2009-06-29T23:40:00.005-04:00

Qua's

then a quick stop for one more beer and one more bowl.

Standing room only

2009-06-22T10:44:00.007-04:00

well, we finally got going on the decks, and we also got another hand involved - Qua. I feel kind bad for him though... my, keef and lance have been working on this thing for a long time and we created our own little world in the gayrage. And it ain't pretty. But he has handled it well and his extra set of hands and know-how helps... and he also shreds this thing!

working in small spaces makes new friends!!

A short video to get the taste buds wet....

Fight Night

2009-06-08T12:01:00.003-04:00

The coping is finally set. And I'm going to take full credit for it. You see, once I shut my mouth, and let Lance and Keef take over, it went in pretty smoothly. So, you're welcome.

After we got it set, we skated it for about an hour. It's pretty crazy and will take some time to figure out, but it's still a lot of fun. All that is left is some clean up and the decks. Then it's on.

Nice Weather Sucks

2009-06-04T11:09:00.004-04:00

only because it distracts us from the bowl. Pdubbsz and I went up to Creature's over the weekend. Mini-vert, 6' on the one side, just shy of vert, other side has an extension that is 7' tall with a foot of vert. Metal surface. Not for the tame, only the wicked.

If you're ever at the Creature's, ask him to show you the pool coping in the lounge... always a good time down there. Thanks Bro!

follow up to the rust dust pipe

2009-05-23T09:17:00.002-04:00

Things got a bit more heated but our battery died on us... you'll just have to believe us...

Full Pipe in Upstate New York from Paul Puccio on Vimeo.

Brown Cocaine

2009-05-19T15:56:00.003-04:00

We've made some real progress... good for our skate legs, bad for our lungs. Masonite dust has been in the air. In fact, it totally replaced the air. Good thing for Budweiser otherwise we might actually consider wearing some type of safety equipment. Of course the beers were probably full of masonite dust too, so not only is it in our lungs, but in our guts too. But it's worth it.

Right now, Lance has to screw down 2 more pedals and cut off the tops. Then we can put in the last piece of pipe and other than the decks (who needs decks?), we'll be skating in no time.... FINALLY!!!

Keef was bitchin' about the masonite dust all night, apparently the cigar smoke has zero effect

Friday night

Monday night

rust dust

2009-05-18T16:24:00.003-04:00

Add one more distraction to the list...

LOG

2009-05-14T22:28:00.004-04:00

Instead of working on the ramp, we did this... ah, just one more thing to add to the list of why we can't get this ramp finished!

tomorrow night

2009-05-12T10:33:00.003-04:00

You should probably scroll down and pause the playlist at the bottom of the site - otherwise things get crazy.

back n' forth

2009-04-21T23:00:00.005-04:00

Now that we have the corner pieces in place, all that we have to do is glue it together.

Click for a bigger image.

Big shout-outs to Keith for coming over and taking charge. The third pipe was a bitch to get in place (no thanks to me), but Keith just handled it.

the bends

2009-04-10T07:47:00.009-04:00

I've laid lots of pipe in my day. I also have installed a lot of metal coping on ramps before too. But doing the round wall was a bit different. We weren't absolutely sure what to expect and the first 45 minutes Lance and I were pretty nervous. I know it might be hard to believe, but our radius cuts weren't exact. Let's call it "natural variation". This is all good and dandy, but the pipe roller doesn't believe in this "natural variation" but rather "exact measurements". We had the pipe rolled at 46.5" and were gonna take our chances. This was a pretty good guess, but when we put it on the ramp we had to make some adjustments. How, you might ask? We cut the fucker. What, you might ask next? Well, ok, just the backside of the pipe.

If you look closely enough, you can see a little cut in the back of the pipe. This allowed us to open the pipe up and meet the actual radius of the corner. It worked pretty well, but we were a bit scared that the screws would fail and the pipe would pop off and break our legs. But it didn't and the future looks bright.

Oh yeah, on one of our test runs, Lance Lightfoot put a nice hole in the bottom of corner number 1. It was good and bad. Bad because it makes it tough to test it and good because it exposed the design failure early and now we can fix it before we get too far. But still, Lance could lay off the calories.

movement

2009-04-01T09:59:00.002-04:00

all of march went by without a post/update, which is probably for the best. but there has been progress (no pics, sorry) and even some skating. the big news is we're having some pipe bent for the corners. should be ready this week if all goes well. just have to install it from there, put the decks on and lay the rest of the masonite. done deal. feel free to comment and call us pussies or whatever for not pouring 'crete. it's springtime -- we'll be slashing plenty of crete in other pits. our shit's gonna be fast and tight....just like your moms. late

Totally unrelated...

