Anderson Blocks and RV SnapPads Are A Waste Of Money! | Do This Instead! | Fulltime RV Living!

good morning and welcome back y'all thanks for joining us if this is your first time here welcome so today's video is all about jack blocks these guys right here and for the last couple months we'll be getting lots of emails lots of comments lots of instant messaging wondering what are those things under your jacks and where do we get them well the answer is simple they're homemade and you can build them yourself and today we're going to show you how to do it it's just four by six treated lumber and some horse stall mats from tractor supply now the reason we built them ourselves is because when we first got this rv we didn't know what to do and there was two options you had the anderson buckets and you have the rv snap pads now both of those are cool products but both of them did not fully satisfy our needs so the anderson buckets they are cool they had enough height so that you keep your cylinder from extending all the way so basically the more you can keep that guy from extending all the way down the more stable your camper will be so you like the extra height that the anderson block adds but the problem is the anderson block only works when you have good foundations like this or pavers if you're on gravel if you're on sand i still see people putting down blocks so the anderson block works for getting the height but you still need to carry a piece of wood because it needs something good to stand on the other choice is the rv snap pads while they don't out for any height they do offer the rubber protection like this right here so it's always protected so whenever you're on concrete you will not damage their concrete or your jack are the pavers and some rv products actually require you have a rubber pad down so you don't damage their ground now the bad thing about the rv snap pad is it offers no additional height to the to the jack so now it's fully extending all the way down making that cylinder rod longer meaning this guy right here will be slightly more unstable so the problem with the rv snap pad is i'm still carrying a piece of wood to take up the space so i decided i can build something that will satisfy both of my needs of having a rubber protection and added height and i can combine the two ideas so i built these guys and today we're going to take you to some of my favorite stores the blue store lowe's we're going to lowe's trucks reply we're going to get some products i'm going to show you what you need to do these and then i'm going to show you how to build them welcome to my favorite place the blue star and here today for our adventure we have phil how are y'all hey phil so anyway some of y'all may not know who phil is phil is alicia's daddy and alicia's not here because she's at home recovering with baby boy they're both doing great both doing fine thanks for all the wishes phil are you a blue store guy or an orange store guy blue store all the way that's right i'm a blue store guy as well you guys let me know in the comments are y'all blue store people or orange store people y'all know my opinion but let me know why y'all would choose the other store we're gonna go inside now and get our supplies since these are for you what color you want to be black black okay so in ours we actually use some stain you can use whatever color you want and for today we're just gonna get black spray paint you can get whatever you want whatever whatever color you want your jack box to be we're gonna need some fasteners last time i used the uh two inch ones so we're gonna go with those again two boxes because we're building two sets so it's time for lumber and one of our components is these one by sixes eight foot long so we're actually gonna get four of these guys our next wood is these four by sixes by eight foot long so we've got two of those so we got our wood from lowe's now we're gonna head over to truck supply and get the rest of materials and don't worry when we get to where we're going to work on them i'll explain the quantities and why we got what we did so that you can go get the right qualities for what you're trying to build all right we're at my second favorite store truck supply and if you've never been here this is the coolest store ever it's a close second to lowe's if they sold lumber here and some of the things that lowe's does i would almost have to go nowhere but here we're gonna go inside we're gonna get some handles and our horse stall mats so these are gate handles they're in the gate section at tri supply you can get whatever kind of handle you want but i've been using these because they fit my whole hand in and then they lay flat when i lay them down so they're not sticking out from the camper i'm gonna get some of these and we're gonna head out there in the yard and get the horse stall mat so we're outside in the yard and they actually have two sizes they have the four by six that's three quarter inch thick that's actually probably too much but you could put that on there if you wanted to then they have these uh three by four foot sections that are half inch and this is actually we're gonna go with it's actually what i used on mine and it's what i use inside my basement and my generator storage bay as the floor to keep everything from moving around so we're here at the place we're going to build them at and i want to talk to you about the stuff we got so we're actually going to be building two sets today one for phil and his camper and this is actually thomas's place normally he has a camper parked right there but he's actually out enjoying it and somewhere much cooler than here we're gonna build him a set too now for them they only need four jack blocks so this right here one four by six and two one by sixes plus these four handles is enough for four jack blocks and this is enough for four more now for our camper we needed six so we actually use this and half of this so just make your plans according to what you need but we're gonna make eight blocks today four for phil and four for mr thomas and we're about to set everything up and start working so our first step is to cut our four by sixes these guys right here and each jack block needs two and they need to be 11 and a quarter inches long so we're gonna go ahead and make our marks and we're gonna cut all these we should get eight for each one which will make once in a jack block so [Music] [Music] [Music] all right so we have the 4x6 cut up right now into 11 and a quarter inch pieces and now two of those will make up the center chunk of a jack block so right there we got one two three four five six seven eight pairs so that's enough for eight jack blocks now we're gonna set up the one by sixes and cut them and then we'll show you how we use those to sandwich them between these funny story we just ran out of battery juice in all of our batteries i brought all my batteries for all my dewalt tools from the camper and i thought that they were all charged up i was i guess mistaken because we made what fell like 16 coats just now no more juice so now taking a quick little field trip back to the camper to grab the battery chargers so we can continue with this job hey alicia she's checking in on us because we've been out here all day and it's hot all right time to go to work battery chargers all right phil i got the battery charger i was thinking i was thinking we can use this plug right here and maybe get a battery charge before we get back to work so let's see if it'll charge a battery oh my gosh it actually is working that's funny because it will not run our computer that we make these videos with but it will charge your battery