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Having looked at the court and having no real knowledge I think the chipboard sides are the problem, the 2x4's are holding up well (a couple splitting where screws go into the ends) all the fail points are where the chipboard is bending or where screws are pulling out of it.
Also it's the uprights holding the nets that are failing (lowering the nets before bad weather might help a fair bit).
I think if we could rebuild the 2x4's into whole court frame and then attached the boards to that it would hold up much better. Obviously not something we can really do any time soon (although I think we should try using the spares to reinforce the boards), but if we are going to have more boards from this years London open it might be worth considering?
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There was an awful lot of panic about the court and given how it looked, I can see why!
We mended the court today using the existing 2x4 that was either 'capping' the boards that move, or used to be uprights. We have tried to piece together new uprights from those that had fallen apart and got about two more out of doing that.
I think there's an argument to keep patching it up until either the LHBPA can agree on a more expensive rebuild, or we get funding (hahahahha, as if), eitherway, it's pointless spending money where a bodge can do when there is more winter and wind to come.
Things that are fairly urgent
Southeast corner/The door corner:
The last large support holding the nets, currently has NO UPRIGHTS. It is drilled into the corner structure where the door is. Furthermore, the corner structure itself (which is probably the worst condition corner due to traffic and material choice) has come away on one of the sides.
Next big wind and this is snapping/It'll probably destroy a big piece of chipboard when it does.
At the moment this is the piece that is the weak link holding the nets up. When it goes it'll domino effect every support we bodged back together today. If possible I will go down after work on Monday with my drill and replace the uprights with the two we made today, but it relies on HH being open and me managing to leave work on time.Northeast corner:
On the north wall 2 boards from the corner there is a board coming away from its support at the bottom. Because the board has warped and the top is secured by a rail it's a corner that juts out as if TRYING to get a mallet caught in it. This needs to be sorted from a safety point of view and I only noticed it after my drill was out of juice.South wall / Movable wall:
We need new uprights for at least 4 of the boards that move. hadly any of these boards now have a capping piece as we used those pieces to further brace the eastern net wall.
Also, we are running low on the sandbags. Again: We never actually paid for these sandbags they were liberated from Conway after they'd laid the tarmac.Ongoing
We should look after the surface as much as the boards, uprights and nets. There are weeds encroaching on the northern side, there's sand/mould in the court itself (I will ask to borrow HH's jetwasher one weekend).
Regarding bodging the chipboard further: Louis is right that the chipboard in some places is no longer holding screws, and we're running out of new places to drill into. We could easily brace this via playside, by putting scaffolding wood/skirting board around the bottom and screwing through this to the twobyfours on the other side of the chipboard (think: Newingtons skirting boards being secured eitherside of the metal fencing).
The chipboard was essentially free and we should bare this in mind. Criticism of it is warranted but if we were to ever rebuild I think we know to spend the extra cash and get a more weatherproof ply!
Considering the amount we play on this, and how little it has cost us so far, I think it warrants a vote on spending bigger money come summer. For the time being I don't think organising a session at HH without taking drills and screws to patchup between throwins should be allowed :)
http://instagram.com/p/yAEEjiMe27/
Positivity: It didn't take us very long at all today to fix/bodge the nets up. We had fun doing it, too.
This is all it takes. In the words of Douglas Adams...
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Well done for staying on top of it, Jimmy, it's a bit of a soul destroying job keeping the thing maintained when the weather fucks it up the minute you get it fixed...
TBF we were already going through the spongy chipboard when we were repairing the court this time last year, amazed those boards have lasted as long as they have!
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Nb, I wasn't criticising anything, we had materials from an LO and we used them. As has been said we've got our money's worth out of then and I'm not complaining about how they were built or set up at all. Just that we need to consider replacing bits and we should learn and improve on what we've done so far.
I've been thinking about this more, I'd like to get some pulleys and rope so we can raise and lower the nets between use. I think this will be a cheap improvement and will take a lot of weight and possibly wind resistance off the frame when we aren't playing.
If anyone has comments either way I'd be interested to hear (pm me if you don't want to discuss publically), if I don't hear anything against it I'll propose it at the next lhbpa... Maybe with some other requsts.
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Good thought about pulleys, my only worry is the supports aren't stable enough. With a pulley you can make it easier to hoist up or down but you have to remember you're multiplying the force at the block, which presumably would be at the top of the net support. Every 'winch' action will put double the weight (or more) on the support. In which case we'd have to beef up the supports, in which case we wouldn't need to lower the nets?
Also you'd be surprised how much stainless pulley blocks cost and doing it cheaper on an outside court wouldn't be worth it.
I think moving forward the structure needs better anchoring/driving into the ground, or we need to have buttressing that comes off the net supports into the grass (these don't even need to project that far out to give a lot more strength). We can only do this after talking to HH about our concerns, and they might be more willing to listen to us after seeing us use the court so much and also seeing how fragile it has been?
Edit: This was half a reply to @Khornight2 but I'm still learning to use said reply feature.
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Update:
I went down and screwed two uprights to the corner net support, and fixed the corner structure itself.
There's still room for one more upright to be added if we want. At the moment this is loose should we decide it's put to better use on the moveable wall (I would've added it tonight but drill ran out of juice, the battery is SHIT).http://instagram.com/p/yC-AL4se0d/
The board that's jutting out asking for a mallet to snare on it still needs to be addressed (tonight I was more concerned with net structure falling and further damaging materials/eastern wall).
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@Khornight2 gave me an idea using rope and pegs for the prevailing wind direction, may cut costs, but need to look into feasibility.
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Cool, good point about the pulley force thing. I was also thinking of buttressing to the ground, the a frames of the long wall are already basically over hanging the edge of the Tarmac.
The thing about the pullies is how easy the net is to get down, I'm not sure people would bother if it's too hard...
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This is horrible to read about. The weather is awful in winter to our court. Is it a good idea to simply take the nets down for winter? Are there many people riding the track on sundays in winter? I know its not just the nets because even last winter when there weren't any, the court got fucked by the wind, but ...
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I was just up there, had to leave when I couldn't feel my fingers or toes...
I think you're gonna need a rebuild on a few sections or maybe just start from scratch... Some decent ply shuttering, a metal frame and concrete blocks for ballast? The old dear's starting to show her age... Spring project for you kids!
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Concrete shuttering ply, seal the crap out of the exposed edges and it'll last forever... You might be able to pick some up second hand if you're lucky... Your big problem is still the uprights, Max's offer is a pretty good one if the price is right... You could build in some rings to hold a pole for the nets...
Khornight2
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M_A_X
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Welcome to the DragonDrome - Herne Hill Velodrome bike polo Planning and Discussion
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We will be fixing the court tomorrow from 10 onwards. We did some work today but the drill was out of juice after about an hour and we could really use more bodies as there's quite a bit of lifting and realigning of the boards needed!!! Come one, come all yo!
Let's get the best court in London back in shape! :D