John Caughey said:
I’d suggest a ballasted deck trestle. Made with a C channel on it’s back. You can add brackets and walkways to the outsides.
Add bents to prevent sag… drill holes for drainage.
John
Good idea!
I used a steel (galvanized) 2x6 plate used in commercial wall framing for a temp. (3yrs) bridge
Again I’ll use the fraise… have plenty of “water letter outers” !
I used 1x2 Tuf Board from Home Depot for my ladder. Trex would work as well, as well as nay of the other pure PVC boards. Method is no different than what has been shown here already. The issue with the damage wasnt because of the spline method, but an oak tree falling on it. Not much would have prevented that.
Jeff,
I would second the idea to use something like galvanized steel 2 x 6 or 2 x 8 framing members. I think the 8s come in 16 gauge so they will be fairly strong even in the 2 inch direction. There are already openings in the stampings for architectural access, these may be covered with window screen prior to balasting. Depending on how frequently you support them, they may well take fairly large hits from falling branches. They should be readily available at most building supply stores, even possibly the big box stores.
Considering the distance you are proposing, these may also be able to be ordered in longer than 8 foot length. I have seen what appear to be 16 footers in some construction, but I would think that in that length the cost might start to rise.
Bob C.
Got 2 “1x2” pvc boards and some 1 1/2 inch pipe yesterday for Sully’s mountain area. The 12ft boards said $14 each, but rang up at $22 ea, so I’ll do some investigating before I let him buy any more. Track seems to fit nicely across the 3/4 inch boards screwed to the sides of the 1 1/2 inch pipe, and it seems to be quite stable. We used little short pieces of pipe for spacers between the supports.
We only put supports every 3ft. Perhaps too far apart?
The track is about 2 1/2 ft off the ground here and slopes about 1% down to ground level. Actually, the ground comes up quite a ways too. The plan is to build more mountains, but I wanted to be sure when I was building mountain of the height of the track. We’ll also turn some of this into trestle or bridge by adding decorative structure.
The only heavy object I can see falling on it is Sully himself.