Over the last year I have received several questions regarding the rainbow slider. Questions about construction, performance, and things I would change with the design.
Some of the common construction questions were:
How much did the slider cost to build?
-Fortunately I have friends and family that work construction, so most of the materials were “donated”. Ballparking the cost would be around $150 complete with everything.
How long did it take to build?
-By myself it took me about a day and a half.
Where did you get the 55 gallon drums?
-A friend of mine works at a local print shop and was able to get a few barrels for me. I’ve also heard that local car wash facilities are usually willing to give up them as well.
How did you transport the slider?
-On a 4 place snowmobile trailer.
How did you secure the barrels to the slider?
-Because the opening in the frame of the slider is smaller than the barrel the weight of the slider kept the barrels in place just fine. I did though take some rope and ran a couple of pieces from the frame under the barrels to ensure they would not pop out.
Some of the more common questions regarding performance were:
How did you anchor the slider to keep it from moving?
-I used a total of 5 anchors. One in each corner of the frame and one off the front of the nose to keep it from swaying left and right. With the anchors spread out quite a bit, they held the slider in place even while getting hit by rollers.
Did you need to weight the barrels down with anything?
-Yes. The 2 front barrels needed to be filled about a quarter of the way with water by opening the fill cap of the barrel and using a fat sac pump to fill them. The rear barrels needed to be filled almost ¾ of the way. We filled the rear barrels until the pvc in the front of the slider was just barely under the water yet. By doing this it evened the whole slider till it was horizontal to the water.
Did the slider seem solid when you hit it?
-In my opinion and everyone that hit it, it seemed to be rock solid. I wouldn’t change anything to make it more stable.
Would you change anything with the slider now that you have hit it if you went back and had the chance to do so?
-I think the only thing I would change is using bigger pvc. It seemed as though the riders that were first timers had some trouble staying on for the “full pull”. The plywood I used was CDX or particle board which isn’t forgiving on the knees or any other body part some found out. If I were buying the materials I would definitely go with standard ½” plywood and treated plywood if I planned on having it around awhile. Again, all the materials were “donated” so I used what I had at the time.
