coledimich

@RAWSki I think I’m going to pick one of those up for deck on the back side of the jump thanks! @jgills88 This was my last resort because I’ve already built an automated gate/watering system for the top (since we’re on a public lake) and I didn’t want to have to go through the complicated engineering to tie in a gate at the bottom of the ramp to the system but oh well here I go with another winter engineering project haha.

First post since doing away with the classic forum groups so not sure which topic this should be in but here goes... Just for background I'm in South Eastern Michigan. Earlier in the spring and summer we didn't have as much of an issue with the geese population but as the summer went on they got more used to the ramp being there and decided to adopt it as their new public restroom 🫠 We have an owl and a flashing light that blinks at night on our gate system that raises up to the top of the jump, I think the light helps more than the owl but still we have geese droppings on the ramp everyday. I'm considering trying to mix in Irish Soap or FlockFree bird repellent into the wax next time I put it on and see if that has any effect. Just curious if any seasoned jump owners have tricks that actually work to keep the geese away? Thanks! This is how bad it gets for reference:

@mmosley899 Can you recommend a good long ram jack to use? We need to replace the jacks on ours and it looks like you used some on that ramp you have for sale

@LeonL if you look closely you can see that the angle steel in the pockets is raised a few inches so flotation can be trapped inside the I beams that make up the boxes of the frame. That being said I don’t yet know how the floatation will be bracketed on or attached since this ramp is brand new to us and we are just learning everything as we go. @BraceMaker the ramp already has an axle built in so no need to add extra wheels and I think we just want to do it the right way instead of a jerryrigged system so that there is as little upkeep as possible. We are a college team and it is difficult to get people to do this kind of work or even have people that do know how to do it so we are trying to do everything we can to reduce having to make fixes in the future. Obviously there will still be many but just hopefully smaller ones. That’s why I asked the question, basically I want to know if plastic barrels would be considered jerryrigging or if it is pretty standard. @mmosley899 That’s the goal! Would you mind sharing some more description and pictures of what you’ve done to “do it the right way”? Seems like you have lots of knowledge and we’d love to learn from that!

@LeonL excuse the paint work, still in the midst of finishing that up but here are some pictures of the structure of our ramp if that helps. The sections in between the I beams are all either 2.5x 4ft or 3.5x4ft.

@sheskis7 my phone number is 858-997-9096. Would love to see some pictures of your setup!

@JayShower that would probably be ideal for keeping people off but would also be pretty difficult to setup and takedown each time. I’m thinking something just at the top edge on either a hinge or some sort of linear actuator so it moves just below the surface while jumping and then maybe if we find it’s being abused over the first season we could add more to it in the off season. Love the drawing though ;)

@WIRiverRat looks like Acrolon is very similar in price to the POR-15 that bracemaker recommended. Do you have any experience with POR-15 to know if Acrolon has advantages over that?

@BraceMaker luckily our course area is in a spot that you can’t really tube near but that is still a good idea to be on the safe side. I’ll look into the snow fencing. Would you still place it at the top of the ramp like @klindy? I just read about the POR-15 and that sounds like what we’re looking for. How much paint did it take to do the whole trailer? And did you use the cleaning and prepping sprays they recommend?

Yea it’s currently pretty rough so we’ll sand blast before painting anything but thanks for the info about the paint and the gate! Very helpful! I know you said you’d touch up the paint each year, would it get pretty worn down over the course of a season? We have an island that we’ll winch the ramp on to during the winter so it won’t be the easiest to repaint so I’m just wondering if we maybe want to go with something heavier that would last multiple years

If anyone is interested to know for themselves I gave PerfectPass a call this morning and one of their very helpful techs gave me some information on the plug type. It’s the TE 770065-1. You need to buy the contact crimps that go inside separately but if you search it up on TE’s website it shows a list of compatible contacts to choose from

@MI3Eventer Thanks for the info Paul, that's super helpful. I just talked to the guy who has the jump right now and he walked me through the work that would need to be done on it. Sounds like it does have good floats that come with it so thats a plus. Now that we know a little more about it I'm going to chat with the rest of the team and see how everyone feels about it. I will definitely come chat with you at Ripfest this weekend and if you have a few minutes to talk on the phone at some point this week we would appreciate it. My number is 858-997-9096. Thanks - Cole

We practice on Belleville Lake. @DW sorry I was a bit confused by your first sentence there. Were you saying we should contact Action about info on maintaining a jump? Thanks!