Building a Salmon Ladder

In this week's video I set out to answer one simple question: Can tape hold up a salmon ladder? This was a fun, silly project that, for some reason, has been on my bucket list for a long time. I’m hugely grateful to Diablo tools for their continued support in providing high quality, affordable cutting and abrasive tools and to Eastwood, who sent me a Versa plasma cutter to learn how to plasma cut. Though I’ve got a lot of practice I still need to do, the biggest thing I learned was the importance of adjusting the cutting temperature to accommodate for steel thickness. My first piece needed a lot of grinding for that very reason. One of the major motivators for this doing this project was a bet with a good friend of mine- I bet him that we could hang and support the entire Salmon Ladder system using just tape. And- I did. Three lines of VHB tape per side can safely suspend a body mid-air with plenty of jarring around. Granted, the steel for the project and my time making it FAR outweighed the $5 bet, but that doesn’t make winning any less sweet. And here’s the other thing about this project: I’ve always loved doing pullups. I’ve been pretty small my entire life, and I got picked on for my size a ton when I was a kid, so I always wanted to be really strong to make up for my height deficiencies. Being able to do a pull-up has always made me feel really strong, so I figured my shop was a great place to put a pull-up bar, and a great excuse to do a quick pull up every time I walked past. What’s more extreme and more awesome than a pullup bar? A salmon ladder! The only unfortunate part is that apparently, I’m not NEARLY strong enough to use it. I was, thankfully, however, able to find a few strong friends to prove not only that my salmon ladder design works, but also, that construction tape works wonders to affix ridiculous dreams to the walls.