Make That Cinder Block Wall Rideable On Your Skateboard

     Cinder Block Walls and Skateboards. Okay so you have some cinder block walls in your skate spot these could become really cool obstacles and you could make them into something but they have to be rideable. Cinder block top edges aren't the most forgiving things on flesh or skateboard decks, In fact they will eat through your deck pretty handily with not to much grinding on the deck not to mention what they will do to your arm. But I intend to show you how to fix all of that. Typical cinder block dimensions are 8x8x16 so you can they are easy to build a wall with. S Stack them together with some concrete in the joints and wallah you have a nice wall. In fact if your riding spot is missing something you may consider adding some cinder block walls and while your at it how about a rail since your working in concrete. 

Capping A Cinder Block Wall For Skateboarding

The top of your cinder block wall is going to be either 6" or 8" wide by as long as the wall is long so to make a cap we are going to need the following items. 3/4" plywood either 6 or 8 inches wide depending on the width of the wall you are capping. Angle Iron two pieces that extend the entire length of the wall. Flat head Screws a lot.

The Project

Place your 3/4" plywood up on the top of the wall put the two pieces of angle iron over the plywood and the edge of the wall on both sides it should overlap the concrete. What do you think? Look pretty cool huh. This is what your completed wall cap will look like. Now take the angle iron off the wall and drill a pilot hole every 18 inches making sure that you have one at each end of the angle iron about 4 inches from the end. a pilot hole is a hole that you drill with a bit that's smaller than the screw you will use to secure your materials it helps you screw your screw into the concrete though. So, once you've drilled your pilot holes now you need to take a bit a little larger than your head of your screws counter sink the holes for the screw heads. What this means is drill a little ways into the angle iron material so there is room for your screw heads so they don't stick up out of the angle iron so your deck will slide freely on the rail of the angle iron. So once you have your pilot holes drilled and you have counter sunk all the holes it's time to put up the cap. place the cap on top of the wall line up the holes that you counter sunk. Start putting the screws in. If some of your counter sinks weren't deep enough and you have screw heads sticking up now is the time to fix that because you will never get around to it later. Congratulations you just put a grindable cap on a cinder block wall. Go ride and have fun. Hey don't forget to check out my Hub on Plan B Skateboards. So now that you learned how to do that what could you do if you figured out how to build a cinder block wall? It's really easy. Think of the obstacle you could build.