# good teeter totter size and design



## crazyMTBkid (Dec 15, 2004)

hey me and my friend are looking to build another teeter totter just to ride around on at home nothing too big cus it needs to be portable about 3 feet high with like a 9 foot ramp? what do u guys think?


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## SHIVER ME TIMBERS (Jan 12, 2004)

sounds cool


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## RMXtreem (Oct 16, 2004)

that sound good. i built one a while ago, it was 30" or so high w/ a 10' teeter. i used a 1 3/4" dowel for the teeter to pivot on so i could take the plank off and move it around, easy to store also.


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## Ace_Jellyfish (Dec 12, 2004)

how steep was it with a 10 foot plank cause ours is gonna be taller and shorter than the one you built so we might want to use a longer plank?


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## RMXtreem (Oct 16, 2004)

Ace_Jellyfish said:


> how steep was it with a 10 foot plank cause ours is gonna be taller and shorter than the one you built so we might want to use a longer plank?


it is still fairly steep. if you do not want it very steep, than dont make it as tall, try 12-24" instead. still us a 10' plank though. make the plank first. you can just hold it up and see how high you want the frame.


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## Ace_Jellyfish (Dec 12, 2004)

i drew out all these drawings and measured the angles (i guess my gemometry teacher was right i would use it in real life) and a 10ft board 3 ft high gives about a 145 degree angle. that doesnt look too steep. it all ends up to be about 40ft of 2x4s and a 1'x10' piece of plywood. the entire thing will probably be under 30 bucks and be pretty sturdy


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## DanD (Jan 15, 2004)

Ace_Jellyfish said:


> i drew out all these drawings and measured the angles (i guess my gemometry teacher was right i would use it in real life) and a 10ft board 3 ft high gives about a 145 degree angle. that doesnt look too steep. it all ends up to be about 40ft of 2x4s and a 1'x10' piece of plywood. the entire thing will probably be under 30 bucks and be pretty sturdy


 145 degree angle? what angle are you talking about, I can't imagine any angle on a teeter being in the ball park off 145 degrees.

Edit: nevermind, I get it now, bed time


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## muddywings (Apr 28, 2004)

*Type of wood?*



DanD said:


> 145 degree angle? what angle are you talking about, I can't imagine any angle on a teeter being in the ball park off 145 degrees.
> 
> Edit: nevermind, I get it now, bed time


I just did a search and found this tread so I thought I would ask again as I'm thinking about building a teeter-totter. With my high skool math (SOHCAHTOA) and a 20 degree teeter I get a lenght of about 11 feet with a 4 foot base (I want to make a pretty big teeter). So I would need a 'ladder' of about 20 feet; 11 via the math, lets call it 10 feet on each side. Now if I buy a 16 foot 2x6 thats 8 feet on each side (Lowes has 16 foot 2x6) and if I still make it 4 feet tall then I have a 30 degree rise.
I was going to make 2 "H" with 4x4s and then the ladder using 2x6 as the 'runner' and 2x4 as the rungs, and it teetering on a 1 inch pipe.
?s:
Standard angle for the climb? 20 degree, 30 degree?
Type of wood for long lasting? straight up cheepo pine good enough or pressure treated?
Spacing for the rungs? 1-2 inchs is a guess
How wide should be the ladder? I was thinkig 2 feet so I could use one six foot 2x4 for three rungs
Beefy enough?
Anybody have any pics I could scam off of.
thanks


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## eman (May 2, 2004)

foot and a half should be wide enough. You can go with 2ft if you want plenty of room for error.


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## Ace_Jellyfish (Dec 12, 2004)

we ended up making ours 12ft long an about 2.5ft high which gives it a good angle any higher wouldnt be comfortable. youre gonna wanna connect the bases because it will wobble side to side if you dont. a 1" pipe might be too small im pretty sure thats what we used and it tweaked eventually. the ladder deck might be cool but probably not the cheapest. for our deck we used two 2x4s and cut a strip of 1' wide plywood and put the 2x4s on the ends but still under it and screwed it down. i think the plywood is actually two sections. Remember riders plus their bikes usually exceed 200lbs plus the very heavy deck (ours is probably close to 50lbs) so theres a lot of weight on the pipe and base.


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