Thread: My son's birthday present

I umember bein about that size and seeing them at a zoo where you could feed em. The tongue is the conversation maker thats for sure. Theres a drive thru "safari" near here and I had a bit of a GP vs giraffe standoff once, he wasn't moving off that trail but he was staring defiantly. I squeaked around with like a foot to spare. Anyway, hope the boy had a good long day. Its always been about the cake, in my mind!

Just a little update, everything is great with the playhouse, They have a horn and a steering wheel now, and grass finally grew in, lol. Not a day goes by that they don't play on it. $205 well spent in my book:


The kiddos:

So....it's been nearly a year, and the playset has been painted. We did that last August for my Daughter's birthday:




It's been awesome, and we love it so why not expand it again? We've bought a 10 foot tall tube slide (you enter at 7 feet), and we're in the process of building a new platform, and a bridge connecting it. Here's some pics of it all:





Brackets, and lag bolts, it's plenty strong:


With the flooring down:






Of course, the birthday boy!

Awesome Amish guy, glad that all your hard work paid off and that it's not just a lawn ornament it's it'd being enjoyed

Oh I'm hoping the warm trend keeps going, I'd like to have a pretty big birthday party. Oh and believe it or not, me and a good friend of mine has built and moved all of this. I plan on moving in a year or so, so this will all get disassembled, pushed over onto a trailer, and moved. That'll be yet another project in itself lol

Dang, Tarzan. Where's the berfday cake? Seriously that is one sturdy yard toy.

Cool, but where are the..............relays?

Jeff

Help me think of a cool idea with them, lol?

His birthday is 4\10 but I want to make sure I have all the glitches worked out with it all settled and solid before then. Plus we have the slide, are we supposed to stare at it for a month? Sanding the rest of it all was a nightmare before painting. I don't even want to imagine what it's going to be like this go around.

Yeah a lot of work for sure. How about a little solar panel and battery to light some LED strips?

That would be pretty awesome...we will have to talk about that...

There could be searchlights on top or a spotlight near the steering wheel. An exit sign. Neon, lol!

You can get a better idea what I envisioned from today's work. We should be finished up tomorrow for the most part, just some digging and what not might not get done. I got sick of marking and cutting every single board on the bridge's paneling so I moved on and built the slide and swings. I'll finish the paneling tomorrow.

This 5x5 and 4x4 setup is strong. We had to recut the angles on 4x4s on the far A frame and when we remove them the 5x5 was supporting itself from 10 feet away (has a 4x4x1 brace@45*, but still). Anyways, the pics speak for themselves. I have some 2x4s I'm going to hammer into the ground for some added stability, I might make a few more braces if I can think of anything.

Attaching the slide:






It's a really tall tower...

Both my wife and I woke up at 7AM and decided to start working, so we've already gotten quite a bit done. Mainly small stuff, but we did get half of the paneling done, swings hung, more bracing, digging, etc. Here's how it sits right now:

Looking good!

I took it for a test swing and my 230 pound ass was swinging like a 2nd grader (leaving the swing at the highest point) and the swing set never moved. Not even a creak lol. I would like to sure up the tall tower a bit more, it could be a little more stiff. It's not going anywhere and it's very safe the way it is, but when someone over 150 pounds goes down the slide I can see if move about an inch when they hit the first curve.

So your taking apart when you move right

thats a play ground now......i was gonna say before i saw you post on the slide moving, was thinking it needed a brace under it for long term longevity.

and thats a work out to get back to the slide, all the way around, up the ladder over the bridge slide repeat = tired kids lol

Yep, it'll move in a year or so when we do. The bridge easily detaches from either side, as does the 5x5. There's storage units behind my house, so we'll take the chain link fence down, back a 20-24 ft trailer in, push the tower over, and repeat. My friend and I moved the dual tower set by ourselves at the beginning of this project, and at one point during this project I had 3 guys here, which combined had 7 20+ foot trailers, lol. Farm country.

Scotty wood is cheap so I don't mind chopping down a brace or 2. What do you suggest? I have 4 2x4s going into the ground a foot or more each. One under the slide itself attached to the little 2x4 stack thing they had me build to support the bottom of the slide, and the other 3 under the tower itself.

i had a vision of a saddled 6x6 with two posts under it @ the first bend from the top.

Oh something that big, lol. I dunno about that. It has a bracket that connects it to the tower, then all kinds of lag bolts that hold it to the top. The slide itself is secure to the tower, but whenever someone big goes through the slide and hits that first turn you can see the bridge and everything move a tad. It'll be something I piddle with until I find something to really stiffen it up.