Ramp for gear for a band

thumpybum

hey, while not musical, its kinda musical related, anyone know a good solution for a ramp for wheeling gear into a van?

Ive got a transit and a load of wheeled gear thats getting heavier as my arms get older. Who would have thunk it.

ZakAttak

I don't know how much you're willing to spend but years ago I had a sh1t job in a warehouse, and they had an airlift thing- you placed it at the back of the truck/van loaded your stuff on top of it and then pressed a button- the platform would then raise itself up to about a height of about 2 feet and you could slide stuff from the platform on to the van. No idea where you'd get them though.

red_ice

really easy to do tbh. I used to build skate ramps all the time that would take alot of weight and all you need to do is get marine ply and 2x4, if you want to build it i could do you out a diagram or something if your interested.

Adyx

Think Argos have some sort of fold up ramp thingie in the tools section. Dunno how good it would be or how much load it could take though. (Prob not much).

Edit: Here it is. Looks a bit short for a van though. DIY ftw.

thumpybum

nice one, thanks for that, i measured up at the weekend and 4.5 ft would be about the miniumum Id need and itd be a sharp run in at that, that one would have been perfect though I mailed a crowd england that makes aluminium ramps practically the same as that argus one and they were quoting just under 500 euro for a 5 ft one. :eek:

as to the marine ply suggestion, we used to have a wood one on an old rig we used, found it a bit heavy but may look back look into that based on the above price, suddenly the wood doesnt seem that heavy.

red_ice

you break the ramp in half, it would fit into a rectangle. so an 8 foot ramp would be 2 easy to manage 4 foot lengths by lets say 3 foot high for the average van, thats a 4x3 foot rectangle(not even at one end) in your van for an 8 foot ramp. Personally i wouldn't trust aluminum as it could bounce, which would lead to an inevitable dent, not to mention if it got wet, which it will if you even walk through a puddle will be very slippy regardless of grip. Traditionally people use a diamond plate pattern for grip - which is just pants. You could mortise and tenon a block of 2x4 to hold the ramp together if you were worried about it seperating while being used, and could also pin down steps with a smaller lengh of timber on the sides for grip. But at 8 foot long there wouldnt be much need as the angle at which you are pushing the gear wouldnt be too hard.

Just keep in mind that the sharper that angle is, the harder it will be to get the gear on the ramp, let alone up it! so if you are getting something custom made, make sure its long enough to push a heavy cab up with one person!