Grind box plans

When it comes to building a grind box, it is very easy to customize to fit your needs. Height is probably the biggest factor, obviously the more skilled you are the taller you will want the box, it is also easier to grind a higher box on skates or a bike as opposed to skateboard. I use two types of rails, one corner and one coping style, you can use whatever kind of grinding pieces you want.

The 1.5″ diameter metal pipe can be purchased at a lot of big stores like Home Depot or Lowes. The corner metal piece is a bit harder, if you cannot find anything in stores you can order online atwww.speedymetals.com

Materials required

Total Cost: $86.50
(plus tax, screws, tools)

 

The Free Grind Box Plans

Step 1: Corner Rail Side	Step 2: Pipe Rail Side
Step 3: Surface

 

Step 1

Corner rail side

Materials Required

• 4 pieces 10′ 2x4s
• 1 pieces 8′ 2×4

To start, cut four pieces of 2×4 to the length you want your box to be (well, it will be 1.5″ longer if you put plywood on the side), just make sure you can find 10′ rails before you start building a 10′ box. Take a ruler and mark the 2×4′s every 1.5 feet or so, I spaced it out slightly more so that I would have seven marks total (including the ends).

 

Put two screws at each mark into one of the pieces (this step just for convenience).

Next take an 8′ 2×4 and cut seven pieces that are 8.25″ long, screw them into one of the 10′ 2x4s. Cutting the studs to 8.25″ will make your box 1′ tall, 3″ of height comes from two 2x4s (which are actually 1.5″ by 3.5″), then the final 3/4″ from the top plywood.

Screw one of the 10′ 2×4′s onto the other side, make sure to keep things as square as possible.

Step 2

Pipe rail support

What you need

• 1 piece 8′ 2×6
• 3/4″ plywood scraps
• 10′ long black metal pipe
• drill bits

If you want a circular rail (like coping on a halfpipe, usually preferred by aggressive inline skaters), make one side like described below. If you want both sides to be corner rails (possibly to spite aggressive skaters or to fulfil a symmetrical fetish), ignore this part and repeat step 1.

For the pipe rail side you use 2×6 studs instead of 2×4, so cut the 2×6 into seven pieces that are 8.25″ long, and screw them into one of the 10′ 2×4′s from step 1 like so.

Screwing in the top 2×4 is a little tricky, look at the picture below for where I ended up screwing it in, ignore everything but the top 2×4 in this picture, I haven’t explained it yet.

It helps to get a view from the side and remember that there will be 3/4″ plywood on both the top and side of the box, it’s up to you how much you want your coping to stick out the top and side. A trick is to take a 3/4″ scrap and look at it from the side to get a view of how the coping will rest. Note that the 2×4 is not in its final resting place in this picture.

Next take some scrap 3/4″ plywood (you can wait until after you have made some plywood cuts to do this part) and screw them on top of each stud, in the small offset area that the 2×6 sticks out.

Now you have your resting place for the rail. Take a bit large enough for a screw head to fit through and make holes through one side of the rail at each stud. Then take a bit large enough for the screw point side to fit through and again drill holes at each stud, go through the big holes you just made. You can now screw your coping in place, use an extended philips bit to reach through the top hole. Note you can also wait until the plywood is on to screw in the rail.

Step 3

Surfacing

What you need

• 1 piece 4′ by 8′ 3/4″ plywood
• 1 piece 8′ 2×4

If you plan to keep this box outside, use treated plywood, if not untreated is fine.

First cut the 2×4 to get 6 pieces that are 10.5″. With this cut length your box will be 1′ wide (you add 1.5″ for the two plywood walls). An advantage to the box being 1′ wide is that you can build it with only one sheet of plywood (which is expensive), the box will still be strong if you make it wider, i’d guess with these plans you can go up to 1.5′, wider if you add more support. Take the pieces and use them to connect the two sides. Put two on each end then two in the middle.

Now you are ready to put the plywood walls on. I could put the measurements of the plywood pieces you need to cut, but it depends on the rails you are using, plus I found it much easier to just measure it out before cutting each piece. Due to slight imperfections, most the cuts were about 1/4″ away from being rectangular so you will probably want to measure anyway (unless all of your cuts are swift and confident). I forgot to take step by step pictures of putting the plywood on, but it isn’t that hard to figure out. You end up with three stips of plywood that are about 1′ by 8′, three that are about 1′ by 2′, then two that are 1′ by 1′, if you do the math you can do this with one sheet of plywood. Make sure to keep in mind which pieces will go on the outside when measuring. Also, for the plywood that goes on the pipe rail side, try to wedge it under the rail as best you can to give the rail more support.

Once all the plywood is on, screw the corner rail in place. Like with the pipe rail, drill a hole every so often (I just made three) to put a screw though. If you have caulk lying around or some metal to wood adhesive you know of that might work too.

Here is a shot of the final resting place for the pipe coping side, you can see how the side pieces have been arranged. It slipped my mind that I should have made the box 1.5″ shorter so that the rail spans the full box (not short 3/4″ on each side), but I wasn’t too upset with my mistake, you can make yours how you want.

Here it is, the final box, it is easy to lift with two people, decent to slide and rotate with one. If you didn’t use treated wood you will want to keep it inside or at least out of rain. It is quite sturdy, when you jump on the rail the box does not shift, which is nice. I will probably add some more box plans next summer, make sure to send me pics of your box after making it.