Thread: My son's birthday present

kids grow, and plastic gets old and brittle, the less you stress it the better off i think.

wish i had the coolest play set in my yard growing up, that things got to be hours of alone time for you parents, go play, get out!

Ya know I did think about beefing up that bracket idea. Maybe get a long piece of metal to bend to the shape of the bolts on that side, and drill hole in t for the bolts to go through. The current bracket uses 2 bolts, I could make a beefier one that uses 6 or 7 or something like that. I'm sure I'll piddle around with it for a few more months like I did last year. You can see those long braces I ended up installing on the tower I built last year, that and 2x4s into the ground are what stabilized that tower.

I also bought some 3.5x3\8 lag bolts for the swings and installed those. The chain is the weak point now. It won't move at all.

Most all the small stuff is done. I leveled out the ground in some spots, scoured the yard for screws and what not, finished up the paneling, and it's done! This thing is big, but fits the yard well, we still have plenty of room around it and on each side of it. Who knows what I'll think of next, but it'll be hard to top this! We're expecting some rain on Tuesday, so that'll help sink everything in a bit.





How much of the yard is on the other side, I'm about a foot from my fence line.

So how does it compare to the playground across the street at the school?

Our's is better, by a long shot. Theirs does have a tube slide, but it's maybe 3 feet tall if that. It's one of those commercial rubber maid playset things. They have a separate swing set and it used to be stronger than ours, but not anymore. What we have reminds me of the playground I used to play on when I was in preschool, but a bit better of course lol.

Nicely done, I'm sure your kiddos will continue having so much fun on it, bravo

So I can't leave well enough alone, and I have a 6 foot (and then some) 4x4 I ended up not using. I decided to sacrifice it to make an anchor for the new tower. I dug a 35-36 (hit a rock at the bottom, called it close enough) inch hole next to the farthest 4x4 on the new tower. I wallered it out a bit at the bottom, and I'm going to pour concrete in there around it. Before I put the 4x4 in, I'm going to screw 5 or 6 screws into each side, leaving 3 inches sticking on each one, covering about the last foot. That way it'll have more to grab the concrete. I'll put 3 carriage bolts into that 4x4 post for the tower, and I'm hoping it'll be good...lol. Pics:




This 4x4 is about 3 inches over 6 feet. That 2x4 connected to the post is about 8 inches in the ground. It helped, but I hope this will do better.

Awesome work. Your kids are so lucky!

Thanks man, just got the post done and buried, just have to wait a week for the concrete to fully set up before anyone too heavy goes down the slide again. Here's some pics. Used an 80 pound bag of concrete:






Remember, that 4x4 is nearly 36 inches in the ground so it should be pretty stiff when the concrete is set up.

Zombie apocalypse stuff there...

i just wonder how many kids want to go to your house now to play on that awsome play set??

this playground looks awesome! my 6 year old and 4 year old would love that place!! makes ms want to build one.

soooo i wonder what he has in store for his son this year? a powered car?

Way to knock it out of the park buddy

Originally Posted by ericspecullaas

Haha true story. Thanks guys. Still thinking about what's next. Janelle already wants to build bunk beds, but we'll see how that goes. I was hoping in corporate a picnic table or some kind of kid's eatery into the whole thing, but I'm still pondering on that one.

We've already had a few kids come over and play, and the preschool teacher was talking about a field trip, lol. We live maybe a 1\4 mile from the preschool, and have more swings and more slides. It's funny, this is a small town so I guess word has gotten around. I've been walking around work today and people randomly stop me, 'Hey good job on your swing set" lol.

I'm just hoping that damned 4x4 stiffens it up pretty good, lol.

Its the Taj Mahal of play sets! I would clearly mark "not responsible for accidents" on every side and have an at your own risk sign and a good first aid kit. And practice the hurt kid scenario just in case. And then yes I would be hogging the whole thing while screaming at the top of my lungs, lol. That slide would probably snap my crusty ass like a twig. Hey... I bet the slides make wicked hot wheels racetracks, or even bigger smashier die-cast stuff.

They've already been using it for hot wheels lol. They actually pick up quite a bit of speed on that slide, both kids come out bouncing their ass on the ground, lol. Yea, we've already had the liability discussion. If it actually becomes something that they seriously want to do, signs will be posted. We know 7 out of the 10 kids' family in his class personally, but still.

Originally Posted by ericspecullaas

soooo i wonder what he has in store for his son this year? a powered car?

we all know thats not possible with a wbody..... lol

Get waivers, people get nasty when money is involved. My fiances dad even made me sign a waiver to swim in their pool haha. He is a lawyer though so kind makes sense :P