Backyard Crawler Course

[Gramps]

Been thinking about this for several years & had several places around the yard as candidates. This spring we finished removing an old run down flower bed that was here when we purchased the house 3 years ago. Dug up the plants we wanted to keep & moved them elsewhere. Was going to level it out and plant some grass on it. This is when the light went off, why not make it into the crawling course. It's in the shade except for early morning, it's already has no vegetation, there's a gazebo near by for resting, sounds like a good place to me. Got the approval from the bride so it's a go.


Been collecting rocks that I have dug up doing other projects for the last several years, had it stored down in the back by the creek. Also had some skateboard ramps that I bought to use on a race track I had at my other house. One set of ramps made into a table top so I thought that was a good starting point. Placed it where I wanted it & started throwing rocks at it more or less willy nilly so it would look sort of natural. The ramps are pretty slick so I'm not sure yet how I'll secure them, I thinking with a little dirt with some cement mixed in should do the job. The ramps will have multiple entry & egress points. The ideal is to have the rock area and also some trails with obstacles.



I want to take my Mavic down there when the wind dies down and shoot an aireral shoot then I can sit and draw out different ideas.



Here's some photos of what's been done so far.

















Added another ramp this evening and some more rock but didn't take any pictures. Hopefully I can work on it some more tomorrow

[Sniper4370]

Lookin' good Gramps. You should head over to Scale Builders Guild and check out the Scale Courses and Diorama section. Lots of cool ideas to be had and, some great "builds" there. I think Richard, aka Pardonmyn00b, posted some of Smiggin's Folly here but, a LOT more over there.

[AK KRAWLER]

Really good start! Most of the rocks I have dug up were all smooth and slick. I guess I could fix that with some concrete dust and a spray bottle.

Keep them ideas and pics coming!!!

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by Sniper4370

Lookin' good Gramps. You should head over to Scale Builders Guild and check out the Scale Courses and Diorama section. Lots of cool ideas to be had and, some great "builds" there. I think Richard, aka Pardonmyn00b, posted some of Smiggin's Folly here but, a LOT more over there.

Had watched SBG videos before but never checked the website, thanks for the tip some great stuff there.

[Mike Flea]

Check this out Gramps: Welcome to Smiggin's Folly

[Gramps]

Did some more work on the course today. This evening I took the Deadbolt out for a test run. Pretty happy with it so far. As you will see in the video you can't drive under the table top, so I will dig that out, guess I'm going to have to climb down in the creek and get a bucket of creek rock to put under the table top, might be a good place for a dry creek.

[Gramps]

After the test run discovering that the drive under wasn't going to work. Figured I need at least +12" of height, didn't want to dig it out that much. Thought about raising the ramps by putting them on blocks, nah that isn't going to look right. Finally decided to build some beams and place the flat top on them. So this is what I have come up with so far. Now you can see in the tunnel so it need some sort of wall in there. Thought about chicken wire & concrete, which also could be used to keep the rocks from fall through the gap. My other thought is to cut some timbers to build timber walls in it.

[Crawl On Everything]

Looking awesome so far I have started to cut and build my wood aspects of my crawler course also. Great work as it is so far Gonna keep up on this post for sure

[Richr8]

Looks good Gramps. I just started building one myself, but way too early for any kind of unveiling. I will be watching your progress and stealing shamelessly.

[Gramps]

It turned out the tunnel was to tall and just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. Took it up the the house today and cut 3" off the bottom. It now looks much better to me. I then restocked the rocks on the top and one ramp. A little more stacking of rock around the ramps and tossing some more filler rocks to make it look a little more natural.

Richr8, feel free to use what you see, that is how I'm getting some of my ideas. :-)

[TheDirtyDiode]

Looking nice! Are you going to expand it or keep it about that size?

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by TheDirtyDiode

Looking nice! Are you going to expand it or keep it about that size?

It will be bigger, I guess this could be called stage one. I have the corners marked out with red flags but they are not set in stone per say. Next I'm going to try building some big rocks. There are also trails with obstacles along the way.

[Scrmblr2]

I like it...looks like a lot of rock you have been moving. I like the resources that got shared earlier in the thread. I also started messing around in the backyard building some obstacles but I am not hijacking your thread.

[Gramps]

Going to be getting some busted up concrete slabs when they redo my neighbor's patio. My intentions are to stack them and then cover them with mortar mix. So today I decided to give it a try. There was a mound of dirt sitting there some so I dug around it and built it up more just letting the dirt slide where it wanted to go. Had #60 of premix concrete & #200 of floor tile motor. Started with the cement mixing & globing it on my hand. Patted it down with a large narrow trowel. Then started mixing and globing the mortar mix on When I was done I had about #40 of mortar mix left. Patted it down and smooth it out. After it had set some I then took a natural rock without a smooth surface dunked it in a bucket of water and began pounding it against the wet mix. Could have used a little more around the bottom but didn't want to mix any more, arms and shoulders were tired. I'll throw some dirt against it where is liking or natural rocks.




This is before I did the final smoothing and rock beating

[Gramps]

Picked up some big rocks yesterday. Placed them around the one ramp to see if I liked them there. Plans are to take the SCX10 down tonight and make a test run to see if I like the setup. Got a line on some concrete chunks to make some more fault rocks.

[Gramps]

My neighbor up the street is getting a new patio so I have been up there picking through the concrete rubble. So far I have gotten 9 garden trailer loads of it. I started dumping it in a pile but this afternoon I decided to stack some of it to see what I can come up with. My original intention was to cover it with mortar which is still possible.

[Mike Flea]

Looks good Gramps!

That's what I did. A friend was doing work for a client and I gave him a place to drop the broken concrete.

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by Mike Flea

Looks good Gramps!

That's what I did. A friend was doing work for a client and I gave him a place to drop the broken concrete.

Got any pictures of yours? I'm looking for ideas on stacking it up

[ferp420]

is that gona be a pond it looks like a pond i would make it a pond lol
not sure if i sead pond enuff though

you could do a water fall in to lol pond
nothing makes wheelin more fun than water

[Gramps]

Took the SCX10 down for a little testing. Parts I'm pretty happy with others need some work.