mound building?

The easiest thing I ever did in build a mound was to create a form our on 3 8 x 10 boards and cut them to go with the slope of the mound. I put brackets on the ends to connect them and then drove spikes down in the ground to hold them. I then filled in the form using infield dirt and then clay. When I was done I then used the forms for our bullpen. Tamping will take forever so you might either want to rent a roller or gas powered tamp like construction workers use.

ill be doing this also... can you explain more the 3 8 x 10 frame?

Ok to the best I can here goes. I basically made a big U out of 3 8 x 10 in frames so that way the top of the frame is the top of the mound. The side pieces I put through a Table saw so that they would match the slope of a regulation mound. I then took 6 L brackets and screwed them in, 3 to each end, to make my U frame. I set it where it needed to be set according the NFHS rules and you now have a frame to place dirt in. Let me know if you need further explanation.

Here in the Phoenix area, there is a company called Stabilizer Solutions that sells various types of soils for sports fields. Their Ballyard clay forms a solid foundation for mounds and home plate areas. Their Pro Red clay is used for the infield base paths. And their HillTopper soil is used for mounds. The HillTopper is a polymer-coated soil that sheds water and resists getting dug out. I used all three of these soils in my backyard bullpen where I offer private pitching instruction. (See pictures here.) The HillTopper soil has proved to create a fairly maintenance-free mound.

I would check with coaches of nearby high schools and colleges to see where they get their soil from to try and locate something similar to HillTopper soil.