john18061806I made a dirt jump and covered it with plywood, don't have to worry about plywood breaking because it's completely supported by the dirt. making a ramp out of plywood is difficult and tedious, but it's easily doable with enough ingenuity.
IF you have no tools or wood skills or are just don't want to build anything maybe but it's really not hard.
As far as the OP you can have both if you want. YOu can have a transition from flat to the angle of your ramp and then have it flatten back out. IMO that's the way to go.
Cut the side or at least the tranny out of ply. 5/8s would be preferable but you can use thinner stuff if you have to. Honestly won't really matter but I just like all my sides to be fairly thick from bigger ramps.
Figure out what kind of transition you want from flat up. If you want it to flatten out draw that on there as well obviously. Figure out how quick you want it and how steep you want the angle of the ramp. You can run the flat part of the ramp out of 2x4s and just cut a small tranny to add on but imo it'd be easier/cleaner just to make the whole thing with a single ply piece on each side. Then figure out how wide you want your ramp. Let's say you want your ramp to be 4 feet wide. Cut your 2x4s to 3'10.25" or whatever you used for the sides of ply whether it's 1/2, 5/8, 3/4. Then through 2x4's across. You don't have to put them too close, a foot is generally gold but you can put them closer if you want as it won't cost you much more at all. I'd cut them as you go. Put the ones on the end first and then cut the middle ones to fit but slightly long. Just barely over what so it fits real snug. Hammer that shit in with a mallet and it will be really fucking solid even before you screw it in.
For ply half inch is generally the way to go. Could roll with 3/8. One sheet of that will probably be good. I usually double up on ramps but if it's sturdy you should be fine. IF you have a lot of curve make sure to bend it horizontal. Bending that way you can get some tight curves, if you bend the sheet vertical you can snap pieces on small curves and ply isn't cheap.
You could bang out a really solid ramp in an hour or 2. And that's allowing plenty of time to measure things a bunch, second guess yourself, make some mistakes. You can get a jig saw at home depot for like 20bucks. Those are fine for cutting out your shape. Obviously use your one shape to trace out the other so they both end up the same. All you're doing is cutting the edge of the ramp, just imagine it like you're looking from the side, what angle do you want, then just sticking 2x4s across to strengthen it and hold the ply and turf down on top.
Your first ramp might not be the worlds sickest ramp but you can get a pretty damn good ramp without that much effort. Maybe after you'll get bored and wanna build a mini or something.
