Building the Zecco Bay to Breakers Float
Over the last week, I designed and helped build the Zecco.com float to be used in the Bay to Breakers race on May 18. It was fun to break out the skills I learned as a set designer and builder in high school and college theatre for an immensely more practical purpose: creating a mobile beer-keg-toting “Z” to push seven miles up and down San Francisco’s hills.
The most important step was finding a wagon to transport the whole device, because I knew building our own axle and wheel system would be far more trouble than it was worth. Ace Hardware in San Jose had just the vehicle for us: a large green wagon with pneumatic tires and a base just long enough to fit my planned 4-foot-long Zs and wide enough to fit a keg in between.
The sides of the Z were cut from 3/4 inch particle board, and provide the primary structural support. The Zs were then framed with square 1×1s, and joined together with lateral supports from the same material. We cut sheets of 5mm luan plywood to cover the Zs, and taped the seams for optimal painting. The bottom piece of plywood was cut out to allow space for the keg to rest directly on the bottom of the cart, with enough room for a bucket of ice around it to keep our beer nice and chilled.
We first sealed the whole vehicle with white latex primer, then covered the Z in bright pink, traced out the remaining letters of Zecco, and filled them in with the last of the pink paint.
The final result is a beautiful creation - I can’t wait to get a keg inside. Thanks so much to Zecco for the inspiration and funding, to Tony and Ellaine for helping build it, and to my family for lending a driveway, beer, and pizza for our construction efforts.
Tony has posted a whole series of photos on Flickr , and written about the float on his blog, Philotech .
- Welcome to The Intrepid Mr. Fox
Welcome to the personal weblog of Mitchell W. Fox, a management strategy consultant in Sydney, Australia.The Intrepid Mr. Fox is about my personal life and adventures. It focuses on three main topics: The Good Life (things I enjoy in my leisure time), Travel, and my thoughts and ideas about the world around us.