Building a Skateboard Park for Dummies

backyard skateboard bowl

We've always believed that when someone pulls up Google and types in "how to build..." in the search box, they are looking for the whole story – not just the easy parts. Sadly, people looking to eHow.com for how-to help didn't always find everything they needed. not to mention that what they did find was often questionable. A case in point is some poor sk8r looking for instructions on "How to Build a Homemade Concrete Bowl for Skateboarding." We'll grant that the project looks daunting, but that never stopped the greed-sucking freelancers at eHow, as you can tell from the SportsRec.com post written by Tom Lutzenberger.

Building a bowl in your backyard for a personal skate park requires about the same planning and execution as building an in-ground swimming pool. Lutzenberger would probably have been better served to adapt pool plans than what he actually did, which appears to have come from the MSU¹ school of instructions. 

Tom, as he usually does (demonstrated in his twelve previous awards), pounded out a bit under 800 words of boilerplate including instructions for getting a permit and compacting the soil (with a "foot stamper"? Really?). After digging the necessary hole, Lutzenberger would have his readers,

"Construct walls at the mid point of the cavity sides to create forms for the concrete as it reaches above the bowl..."

...whatever that's supposed to mean. He also wants the builder to,

"Run a 1-inch-diameter PVC pipe underneath the rebar to the center of the bowl... this will drain water later, when the bowl is finished."

He is kidding, isn't he? A one-inch pipe? That probably wouldn't work for any volume larger than a 20-gallon aquarium!

Regardless of those rather bizarre instructions, we figured that the most important information anyone could pass along to would-be skate park builders is how to create the necessary curves for a bowl shape. Lutzenberger's instructions? Here, read them for yourself:

"Brace the walls from behind with two-by-four beams positioned into the ground. Make the walls out of plywood cut by a table saw, and attach them to two-by-four wood beams with nails and a hammer. Create the wall all the way around the cavity to build the upper frame of the cement."

Wait, what? That's all he has to say about building the forms? No wonder Tom's picking up another Dumbass of the Day award!

¹ MSU: "Making Shit Up"

DDIY - CONCRETE