Free 2′ Funbox Plans
here you will find free ramp plans on how to build a Funbox with transition sides. The funbox shown in the pictures is 2 feet high, 5 feet wide and with 8 feet of flat, but these plans are quite easily adjusted.
Materials required
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Total Cost (no rail, with massonite): $235
Wood Required
- 1 Sheet 4′x8′ (3/8)” plywood (non-treated)
Part 1: String and Compass
To Start off building your Funbox, first to decide how tall you want it to be and how steep you want the transitions going into it. Both of these factors will factor into the length of the funbox (the other factor is the length of the flat top). The plans that follow use a height of 2 feet and a transition of 8 feet (which works pretty well).
Its worth mentioning that you dont have to use curved transitions for the funbox like I am about to show, you can make the sides triangle shaped (a flat transition), if you decide to do that, this step is pretty self-explanatory.
Refer to the String and Compass method taught on this site. Start the transition 1.5 inches from the ground, make it two feet tall, use a 7 to 8 foot transition, and leave about 8 inches of flat on the side piece. You should end up with a piece that looks like this…
Notice that there is 8″ of flat left at the top of the side, this is to ease the transition from the funbox transition the the flat top. I built the box in the middle to be 4′ wide (to simplify plywood surfacing), so the total length of the flat top is 4′ + 8″ + 8″ = 5’4″, which is what I planned for, if you want to make your funbox have a longer flat top you can either adjust the size of the top you leave on the side pieces or adjust the length of the middle box.
Part 2: Trace to Make Three More
This part is quite easy, instead of using the string and compass method again, just take the piece you have cut out and trace it to make 3 copies, you should be able to do it all on once piece of 4′x8′ plywood with no problems. Now you should have this…
Step 2: 2 by 4’s
Wood Required
- 8 pieces 10′ long treated 2x4s
Screw In The 2x4s
This step is pretty easy, cut the 2x4s to the width that you want your funbox to be. The funbox shown in the pictures is 5′ wide, it is more practicle in terms of plywood to make the box 4′ or 8′ long (since plywood is 4′x8′), but my funbox is in a 8′ wide lane and I wanted to be able to skate around it, 4′ wasn’t wide enough for me because it would be difficult to clear the box with the rail on it.
Take the four sides you cut out in step 1 and lay them on top of eachother. Draw marks about every 8″ (this is where the 2x4s will go), you need to have a 2×4 at the very bottom and at the peak of the transition, so try to figure out a way to space the 2x4s evenly leaving about 8″ between them.
Now that you have your marks drawn, screw in the 2x4s at the marks. As you can see in the pictures below, the bottom 2×4 goes horizontally (since the bottom of the side pieces is 1.5″ high, and a 2×4 is actually 3.5″ by 1.5″), the rest go perpendicular to the transition. Use two screws per side per 2×4.
Quick note, for those of you looking closely at the pictures, you might notice I dont have a 2×4 going perpendicular where the transition meets the flat top of the side piece, this was a mistake by me, and made it much more difficult to apply the plywood.
Step 3 box sides
Wood Required
- 1 pieces 10′ long treated 4x4ges
- 4 pieces 10′ long treated 2x6s
- 3 pieces 10′ long treated 2x4s
The wood required is for my funbox which is 2′ high, 5′ wide, and has a flat top length of 7′, you will need to adjust the wood required for different specs.
Part 1: Pick A Length
The first thing you need to do is decide how long of a flat section you want on your funbox. Things to consider are if you are going to be doing airs over the box and if you are going to put a rail on the box. When I built this funbox the main purpose was to air over it on roller blades, so I made the flat top to be 5’4″ long, which turned out to be perfect when using a 4′ quarterpipe for building speed, it was pretty much impossible to clear on a skateboard with the same amount of speed though. As you can see I put a rail in, it would have been nice to have a longer section to grind over the flat part, so its a trade off.
Making my box have a 5’4″ flat section, I put 8″ of flat on each of the side pieces then made the box 4′ long, so the plywood fits perfectly. You could plan ahead for your funbox also so that your box is 4′ long then you add additional length to the side pieces. However you can just keep 8″ on the side pieces and adjust the length of the box section, the box surface just wont be as easy.
