How much kick in a kicker??

So I have all the materials I need to build a nice kicker! Just wondering how you know how much kick to put in it. How do you know what angle to make it? I hope im explaining my question clearly enough. I understand some are linear, but ive read and seen on the pwt that their's have more of an exponential shape to them. Not to that degree, but certainly not linear.
The dimensions of it are planned to be 10 to 12 feet long, 4 feet wide, and about 4 feet tall. Please feel free to critique this if you think it should be shorter, longer, wider, taller, etc?
Also, what surface should I use. I know some people use FRP, and some use TREX. The trex sheets available to me are 12 feet long and 8 inches wide. Are these pliable enough to not break when bent and screwed i at the angle of the kicker?

Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it.

Thanks to IKE, a couple of sections of a floating dock washed up on shore which makes the perfect floaters for the kicker!!

dont go past vert.

I just eye-balled mine for angle and I'm using FRP (4 sheets)

http://s474.photobucket.com/albums/rr101/lukerdl/Luker/Kicker%20Build/?albumview=slideshow

Go to any how to build a mini ramp webpage and they show you how to get that smooth transitional curve, if your side frames were square you would attach a pencil to a string the length of one of the sides, and would keep one end of the string at a corner and then trace the pencil on the other side keeping the string tight and it will give you a perfect transition.

This is kinda hard to explain but i probably wouldn't make it that long (10 or 12 ft), I'd keep it around six feet long in which case you would make a right angle with the 6 foot length side, and mount the end of the string 6 ft away and along that right angle and trace with the pencil keeping the string tight until you get your desired height. Width is all preference but I would think four would be good.

I would have to disagree with Darren...If you want it to be 4 ft tall, anything shorter than 10ft will be like hitting a wall!! We built our kicker 4ft tall, 8ft wide, 12ft long and I absolutely love it. A 4ft wide ramp looks sooo narrow when it is out on the water and thats why I went with 8ft. Also, if you do it 8ft wide..I PROMISE..you can charge it SOO much harder than if its 4ft!!

As far as your transition.. I recommend laying the side plywood down and using a garden hose to shape and trace your transition. For ours, we put the most transition in the last 3 ft going off the top of the ramp. It Launches too!!

We covered ours and our wall ride with FRP and they slide GREAT!! Good Luck and have Fun!!

Hope this helps...
CH

Actually now i have to agree with chris on the length cuz i wasn't really considering the difference in speed between skateboarding and wakeboarding.

You don't want anything even close to vert!! Just look at Big White on OWC's homepage and copy that, it's the best kicker I've ever hit, I've built a few.

No Paul, you drank beer in my Garage while Zack, Kevin and I built a few.

All of our best kickers were 4ft tall, 8ft wide and 12ft long. Use the garden hose for the transition that Chris mentions, it works great.

Warning... Do not use too much transition. As Paul stated, you do not want anything close to vert.

Here is a picture of the Kicker Paul is talking about.

Agreed on the comment about big white. That thing is MONEY!!!

Hey now! I built the one Zack owned his arm through the handle on, haaha. Yours in Pippin- you know, the one you made me hit right after learning to get up- was pretty abrupt. Abrupt is fun, but only on a small 'cheese wedge' type scale. For a fun, user friendly kicker it needs to be like the one pictured above. You can seriously eyeball it. If you have any experience hitting these things you'll have a clear understanding at the transition, and understand why using a simply garden hose to trace out the transition works perfectly fine! Be extremely careful not to make it too short. Four feet high is a great height so stretch it out as long as it needs to be to create a good transition. Twelve feet sounds about right, then again we never really measured, just built.

I've always used wood, trex, pvc sheets for the slider top so I have no experience on pvc pipes. Kyle has built all types of kickers and sliders with the pipes though. Ask him if you plan on going that route.

A broken pvc pipe can turn dangerous REALLY fast. Come to think of it, I gouged my first board on a pvc slider top being towed behind a jeep on the side of the road. I ollied into a boardslide too soon and hit the front of the pipe if you can imagine that.

lay your "transition to be" pieces on the ground, you will have one or two or even three depending on the height you want.
Figure out what size (radius) tranny you want. I have a hint, it will probably be more than 7ft .
Measure up 3 1/2 inches from the bottom of your tranny ( so you can have a solid base for 2x4's) and then measure up the 2x4 (away from what will be the bottom of your kicker) the legnth of your transition radius.
so if you are going to have a 12ft radius, measure up 3.5 and then 12 or just 147.5 inches, and put a nail in the board.
Put your pencil on the bottom of the 2x4, and swivel that bitch across your boards and voila, perfect radial transition.

Oh, the white one above is probably at least a 10 ft tranny just by looking at the 4x8 sheets on the side of it.

Tighter trannies are smaller radius' and will feel like hitting a violent speed bump

Paul, I did make you hit that kicker. That was funny. Do you remember "Wakeskate Wars"?

Pipes are cool for small rails, but do not work well on kickers. They tend to fall apart easier. It all really just depends on what you can get for the money. We built everything on the cheap because we knew that Johny Law was waiting around the corner and was going to it them out (or make us do it).