Leaving tonight at midnight from Skyway. This is a test post to see how my phone works with the service. http://www.jesterscourt.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=42

Here is the grid layout with correct proportions.  Click on the image to embiggen, and actually see the whole thing.   The two black bars at the top are the doors into the arena, the black bars on the sides toward the bottom are the emergency exit doors.

The arena weighs in at 2,632.5 sq feet.

The observation deck is just above the red energizers, it is 40 feet long.

View from the observation deck:

This is the back of the wall we built, I added 4x4 support beams.  

  We are nearing the end.  The wall is now fully supported, the j-hooks for the grid are almost all in place, would have been last night but I ran out of washers.  The grid takes some time to string and tighten, but after that, we can design and build our first arena!
  Sure I've got some more work before we can actually play in the arena, but the tough stuff is almost done.  Brian said he would work on the black lights and wiring next week, Gumby said he would work on the sound system.  I do still have to work on the pod housings, but wiring the system isn't hard.
  Nationals at our place looks like it might actually happen!

  I don't have any pictures right now, but we have the painting done.  My sister finished the entire ceiling.  I have about half of the grid up, the other half which is attached to the wall I built is going to take some more work.  The wall is buckling under the pressure.  It's mostly at the joint where I knew I would have problems.  It looks like I will have to re-enforce the main supports to a truss in the ceiling.  I think I will also have to build the observation deck first to give the wall extra strength.
  The worst part about all that?  More money.

  We had a tournament at Skate Zone over the weekend, here are the results: http://www.jesterscourt.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11

Last Thursday 2 car loads of Pittsburgh players came down to help!  They managed to get the rest of the walls painted and cleared out the entire room of all the things that were in the way.  We got some more uni-strut up, and I have the proper size of bolts to anchor them.

We are getting close...

A huge thanks to all the people that came out to help with the arena!  Samantha came nice and early to get a good start, Mark helped her paint the walls.  Jess helped with the painting when she arrived, Jay helped Kel and I with the grid while Justin worked on the equipment.  Brian was there all day as well helping with the paint.

In this picture you can see the Uni-Strut that the grid will be attached to.  We placed two 2x4 backing on it to prevent any bowing.  All the support is coming from the poles.  The wood looks pretty bad, but that's what you get for using old pieces saved from a little room we took down.  They don't look good, but the grid will be straight.

You can see here where the thick strut meets the thin strut which was used on the wall we built because we didn't have to worry about long spans with no support.  All of the strut is hung with relatively small bolts, we have to get the proper size and go back through, but that won'e be nearly as hard.

Here you can see the paint job done.  Parts of the ceiling were done with the sprayer before it broke.  The rest was all done by hand.

Here we have Justin setting up his area to work on the equipment.

We accomplished a lot, still so much more to go.  We have about half the painting done, and half the uni-strut.  

Plywood face complete!


Plywood face complete! With Kel's help last night we finished the last of the plywood face, used some thin panels to cover the viewing deck to keep the heat in, and fired up the furnace. We just happened to have the right size door laying around so we installed that as well.
Since Brian nailed the wall to the concrete the other day, we are mostly finished with this part of the project. Tonight will involve finishing the details, like putting up corner boards, a trimmed 2x4 where the grid will hang on the new wall, maybe a 2x6 ledge for the viewing deck, cleaning the small stuff out of the way and cleaning the walls so we can paint. If people show up tonight we might actually make it to the painting.
Once the paint is done, the grid is next.

I made some progress with the arena last night.


I got up all the plywood I could do myself. I didn't have anything to notch out the space for the electrical boxes so I had to stop. I also couldn't find my big bucket of drywall screws, which I wasted over an hour looking for. I just found them this morning at the coffee shop...

With another set of hands and a jigsaw we can get the plywood done in an hour or two. Then I have to level the wall and drive it into the concrete, the leveling is going to take some time. I have a hammer drill but I've been told to use the nail gun, the one with rounds of ammo that drive the nail right through the concrete. Never used one before so I'm a bit intimidated.

There is one piece of the wall that worries me: I had to skip a 14' stud that should have went to the truss in order to avoid the heater. Unfortunately that darker section of frame (covering the heater in the picture) was the final frame section and only has two studs. It's a little flimsy and will be the weakest part of the wall since it has the longest span without a stud.
We can fix this of course, it's just finding the best method. I'm thinking of adding a 2 x 6 ledge for the viewing area, this would give people more room to lean on, and add a hell of a lot of strength to the wall. There is also that section that is missing plywood just on top of the plywood that is already there. I could cut small strips of plywood to cover it with, or I could use more 2 x 4s which we would attach the uni-strut to for the grid. This would also add lots of strength.
This is a lot of work, but man it's fun!

Main frame complete!

It took until 12:30 last night, but with the help of Brian and Kel we completed the wood frame for the new wall. Next up is placing the junction boxes for the wiring, which if I'm lucky Brian will get to today. After that we start hanging the ply-wood face, this step is very important not because of the extra strength it provides, but rather because we can keep heat in the area to work in.

Oh and did I mention that we have enough dark blue commercial carpet to cover the whole arena? Yeah, that's right.

Though we have come across a new problem: The other three walls are a typical pole building, with the main support posts being 8 feet apart. We had not considered how to mount the grid to these walls. The area in between the posts cannot be used for support.
I'm hoping that light unistrut with a 2x4 backing will be enough to handle the weight, but I'll have to see if the engineer agrees...