On Saturday 13 November 2021, I was at a child’s birthday party with Sewing Helper, who was having a good time on the trampoline, and I thought “why don’t we have one of those? we have the space! and they’re always going for cheap on gumtree!” So I looked on Gumtree and there was one just listed for $60 that was in our suburb – I messaged to ask where they were, because we don’t have a van, but we could carry if it wasn’t too far, and it turned out to be literally a block down the road from our place.

Went over that afternoon to check it out, and agreed to take it. Then there was a moment where we realised we probably wouldn’t be able to fit it through the door if it was the small sized one and not the mini sized one, but we’d take that as it came.

I created a Facebook event called “Marian’s Trampoline Moving Party” (because if you can’t use Facebook for the exploitation of your friends for free manual labour, what even is the point) and two victims agreed to come round the next day.

When we went over on the Sunday to collect it, it turned out to be the 2.5m one, which meant it was not going to fit through the door, but we’d cleared the car space in order to store it until we could get into the disassembly.

It was very heavy. And turns out my spatial awareness is way less accurate for distances over 2m. Also that part of our street is on a hill, so it was a bit of an effort with the four of us to carry it up the road. But we got there eventually, having learned useful life lessons like “don’t touch fibreglass without gloves”.

One willing victim went home immediately because she was feeling a bit crook (but turns out that she probably didn’t have an allergic reaction to the trampoline, so that’s good) and the other stayed for a drink and a chat, and then I gave him a lift home (honestly, it was the least I could do! would’ve picked him up by car too, had I known he’d public transported over!)

Disassembly

Sewing Helper was greatly saddened by the lack of immediate gratification, but we had to wait until my day off on Tuesday before Mr Octopus and I could get to the disassembly process.

(In the meantime, I had the hilarious experience on Monday morning of hearing little voices outside our house saying “mum, mum! it’s our trampoline! it’s our trampoline!!” because the previous owners clearly walk past us on their way to school….)

(Also the tragic and tear-filled death stares that we got from the kids in the family through the back windows of the house while we were checking it out initially… They were moving house, so it wasn’t going with them, but they had not realised this in advance.)

Disassembly was a Process. Mr Octopus did some research and found the relevant instruction manuals, which I printed out in poster format and stuck together.

Our Top Tip for Springfree Trampoline disassembly is one that would have helped at the beginning, but which we didn’t find out until the end, when Mr Octopus looked it up on youtube – squirt a water/washing up liquid mixture into the top housing of the net struts, because then they are removable. Otherwise, you will not be able to remove them and will have to manouvre the net with all the struts still attached (painful)

The other tip is wear gloves, because then you won’t get fibreglass splinters in your hands.

There’s a bit of a trick to removing the smaller struts that form the bouncing component: Mr Octopus couldn’t quite get it, so I did most of those. You have to push down the little lever/clip in the bit that holds the top of the strut, and then push the top of the strut inwards and away from you with your right hand (so that it comes out of the ball socket), while simultaneously pulling the net+socket up and towards you (so that the ball socket comes off the strut). It’s much easier once a lot of the struts are out, but it does require some force.

For a moment there, we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to disassemble the main metal ring (2.5m diameter or so) which would have meant trying to find another method of getting it into the backyard (sliding down the side of the house, or over the neighbours’ fences) but once we’d WD-40ed the joins and removed all 4 legs (we were trying to only remove two legs and separate it into semi-circles) it came apart relatively easily.

To unscrew the leg nuts and bolts, we used a 17/32" socket and a 5mm (1/4") hex key. It required two people: one to hold the hex key and one to ratchet the socket connecty thing.¹

Reassembly

Having carted everything through the house, we commenced reassembly (after a break to have a drink and then to pick up Sewing Helper from preschool).

Putting together the large metal ring was a bit tricky until we turned it upside down, at which point it was easier to get all the joins lined up properly. Same socket wrench + hex key + two people system to get them reattached.

Putting in the spring struts was pretty easy, and we got Sewing Helper to assist with this (she probably didn’t need gloves for this bit, because the fibreglass was under a protective covering, but we made her wear them anyway.)

Reassembly then ceased for the day because we were getting tired. We weren’t going to finish it all that afternoon/evening, and this would give me the opportunity to do some repairs on the safety net.

Repairs

I purchased some sail repair twine and a sail needle from the local maritime shop, which I had never been into before, but it totally makes sense that our area would have one (near the water, plus posh people). Their website indicated they had Mara thread on spools, but the shop itself only had a sort of twine, so I got that and I’ll just have to handsew the repairs, sigh. I already have some seatbelt webbing from a previous bag project, so I can use that where necessary.

Additional notes

See above for our Top Tips For Disassembly, mainly the one about water+washing up liquid.

We will certainly be the last owners of this trampoline – there is a bunch of pretty significant corrosion, although it still seems sturdy enough for use, and there are some broken connections for the spring struts – and so I’ve said to Mr Octopus that when the time comes, we will be taking to it with an angle grinder rather than doing the disassembly process….

Nonetheless, it was $60 (plus the cost of our time and friends’ time) and the RRP for a new one is $1499.

It was also exciting that, for once, a disassembly project was not my idea just because I was needing to find control in life during crazy world events and was actually a necessary part of acquiring the item!