2009-02-27T10:37:00.000-05:00

Reggie-44-life

CONTEST-4-life!!

2009-02-23T10:11:00.002-05:00

Everyone loves a contest...Enter as many times as you like by commenting to this post (or don't and go check something way better online like paul's email to the berrics, or maybe, rihanna's black eye). Bonus pts for making up names more clever than 'anonymous'. Multiple choice.

The REAL reason the bowl sits idle is:

A). Paul has yet to finish "working" on his bathroom in order to refi his house and wifey aint letting him near the bowl until it's ready to handle some real bowl action.

B). Paul's still perfecting his photoshop skills.

C). Pauls neighbor rolls coping for a living but yet Paul refuses to drop off pipe for the man, or even talk to the dude despite the fact that that's really the next step for us to take with the build process (paul -- get a grip we're trying to skate in '09!)

D). All of the above

E). This is stupid I hate your lame blog and your unfinished ramp, i'm going to skate shelter (i.e., i'm 13 yrs old).

PRIZE: All correct answers win a coveted free entry pass to skate the tightest 2.5 ft indoor bowl in rensselaerrrr new york, on it's celebratory opening day, jan 1, 2014. Thanks for playing and good luck-4-life.

Not a whole lot of bowl movement...

2009-02-13T10:00:00.004-05:00

but a lot of bowel movement.

D4L proudly annouces the lastest team member, Micah Owen...

Not too sure about the cry baby, but the kid is pretty damn cute.

Corner 4 complete

2009-01-26T10:40:00.002-05:00

Finished the second layer on corner 4 this weekend. We now have a really tight bowl, fully skateable/carveable, with 2 layers of 1/4 inch osb laid down (and flaking away exponentially as I skate this thing more and more). The thought now is to use 1/4 ply, one side sanded, for the final skin. We still got some masonite but we're going to hold on that, feeling that the mini monster could use that extra strength from the ply. May take the masonite back or just hold it for future use. Also gotta get to town on the coping. Sorry about the blurry pic, hopefully some more pics or video to come. Oh yeah, keef made some man-steps to get into the bowl. I haven 't taken a pic of that yet. And probably won't.

Hommies gotta skate

2009-01-22T10:55:00.004-05:00

Well, we took about 10 days off so I could go on a skate mission to New Jersey. Lance had to stay home - he's on 24 hour call for the next 2 weeks. But we did get after it the other night. We worked really late, 2am, but got a lot done.

I'll put up a Jersey post tonite. Stay warm

Another late, cold night

2009-01-12T10:19:00.007-05:00

But we still got somethings done. Due to Lance's hard work last week (see previous post), we were able to cut the arcs and build the last corner. While Lance and keef got that going, I started the layer on corner 3. We didnt' get as much accomplished as we wanted, nevertheless, we were still pretty psyched to see the progress. Now I just have to convince the wife to let me out one more time before next weekend!

I gotta tell ya, building this without a "floor system" is proving to be the biggest problem. This is because the templates all float. So we tack and pre-assemble the corner and everything looks great, then we trace out the arcs, then we unassemble, cut the arcs and put it together for the final time. But, of course, when we put it back together, it doens't look quite as good as it did before. Gaps just tend to show up out of nowhere. That's kinda the drawback to the method we're using, but on the plus side, this thing is nothing but a bunch of 1/4 pipes and will be easy (knock on wood) to disassemble when the time comes.

last week

2009-01-12T09:49:00.008-05:00

knocked out some ribs over the course of the week in prep for keef and pj to come over on the weekend. slow start and got progressively motivated. standard camera phone blurriness...

Locked in...

2009-01-08T10:55:00.003-05:00

Well, I didn't post the results from over the last weekend because it didn't look that impressive. Because we don't have a frame to work off of, we have to set the corners in the right place - which can be tough and is def. time consuming.

But it is official. The final corner is now in place. Lance needs to upload photos (if he feels like it), but since this picture was taken, he has completed a bunch more rows. Hopefully after this saturday, we'll have an updated photo - and a bowl completely framed out.

So, if you want in, you now have to climb over.

Teaser

2009-01-06T10:48:00.003-05:00

Just a tiny sample of the madness we got our selves into...

things just keep getting better

2009-01-04T11:08:00.002-05:00

With the help of Seth we were able to rip through the third corner. 3 sets of hands made the difference... Keef, we expect big things.

This kinda gives you an idea of what we're working in... it's pretty much a boat.

