Sweet Success!

Finally . . . some real boards that actually work! First off thanks to Adam for coming early and helping me set things up; I wouldn't have been able to do it without him. I really think we have it licked-- after a couple weekends of setting them up and taking them down, it'll be second nature and a breeze in my opinion. There's a couple things to be fine-tuned and I'm gonna list some stuff on this blog because after the Vegas tourney (Vegas baby!) I'll be gone the following two weekends in Florida so someone else is going to have to take the ball and run with it.

The system is basically silt fencing with a wire backing. Adam and I painstakingly threaded the steel cable through the top course about every fourth vertical wire. This also helped keep the black fencing folded over the top.

Because we ran out of time on the setup we did not get a chance to run the cable through the bottom course but this will be much easier as there is no need to weave it through the black part, it just needs to run through the wire backing. Although the boards worked well without the bottom cable I think it will be worth the time to run this second cable. One consideration will have to be the height of this low cable because of the concrete curb on the north end of the playground; Adam knows what I'm talking about so hopefully he'll be around to help next time.

One thing that worked out really nicely was the curved corners. We were able to tie-wire a corner board section to the main fence piece. Zip ties were used on Saturday to attach the ends to the existing playground fences, but in the future we just need to bring bungee cords for this connection-- it'll be faster for set-up and the take down, and I think it'll work better too. We may want to get some more zip-ties for keeping the black fencing pulled tightly over the top of the wire back in the corner sections where the cable doesn't run through it.

A minimum of three people will probably be needed at set-up time-- someone to hold the end up, another person to pick up the middle of the fence and the last person to ratchet the tie-down. Start with one end and then go to the other end and do the same thing. Then just ratchet evenly to make the fence rigid. Of utmost importance is to make sure that the tie-downs are looped through a fence post on the chain-link fences; otherwise the ratcheting will rip the chain-link right off the post. I think most of us agreed we could move over one more fence post to make the rink wider next time. The main thing to keep in mind is that we run that curved piece to the fence by the ramp so that other people can still access the playground while we are playing; they have to duck under, or go over, the tie down but that is much easier than going over the fencing itself. Which brings me to the last point which is the fence height. It was a little challenging subbing in and out but with as often as the ball actually flips over the boards I don't think we want them any shorter.

A couple of logistical things still need to be worked out. First off is where to store the tie-downs. We used four of them to hold the rolled up sections closed and maybe we could just use all of them as a way to keep everything together. When rolling the fences up it is imperetive to make sure that you get a good, tight start because it ends up being a pretty big roll (a bit heavy too, but nothing insurmountable). Everything can be stored at St. John's still, and in my opinion we should throw out the old orange fencing and maybe even remove the extra goals so that we don't attract unwanted attention; let's keep things as neat and inconspicuous as possible. There is still some extra fencing left over so if we need to add some length to the east fence section this is totally doable.

The price came in pretty reasonably-- and special thanks to my boss, Tom Jergens, of Jergens Construction who let me charge everything to his account at Reliable Hardware and Dunn Lumber. We still owe him the money and I will talk to Vinny about organizing an amount for everyone's contribution-- I don't think it will be more than $20, which is well worth it for the end result. Game on!