so looks like by the time we get back over there it's time to get back to work so we got back with the charger you'll notice that we're in a new spot we were cutting over there but while we were gone the sun moved so now we have a whole bunch of shade right here in the driveway so we have to wait for all of our batteries to charge up so instead of going straight to cutting the one by sixes we're gonna get the sander out and go ahead and sand all my perfect cuts nice and smooth and flat and then hopefully by then we can cut those guys okay so we finished sanding all of our four by sixes and i'm actually thinking about changing the title of this video from how to make jack blocks to how to have a heat stroke in texas because right now phil it's hot the heat index is 111. and we're under a tree it's actually mid-afternoon and it's it doesn't feel that bad but that right there took way longer it should have so we're going to take a little break drink some water and next step is to cut our one by sixes up and then we'll show you how we start assembling these jack blocks our batteries are finally charged right phil right they are charged just so you know you're you're the you're the the charge monitor right now by the way there are two charging that will be charged oh will be okay so probably by the time we get done marking these boards they'll be ready to go right i'm hoping so our next step is we're gonna cut our one by sixes and we're gonna cut them to sandwich those together so we're gonna cut each one of these 11 and an eighth long and we'll actually make double the amount of number of those so we have 16 of those right yeah 16 of those so it could be 32 of these 32 of these and guess what when we get in cutting them phil they're all gonna need a little bit of sanding oh boy but it shouldn't be that bad it's just the ends where we cut we're gonna smooth it out so it's nice and clean okay so we're gonna get set up and start cutting these and we'll probably do a time lapse because who wants to watch us cut 32 boards [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] all right so we have all 32 pieces of our one by sixes cut now we get the sander out and hit each one of the edges and then we're going to show you how we assemble that piece right there and these pieces right here so we finished sanding all of our one by sixes and they're gonna go just like this we'll put two like this we'll take our four by sixes put them just like this and then we're gonna come back with two more one by sixes on top then we'll screw all these together and once they're secured we'll paint them up [Music] here's the jack block assembled so we have our four by sixes in the middle and they're sandwiched by the one by sixes on either side and i've gone ahead and put eight screws on either side to hold it in place and then once we get it painted we will cut the rubber out to match this right here and then we will screw it on the edges all around and that will be the additional screws that will hold this together so we have seven more of these to build so we're gonna build them right now [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] all right one two three four five six seven eight we now have eight jet blocks assembled now we're gonna get them ready for uh painting by sanding them just a little well that's a saw that's a sander sand them in a little bit and then we're gonna paint them up and then we're gonna start cutting our rubber to go on both sides of them so we've prepped all the blocks and we moved over here near the woods because we're about to spray paint and we're gonna use this krylon fusion black spray paint now you can use whatever you want it's up to you mine i actually stained i've actually painted some black and some people paint them gray or brown but i'm about to paint them up and i don't need y'all to watch because that's pretty boring because no one likes to watch paint dry so here it goes all right we're done painting them that's the first coat we're gonna let that dry we're gonna start measuring the rubber for cutting and then we'll come back over here and give it a second coat and then we'll start installing the rubber on both sides there's the blocks over there we just finished up the coat two right phil right two coats two coats and now we're gonna start cutting our rubber and since lumber is funny so a four by six is really a three and a half by five and a half we actually have 11 by 11 squares so with our horse stall mat if you flip it over it actually has these ridges right here so you just measure 11 inches over and draw you a line and then you can run a marker right here you can see it right here and then we'll take this straight edge board put it right there use an exacto knife and we will make a cut you won't be able to cut it in one try but you cut it about half of it the first try and then you can freehand it and go slow and it cuts through pretty good anyway so we're gonna start cutting these up and hopefully by the time i get done cutting those guys are dry it's time to assemble them and you'll see them in their final form [Music] so we have all 16 of our rubbers cut we have all eight of our jack pads painted and back over here and now all we're going to do is take the piece of rubber put it on top like that and then we'll secure it with about i don't know six or eight screws flip it over put the second one on the bottom and then we're gonna put our handles on we have all eight jack blocks assembled with rubber on both sides and looks something like this we end up putting about eight on either side so one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten we put ten on each side but that's because we need to cover the gaps and make sure that the rubber stays on now we're gonna use these handles right here got from trash supply i'm gonna put them right there i'm gonna mount them on each one and then each one will have a handle and we'll show you the final product okay so we have our jack blocks completed they are painted up black with rubber on both sides and now we have our handle so now i can carry them around wherever i need them when i set them down the handle falls out of the way just like that and now we have the added protection of the rubber on the top and the bottom so we won't damage the concrete or our jacks and we have the increased height from the wood but the big reason why i chose to build these over buying stuff is because of the cost the anderson blocks they are cool but you still have to carry a piece of wood and they cost 300 so it's roughly dollars a can the snap pads are also awesome because they offer protection but no height so you still have to create a piece of wood and they cost thirty dollars of jack these right here doing it yourself cost roughly twenty five dollars and i get the best of both worlds i get the added protection of the rubber and the hyatt all right guys i hope this video helped you out and then you can build them yourself if you have any questions hit me up in the comments down below thanks for hanging out today see y'all next time [Music] you

Channel: Paving New Paths

Views: 84,041

Keywords: Fulltime RV, Paving New Paths, Grand Design, RV Living, Grand Design Momentum 397TH, Fulltime RV Living, RV Life, Grand Design RV, RV Lifestyle, Full Time RV Family, Anderson Blocks, RV Leveling, Anderson Jack Blocks, Anderson RV Jack Blocks, Snap Pads, RV Snap Pads, Snap Pads RV, Snap Pads Versus Anderson Blocks, Snap Pads Vs Anderson Blocks, Anderson Blocks Versus Snap Pads, Anderson Blocks Vs Snap Pads, RV Leveling Blocks, Dewalt

Id: lOx5kcbkZwk

Length: 17min 8sec (1028 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022