So once we’ve finished a hedgehog house, the next project is a little wooden jump for the kids (cough and myself) to practise on.

Aim is to be simple to build and simple to alter in the future. So I’m thinking starting with straight 120cm sides on 20cm legs at one end and 40cm braces on the inside, all made of 2×4. So far so good?

My big question is what to make the top from? Tracey’s ramps in a previous thread appeared to be just 1×2 slats. Alternatively decking boards are cheap, pre-grooved for grip and cover a larger area faster. Or a plywood sheet (12mm?) cut to the right size?

My hesitation towards ply is that if I want to rip the jump apart and reconstruct it I have a fixed size of ply and not a pile of slats. But a sheet of ply is probably lighter than the 25mm slats. Can’t decide!

I built one two years ago and its still going strong. I just cut up a couple of pallets. Its rough wood so grips well.

Why not make it unnecessarily complicated?

The legs on that pivot round the bolts then there’s a long piece of threaded bar underneath so you can adjust the angle of the ramp by moving the legs 😀

Then we had some ply kicking about from building the garage work tops so built these…

There’s obviously a seesaw type thing kicking about as well.

pre-grooved for grip

Unless you put chicken wire or grip tape down there will still be zero grip after even a hint of moisture.

Why not make it unnecessarily complicated?

You’re the one complicating things 🙂 your top jump is pretty much what I was planning but with legs that I unscrew and put new ones on instead of swivelling.

The other jumps are very cool, but definitely phase two.

We just bought the cheapest stuff we could from the reclamation yard including a free scaffold board for the seesaw. Cost wise all in, including delivery and a big bag of ringed nails, was less than £50.

I think some people need to spend a little less time larking around on jumps and more time cutting lawns and maintaining gardens,  hmmmm?

The lawn is soggy from all the rain, building a jump is an awesome use of time.

Even if you can’t get the mower out, you could at least do some edging. I mean, come on man, standards!