We are able to get some kickturns in and what not, but the thing that really sucks is that until it's done, we really can't skate it the way we want to. But when this side is done... damn.

shut up and skate

2008-12-30T11:01:00.004-05:00

Got 2 layers on the u-bowl now. And we put on some temporary black pipe to help scratch it. Dropped in and it was tough, but it was very clear that once we get the other side done... it's on.

kick turns? You betchya!

2008-12-26T10:34:00.005-05:00

I finally got a second layer on one of the corners and to my surprise, it actually came out pretty decent. After putting down the first layer I thought this thing would be all kinked out, but the second layer took care of that concern. After it was done, we moved some wood and cleaned up and got some kick turns in - and a little bit of some carve action. The one corner isn't done yet so it was a bit sketchy to roll on it. But it felt really good to roll around for a bit.

There have also been some concerns as to how skateable this thing would be. It's too small, no flat, low ceilings, etc. Well, based on the tiny bit of skating we got in, I'm happy to say that this mother is fully skateable. It'll be tight and quick, but we barely scratched the surface and we can't wait to get her done.

(the corner that has the skateboard on it is the corner with 2 layers)

Seasons Greetings 4 Life...

2008-12-22T10:28:00.004-05:00

just a little message from our sponsor (with the help of 20+ inches this past weekend at mt snow). more importantly though, we got....

1 layer done...

2008-12-22T10:13:00.002-05:00

kinda sorta have it figured out...

It's still very dim... but there is light at the end of the tunnel

2008-12-16T10:28:00.001-05:00

My side

Lance's side...

Skate this, bitch!!!

2008-12-10T09:31:00.005-05:00

Yup, we got ourselves a real mess going. As you can see, one of the hardest things we gotta figure out is how to build this thing and keep all the wood inside. In fact, I think we used up half the night just rearranging the garage. So although we made it somewhat skateable the other night, it is completely not skateable now.

Keef came over again, who is normally very useful, but on this nite he was already about a 6 pack deep before he even got there. So, he wasn't the full 110% that we're used to seeing. At least not his work capacity - his hate level was high as usual. Nah, just kidding Keith. Keef and Lance got going on the third corner and I got to layering some ply on the finished corners. We all got things started, but (as you can tell) didn't get to far. We're hoping that the wives will lets us have at it again tonite.

Until then...

well, we .. skated...??

2008-12-09T10:28:00.008-05:00

...my board had cobwebs on it and i'm not as limber as i was back in the day when we started building this thing... but we got this far friday night. getting after the roundwall tonight.

(again sorry for the crappy photos, we'll get it right next time, of course. and if you were here getting blogged up long enough to hear some Maiden or one of the other classics -- assuming you turned up your volume -- you can thank puccio. nice touch pj!)

skin it

2008-12-03T10:19:00.002-05:00

Well, we actually think we're ready to put down some layers. Infact, it was kinda shocking to think that we might have something to do some kickturns on by this weekend.

Stay alert, stay D4L

\^^/

2008-11-28T15:39:00.008-05:00

after finally getting the hang of the compound saw and the concept of the whole thing, me and keith almost finished off the ribs on the far pocket wednesday night. few more to go then hopefully cutting arcs and putting down ply, possibly this weekend.

light bulb...

2008-11-26T10:31:00.002-05:00

quick and dirty miter/bevel action got some shit done last night. felt good. future looks bright (not that one can tell through my phone cam).

Level? Square?

2008-11-24T21:38:00.007-05:00

Those are some good ideas, I guess. But in our world, we prefer the "eye it" technique. We don't have the luxury of having a frame to work off of so nothing ever really stays in place. We could stare at it for days and be like "but see that right there? that's gonna screw it up over here. And this, I dunno if this is gonna work", etc. Ultimately, we just gotta screw the f-er together and hope that it all comes out right in the end (and we don't feel to many kinks).

As you can tell, things are moving along. But heed my advice, if you don't got the time, forget about it. We could have been skating your basic ramp about a month ago but decided to take this on. It'll be worth it, but in the meantime, we're building - not skating.

Hopefully we'll have the other corner finished by the weekend and then we'll put down some layers - get some kick turns in. Lance Jr. is on the way so we gotta finish her up.

Huge shout-outs to our boys Keef and Seth. These dudes don't even skate and they are always down to help build. Keef was the one who said "lets keep going" at 1 in the morning - we kept at it till 2:30. That's what we call heart kids. Heart. And a steady flow of beer. I think this is the third build they have taken part in. Needless to say, they are both Down 4 Life.