Orca Flotta

Ramp Mk. II

Yeah, this girl engineer gave up on building a wheelchair ramp all by herself. I just don’t have the tools. Instead we spent a helluvalot of monies for having something custom built for hubby. Nuke proof and totally overengineered and super rock solid stable. Look these things:

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The aluminum ramp is reinforced with a steel undercarriage. Nice work, gentlemen.
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 I bet we could drive a fukn tank on these things. But a kinda sporty, lightweight wheelchair works as well on this nifty construction.
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And our old old van can indeed carry a wheelchair. I don’t think it could handle a tank equally well.

 

15 comments

  1. It looks kinda short though. That looks like a pretty steep angle to climb! A longer ramp would be safer I think. They have “collapsable” ones that fold up and still fit in the van.

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  2. Sigh ☹((( Welcome to the joys of making wheelchair adaptive equipment. I’ve been doing it for decades. (Sorry your post gives me a chance to bitch a bit.)

    Before my father passed he and I would design and build some amazing adaptive equipment for me. We even adapted a Chevy Monza (A small almost sports car.) so I could get my chair in it and drive.

    But after he passed it was a very different story. Since I couldn’t build myself I had to get someone else to do the actual construction.

    BTW after I was injured I earned a university degree and spent over two decades on the professional staff as a computer specialist of a major investigative organization. I even designed the adaptive interior of my house.So I’m not exactly dumb.

    But even with all that evidence I am too STUPID to design anything. It really doesn’t help that I am female and because of the injury I can hardly talk. So, the construction people ignore anything I say. One even got on his high horse and threatened to quit if I didn’t stop making suggestions or improvements. Because HE knew best.

    Willow (Excuse the bitching.)

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    • Ohai Willow. So you and your father built adaptive equipment … for you? Oh, sorry to hear that.

      Yes, never try to talk into a professional’s job. They know best and better. Happened to hubby and me with his new wheelchair. They sent out two guys to help us. One guy from the sanitary store and one guy from the manufacturer. Oh, those medical mechanics had all the bestest ideas … and lateron I had to take apart and reassemble the whole chair. It’s still not fitting 100% correct but after waiting 6 mth for delivery we were so tired and just wanted to go home, we didn’t complain and send it back for correction. Well, I don’t even wanna know how much the health insurance had to fork out for that special wheelie.

      Anyhoo, these ramps we got now are basically “my design”, as far as one can speak of a design when it’s about a simple ramp. Kinda the oldest trick in the book about applied physics. Sure we could’ve gotten cheaper premade ones but I wanted exactly the size we measured for fitting the van. And I wanted to avoid unnecessary clutter.

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      • Actually that is not even similar to the car I mentioned.. The 1978 model was discontinued soon after that. The big reason it would work is the 2+2 model had extra wide door openings. So I could put my folded up wheelchair behind the driver’s seat.😊

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        • More like this then:

          We acknowledge the German genes and the American styling on top. 🙂 Me wonders how you wanted to fit into that little thing while seated in your wheelchair. Look here …

          Those doors aren’t so extra special wide and it’s as I said, rather flat. We just measured, my hubby’s height while in the chair is ~1.30. A height no normal passenger car will ever reach. Not even as a station wagon:

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          • The red car is the mode I had l I did NOT sit in my wheelchair. I was younger in 1978 and had the strength to fold up my chair and stow it behind the driver’s seat while I drove. One thing we did was remove the back left passenger seat. The rear passenger seats were a joke. They were essentially sitting about 6 inches from the floor with about a foot of leg room. Anyone sitting in one of the rear seats would have their knees in their face. Modified it did work for me. I kept it fourteen years and drove it about 170,000 miles. By that time it was worn out and had to spend 1/4 of it’s time in the repair shop.

            One smelly problem. If you ran over some dog shit when you got the chair in the car the wheel with the deposit was about a foot from your nose.NOT pleasant!

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  3. Dad and I built things for me back in the 70’s and 80’s. Back before the government got involved with the requirements. That added a whole bunch of legal requirements.

    Its sort of funny (ironic) to think of the guy who built the wooden ramp out the front of my house as a professional. It was more frustrating than anything else. Dad and I had built a much more complex ramp where I used to live in an afternoon while the “professional” took three days. I had to go in the house and not look at what he was doing to keep from climbing the walls. (Pun intended.)

    Can you tell I’m pissed even now 2 years later.

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    • Sammie, are you typing on that telephone again? Touchscreen?

      Are you stuuuupid? Didn’t I tell you time and again that grown-up, mature, responsible people don’t use phones that are smarter than them? That we are supposed to use computers to do computerish things? Away from iOS and Android you fool, rejoin the desktop club and enjoy the wonders of fully equipped keyboards and the power of the mouse!!!

      I know due and thanks to WordPress Thar She Blows! looks most excellent on smartphones but … but WHYYYY? There is really no reason why you should peek at those small screens when you can enjoy Orca’s excellent photography in much more detaill and clarity on the big screen of a beefy desktop PC.

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