About to make a backyard course - any tips would be appreciated.

[Mr.RonGilbert]

After much searching, reading and watching YouTube I am just about ready to dive into a little backyard course for my kid (and ME!!) to play around on.

I have a perfect spot that needs something done with it, stays relatively free from standing water and has plenty of room to walk around.

My plans are to use old boxes, water bottles, news papers, scrap wood and whatever else I can find to use. I will use the following mix to make the mud.

1 part Type 10 Cement (Mortar)
1 1/2 part peat moss
1 1/2 past perlite or vermiculite
1 to 1 1/2 water (added little by little)

I will try some dye to get the tone to match the rest of the landscape, and make mama happy.... will also add a sealer once it dries.

I will be mixing in a wheel barrel - I understand that you want the mix wet yet firm enough to mold into a ball and have it stay together yet be able to break it apart by twisting it in half with it holding it's shape.... I have also read that if you drop it from knee level it should flatten... kind of a mixed read... I think I can figure that part out but a solid tip would be appreciated.

I will do some rocks, a tunnel, a bridge and whatever else we decide to do. Should be a fun project for me and my 10 y/o.

I have plenty of patience (usually) and more than enough time to take whatever time I need to get it done right.

Any tips are appreciated. I will post up some pics of the progress.

 

[doublej]

I would be interested on what people say about the mixture as well.

 

[flipneck]

I have built two crawl space around my place. There main purpose was to test out my rig as it developed, which leads me to my point. The crawler and your driving evolve, so don't get to hung up its design or permanence, because things can change very quickly. Like, you change the tires and all a sudden everything back there is lame.

 

[Mr.RonGilbert]

That is good advice, thanks. That is one reason that I am making it to where I can easily move it around (boxes/wood/water bottles). The mix will be a lighter mix yet strong enough to hold up to the elements and give "the look" vs real rocks/boulders that can get expensive and are not fun to move around.


Thanks for the feedback.

 

[rcntncrawler]

I have built two crawl space around my place. There main purpose was to test out my rig as it developed, which leads me to my point. The crawler and your driving evolve, so don't get to hung up its design or permanence, because things can change very quickly. Like, you change the tires and all a sudden everything back there is lame.

I couldn't agree more. I built a small course on a hill behind my condo. Every time I improve the performance of my truck, I have to make my course harder to keep it fun. Luckily, I left plenty of room to add more lines to the course. So, I suggest not to use all of your crawling space on the original course. Leave room to add more difficult stuff as you improve the performance of your vehicle. Also, have as much fun building your course as you do building your vehicle.

 

[Mr.RonGilbert]

Complete for now. Plenty of things to get into and will do for now. Cool thing is that I have plenty of room on the other side of the pool for more of the same. Great little project for me and the kiddo.

From this:

To this:

 

[damnpaleguy]

Very nice

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[Mr.RonGilbert]

I would be interested on what people say about the mixture as well.

I used that mix and it worked very well. We will see how it stands up to the elements. It needed less water than the 1 to 1.5 parts.. it was more like 1 to 1.25 parts. I would add the one part water then ease in the remaining until the mix was right. I will scrape the peat moss stems down after a few days of hardening, will see if a little map torch will work without discoloring it.

Several "stones" were made out of old water bottles, old magazines, some chicken wire and the mix. I need to work on the colors, I had some dye but forgot to add it in to the mix. lol. I still need to trim the inside edge of the tunnel and paint the inside.... will paint it just a few feet then throw some pea gravel on the bottom of it.

I also need to redo the "tough" end of the bridge, it is a little too steep for the JK, the AX10 can do it but it needs some rocks stacked to get it done.

 

[khoun]

Looking good .. I cant wait for the snow to be gone so i can wok on one in my backyard. Have been saving material all winter. when the weather breaks im going to cut down some ceader and loctus branches to use for a bridge and i picked up a kids plastic slide that im going to set up and glue rocks and cement too. should be fun

 

[fly]

That's really cool! How are the "rocks" holding up? I made some once out of Styrofoam and coated them with mortar and they did alright until the mortar cracked then it looked like it snowed from all the styro flakes!

 

[Mr.RonGilbert]

Khoun - we don't do well with snow down here. Lol.... Ice is bad enough. I can imagine what I would do with myself if we had "real" winters around here.

FLY - we will see. I don think I will be standing on it lol. They are nice and hard, I wrapped the chicken wire pretty tight around the bottles and filled the voids with wadded paper. Worst case I will toss'em and throw some more rocks down. I just think it is cool using what would be trash to make a playground. If it holds up there will be much more of the same.

 

[Mr.RonGilbert]

Redneck fix for the hard angle on the end. Will do for a little while.

The boy and I spent several hours playing follow the leader though, over, under and around and around. Should be good for multiple gates with a little bit of everything for my scaler. The AX10 eats just about everything up and asks for more. I will figure out some challenges for it.

 

[rcntncrawler]

That looks great. Can I come over and crawl? lol. If it gets too easy to drive, try taking out some of the slats from the bridge.