With the completion of these
structures. Tim has engineered
some of the most skateable pools
ever built, out of wood, 'crete, or
plaster. We talked to Tim between jobs
about wood and pools:
What are some stumbling blocks in
building a wooden pool?
The hardest part about building the
kidney at Skatezone was making the
shallow and the deep ends come
together at the comer wall. It's like a
wave wall from the deep end to the
shallow end, a bigger transition to a
smaller transition. I thought we could
just make the corner and drop the
transitions down into the deep end,
but there was a kink there, the tran-
sitions wouldn't go all the way into
the deep end. There ends up being a
flat space in the middle of the
transition. That one whooped me for
about a full day.
How do you start designing a pool?
I draw an overall plan on paper
looking straight down from the top. You
have to have it drawn up with the exact
dimensions of the coping. Also, when
you get the steel bent for the coping.
you want an exact measurement. I order
the steel pipe at least two weeks ahead
of construction, so I need a plan.
What are Skatezone's dimensions?
The shallow end is made of eight-
foot transitions cut off at six-and-a-half
feet. The deep end is nine foot tran-
sitions with about a foot-and-a-
quarter of vert. The tile is linoleum
cut in a fourteen-inch strip all the
way around. Use the hard stuff
instead of the rubbery stuff or it
slows you down. The shallow end
bowls have eight-foot radii. The
diameter of the deep end bowl is
26'10' from coping to coping. One
thing that helped in Charleston is they
put a flat primer paint on it so it adds
grit to the surface.
Where did the design for Charleston
Hangar's bowls come from?
I was so stoked when I skated the
San Juan pool in California. I wanted to
Above: Buck Smith takes a high speed hurricane-to-fakie upon the capsule
pool's metal lip at Charleston Hangar. Insets: The Hangar pools under
construction with Tim Payne and crew.
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