Part 2: Box Sides
Just as a note when I built this funbox I wasn’t using any plans, so I just started screwing wood together to make the box, if you think you have a better way of making the box feel free to do it that way, otherwise this way works just fine.
I’ll assume you are building your funbox to be 5’4″ feet long long like mine, so if your box is a different length just adjust the lengths to meet your box.
Now remember how you added 8″ of a flat top to each of the 4 sides? So since I wanted my flat top to be 5’4″ long, I need to make the box 4′ long.
Cut 3 pieces of 2x6s to a length of 4’9″ (width of funbox less 3″), and cut two pieces of 4x4s to a length of 2′ (height of funbox), screw them together like so.
Repeat this step so you have two sides.
Part 3: Connect the two sides
Cut two pieces of 2×6 to a length of 5′ (width of funbox). Use them to connect the two sides like this.
I’m not sure why I made the 4x4s go on the outside rather than turn the side pieces around and put them on the inside, either way works but i’d probably recommend doing it the other way.
Step 4: Supports
Cut 5 pieces of 2x4s to the length of the space between the sides. For me I cut the 2x4s to 3’3″ (4′ minus 6″ for the two 4×4′s minus 3″ for two 2×6′s). You can always just take a tape measure to see how long you need to cut the two by fours.
Screw in a 2×4 every 8″ or so.
You might also want to add a couple of diagonal 2x4s for stability, I never did this though and had no problems.
Step 4 Surfacing
Wood Required
- 2 Sheets 4′x8′ (3/8)” plywood (non-treated)
- 1 Sheet 4’8′ (3/4)” plywood (treated)
- (optional) 3 Sheets (1/4)” massonite
Note: This ammount of plywood should cover the ramp, but buying an additionall piece of (3/8)” plywood will allow you to do it in less pieces.
A Note
For this funbox I used one layer of plywood and one layer of massonite. Usually on ramps you use 2 layers of plywood plus nothing/massonite/skatelite. I didn’t have any problems going with one layer of plywood, but if you dont add massonite/skatelite you probably want to use two layers of plywood.
Part 1: Transition Surfacing
Use the (3/8)” plywood for this step
There are many different ways to do this, the important thing is that you cut plywood in a manner that it covers the entire transition. The traditional way of bending plywood is the wide way (example). However, when surfacing the transition I bent the plywood the long way, this way I was able to get the plywood to span from the top to the bottom of the transition (although used multiple pieces side to side), which wouldn’t be possible bending plywood the wide way since it is only 4′ wide and the transition is longer than that. If you bend the plywood the wide (traditional) way, you will need to use two pieces to reach from the transition bottom to top, and you will have to make sure that the meeting point of the pieces is over a 2×4 (you might want to add an extra 2×4 to have 4″ of space to work with).
Conclusion: If you are able to bend the plywood the long way I would recommend it for this ramp, if you are having a hard time bending it the long way do it the wide way but make sure the seams are supported with 2x4s.
So as you can see in the picture below, I put one piece of plywood down and had to cut an extra piece to make up for the fact that the funbox is 5′ wide but plywood is only 4′ wide. (I actually used two pieces for the 1′ wide strip, but that is because I was using scraps)
For the 8″ on the top that isn’t part of the transition, use 3/4″ plywood. Take your time to make sure the transition from this piece and the 3/8″ plywood on the transition is flush.
This picture is ahead of the plans at this point, it shows the transition and middle box with plywood and painted massonite.
Part 2: Middle Box Surface
This part is easy, just cut the 3/4 inch plywood to fit over the middle box and screw it in.
Part 3: Massonite/Skatelite
This step is optional, but like I mention above if you dont add a top surface layer you might want to use two layers of plywood.
Surfacing with massonite is pretty much the same as surfacing with plywood, except that massonite is MUCH easier to bend. Just cover the surface with massonite but make sure that the seams dont like up with the plywood.
As you can see I painted the massonite white (it comes in brown), this was mostly because I painted all the ramps in my barn white for better lighting, it also helped my funbox deal with being dripped on. If your funbox gets rained on you will need to either use skatelite or cover it with a tarp, neither massonite nor plywood will withstand the rain and your funbox will warp quickly.