where to find barrels for slider

where do you think would be a good place to start looking for some drums that will be used to make a slider? i plan on making one during the off season but it needs to float. ive heard of asking at car washes because they get the soap in barrels, is there anywhere else i might run into some?

i would look in the local paper that were I found some, they were like $50 a pop. They were like used for industrual soup. Also we have used styra-foam (however you spell it??). Be the best rails are mounted in the ground.

I was thinking of doing a portable rail myself...

We can't put up anything permanent where we ride. Greg do you have a plan on how to set it up? Let me know what you come up with. I have been thinking about it for a while and have some ideas on how to make it portable enough to take it apart and load back into the boat at the end of the day.

i dont have any final plans yet but im like you, cant have anything permanent. i was thinking of making multiple 10 foot sections so it could be broken down and moved.

carwashes
or the distribtor of soap

Yeah thats what I had in mind as well. I was thinking of taking 4 ten foot peices of 4 or 6 inch pvc pipe. I would double two pipes together, side by side, for each ten foot section. I would bolt these together on the two sides and the bottom with some four hole strut brackets to make a 20 ft run... My problem is getting it to float. and stay stable. I was thinking of taking four innertubes, the tough rubber kind and tying two together. One on top of the other and laying flat. I would tie four to each ten foot section. That way it sits up in the water and won't sink down far when the board hits the rail.

Then to keep it somewhat stable I would drop an anchor at each end and tie the rail off to the ropes.

What did you have in mind with the drums?

http://www.wakeboarder.com/display.phtml?id=138

i plan to do my drums like this guy did

yeah check car washers also a chemical supply place. thats where i got mine. i think the guys just gave them to me. we have 5 or so drums and built a frame around it then attached 2 sections of pvc. we put plywood on the tops(that covered the exposed the barrels and covered it with some carpet. it worked pretty decently. ill try to find a photo

check with your local marina antifreze comes in 55 gallon drums

alan- did you just anchor the corners for stability or did you do something else, also what did you anchor it with (im thinking of using cinderblocks)

yeah cinder blocks they didnt work great however. you can also get some anchors that you can drive into the ground which is what we were going to do(however i left and gave the slider away)

First Greg:
If you are looking to buy some barrels try opening your phone book yellow pages and looking under barrels.

If you want to try to find the barrels for free I would recommend cruising the alleys and such looking for a business that has a few of them stacked up. A place that uses a LOT of stuff in a barrel, like a car wash, would most likely have a recycle plan. Often times the used barrels have a deposit on it that is worth redeeming if you use a lot, but it's not worth the effort for a company that only gets a few a year.

Second Greg:
I can't imagin loading any slider up into your boat at the end of the day each time you used it. I have a 30' rave slider that I haul out to the desired spot on top of the houseboat. We literally toss it over the side and then tow it into position with the dinghy. If we had to inflate and assemble it each time it would simply take way too much time.

rod- i have a place on kerr lake and we planned on building it here at my house then moving it to the lake, thats why it would need to come apart. once it was put together it would stay that way till the end of the season when we would break it down again and store it.

greg i dont think the answer is in a movable slider then. if you plan to use it for a whole season then i would tote about of wood out to the place you want to use the slider and build it
on-site. you will get a much sturdier slider and wont have the fuss of anchoring it. drive some treated 4x4' into the ground. make some supports at 45 degree angles top it with pvc or whatever surface you want. then just tear it down at the end of the year. salvage what you can and throw the rest away. seems like you could do this pretty cheaply and get a couple of the riders in your crew to chip in a few bucks. as long as you dont have tides that is the approach i would take. maybe make a removeable top so you can store it in the weeds when not it use(which would prevent anyone from using it and getting hurt.

alan- thanks for the input. i have also considered that choice but i really wanted something to do during the off season, but i may still end up waiting for the summer. i also considered making a stationary one like you said but at my lake everything has to float and i cant leave anything in the water over night with out a permit for it so it needs to float (i can pull it to shore in the evening). so i will still need barrels

I just went to Barrels-R-Us. But you could also try the Barrel Depot.

oh yeah, down in the barrel district