Slide on a Hill

[siasiaa]

Hello, We have a hill in our back yard, with a nice slope -- not too steep, not too flat. Everytime I look at it, I think that it would be great to have a slide just winding down the hill for the kids.

I image going to my local hardware store and picking up some kind of large plastic tube or something that I could assemble together to make a slide. Afterall, I just need a flexible material that's smooth enough to slide on. Something lightweight and not expensive.

DOES anyone have any good ideas on what sort of material I could use to make the slide that I'm imagining? :-)

Thanks!

[Goedjn]

Wood, coated in bowling alley wax. Stainless steel. Aluminium. High Density Polyethelyne. Ice.

[<aemeijers]

Uh, no, not flexible- it will keep getting bunched up, and they will get stuck. Do you mean tube slide, or half-pipe? Dry, or run a hose at the top like a slip&#39;n&#39;slide? Dry, and friction is a problem, not to mention burns on sunny days, unless they use burlap sacks to slide on. Wet, well, what is at the bottom of the hill?

Take the kids to nearest playground and water park, and take lots of pictures. (Camera without kids of your own a bad idea these days...) Go home and stare at the pictures.

Lightweight and not expensive will be a problem. Plastic sewer pipe would would work, but is heavy and hard to work with. Most commercial slides are purpose-built fiberglass or sheet molding compound, and if full-circle, they are often translucent. I suppose you could always dig a bobsled run in the dirt, &#39;plaster&#39; it with sakcrete, and run it wet. It&#39;d only last a couple of years, but they will outgrow it by then anyway.

Might I suggest a wheeled sled, instead? Anything from a traditional push-car, to a all-terrain mechanics creeper? Definitely need a row of hay bales and a sand pit at the bottom for those, though.

aem sends...

[HeyBub]

Be sure your insurance is up to date.

You construct something. Kids use it.

One kid with a heart problem dies. He would have lived to an old age were it not for your "attractive nusiance."

Same concept as an un-fenced swimming pool.

[bamboo]