Slide Tower

This is a slide tower I made to my two little boys in August. It took two weeks the planning and two weeks the woodwork.

Unfortunately our great thujas diseased this spring, so we decided to take them out and build a slide tower to our 5 and 7 years old children.

I made the plans in 3D. There were a few version. This became the final one.

I bought mostly 13 feet long spruce beams. Cross-section: 4*4, 2*4, 2*6 inches. And one inch boards.

I didn't want to use only screws and I like to make wood joints. This kind of joint was a good choice to build in the middle platform's base.

I made the joints on the legs and cut the timber frame of the middle platform. In the meantime I made the concrete bases of the legs. And the leg holders were placed too. A few days later the longest and heaviest parts were combined. The frame was standing. Highest leg is 11 feet 749⁄64 inches, shorts are 10 feet 563⁄64 inches. The distance between them is 4 feet 33⁄16 inches so the full width of the platform could be 4 feet 111⁄16 inches. I had exact parameters, because my wife decided to build a pallet bench. (You can see the half way state of her project on the third picture.) I used hand tools and power hand tools also.

Here you can see the joints between the legs and the platform timber frame. And the cover of the leg holder's screws.

Here are some close pictures about the hand-rail and the back-planking. And the final state, painted with spot-glaze. I used raw spruce color. The last step was to screw the slide onto the platform. Unfortunately I didn't take more photos about making. Maybe you wonder what about the roof. Everyone ask about that at first. :) I wanted to make from 1/2 inch boards (like the back hoarding) but my wife suggested that it could be breezy and nicer to climb woodbine. We will see in the next summer! :)