Anyone ever make a curly slide?

[iublue]

I am going to make my granddaughter a fort. Of course any good fort has a slide but those curly plastic slides are EXPENSIVE. Anyone ever made one. I have my ideas but thought I would ask for input here before the build.

[Curlycherry]

I have not made one but I know a curved stair maker and I've seen him build one once. He makes a frame out of standing 2x4s that have the curve and so he essentially builds a wall with the curve he wants. Then he uses the 2x4s to serve as a clamping frame and he glues/clamps strips to the frame and works from the wall clamping as he goes to make the bottom of the slide. Then he uses a belt sander to sand it followed up with a ROS. Later he clamps sides onto it and finishes those. He even puts a slight curve to the bottom by stepping some boards down a little and then back up.

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Ci...ndrum.html

[cams2705]

I just did a search and you're right about the cost. I couldn't believe it myself. With that said, I think by the time you find the right materials that would work as a side and be durable and string enough for multiple seasons and weather, plus the added design and assembly time, You'll probably be at a cost savings just by purchasing the slide component and focus on building the fort part yourself.

[Steve N]

Wonder if you could score some non ribbed steel roofing panels you could make something like a wooden trough to support it. Straight would be easy, curved would include some work, and probably a lot of head scratching. But it is do-able

[Phil S.]

Seems like it will be tough to form any sort of rigid material into a 3 dimensional curved shape. I was thinking the sheet plastic sleds kids use might work for the bottom, but by the time it is fitted in a curving trough there'd be a million joints in it. Maybe it could be done in overlapping segments like a centipede inside out. Might be easier to shape it out of wood and then coat it with something slick, fiberglass, something else???

[Matthew Williams]

Watch Craigslist, I bought one used and sold it and the rest of the fort 10 years later. I probably made money if you consider I used it for 10 years. I made it three stories, it had a climbing wall, 3 different slides, a tire swing, a double pump little kids swing and two normal swings with a 20' monkey bar thing. I bought most of the lumber and hardware new and the plastic swings and slides off Craigslist for 50% or less than retail. I had about $1,000 into it and sold it all for $500.

[Steve N]

Yeah, I'm thinking it will be really labor intensive to make a series of overlapped pieces, and turn it into a curve, but............

Isn't that how it goes?

You either throw $$$$$$ at it, or time.

Short of buying a plastic extruding machine that spits out those products, anything I can think of is gonna be real time intensive. I don't see wood as being a long lasting alternative, so that leaves plastic, and metal.

Me? I'd buy a length of the plastic

[oakey]

I made a play scape for my grand son a few years back also though about making the slide some how I just could not find anything that was SAFE and most materials I could easily work with were not slippery enough
I had a swing and climbing wall small fort / tree house slide and stairs
I found a really nice pool slide for free and we used it for a year or so but he was not allowed to play on it unsupervised as I was afraid he could fall from it
worked well but it was open
a year or so later I found a poly tunnel it was a craigslist find paid 20 bucks and laughed all the way home replaced the slide with the tunnel and it was so much safer and we had so much fun on it till he got to old

[Woodshop]

The cost of the materials alone is not worth it . You can find cheap good quality ones on craigslist. it won't be long till they outgrow it any way.
I just went through the same thing with my daughter for my grandson. I kept and email reminder on craigslist and one day a guy listed a really nice one with all the goodies climbing wall fort binoculars 3 swings and 10' slide for $300. my daughter offered him $250 cash and he took it. I was there in 20 minutes and loaded it up. spent the rest of the day putting it back together . he loves it ..

BTW you need to act fast on the good listings. This all went down in 20 minutes of the postings on craigslist. I missed a good one after and hour because my daughter needed to talk it over with her hubby. an hour is to long, it was gone.

You are better off building something in the shop that they will have as a family heirloom for generations. than something like this.

[Ted Jay]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0028AE...tag=xmastc-20en you say expensive. .? How much is expensive?