I've been a lurker for quite some time and even offer up the odd tidbit when someone asks a question. There's some impressive builders on this site and I admire their work as well as seeing the work from a grom having his/her first go.
The great thing about building your own skateboard, whether it will be just a board for you to trash 'cuz you can't afford a new Loaded or Sector 9(abong) or you're making them for mates or even started your own skateboard company, is that you have to teach yourself. There's no longboard university, the local community college doesn't run a course in skateboard hooliganism how-to and doing a skateboard building correspondence course is just plain silly.
Along the way, we've all had to gather up what information we could and just have a go. While this particular website has made it a damn site easier to get going, it's taken a great deal of innovation from anyone who's ever taken it upon themselves to build their own deck.
Let's hear what innovative ideas you've come up with. Don't be shy; if you've improvised a press, tried new materials in your deck or used yak spit as your adhesive, tell us about it. If you have pics and are clever enough to upload them, unlike me, even better.
To get the ball rolling, I'll throw out one of my sillier ones. When I started building decks I needed a source of continuous vacuum as well as needing to split that vacuum off into multiple bags. I had a one year old boy (very cute but a right pain in the ass; ever tried surfing with a baby?) who my wife had just stopped breast feeding. My wife had got ahold of a great old breast pump (sorry youngsters) and had been using it, but since it wasn't needed anymore, I thought I'd see if the mommy machine could form some veneers into a new longboard for daddy.
Worked a treat!
I've since upgraded my equipment (the pump, not the breasts) but I keep the old pump around for sentiment's sake.
Excellent Rogdon. The last time I used superglue was when I was trying to do a rail repair on one of my hollow bamboo surfboards - I ended up sticking my thumb to the rail and had to resort to the x-acto knife. And yes, blood does stain bamboo.
I don't know if this really fits, but recently while making my first vac bag, I couldn't find a suitable valve, so I found an punctured tire tube and cut a nice square patch aroung the valve, removed the shrader, then (after making a hole) glued the patch on the bag. Just vac'd my fist few plies last night, and it's worked a treat.
I don't know if this really fits, but recently while making my first vac bag, I couldn't find a suitable valve, so I found an punctured tire tube and cut a nice square patch aroung the valve, removed the shrader, then (after making a hole) glued the patch on the bag. Just vac'd my fist few plies last night, and it's worked a treat.
That's exactly what I'm talking about, fella.
I've actually done the exact same thing on one of my bags.
my most fun thing, is to build boards for specific tucks and aplications, as well as moving concave to effect different types of flex and dampen. but adjusting where the boards concave is at its most aggressive point it can make it flex in different patterns. thats been about it for me, that and experiementing with weighting boards in different places to effect how much faster gravity can pull the board, and a few other things still in testing that wont be disclosed at this point
stripped down some bamboo from my campus, sanded the back of the strips flat and pressed them on both sides of a piece of BB (pressed using bags of concrete mix to give even pressure on the bumpy bamboo)
Im a VERY "handyman" kinda guy. I take stuff apart and mod everything from ipods to laptops to game consoles to psps etc etc etc. Being innovative is the best.
I am currently building a board of the waterproof dock stuff made of sawdust, recycled platic garbage bags, and a plastic/epoxy mix. Crazy cool stuff, just a bit heavy and kind of flexy, but I fixed that up with some cf
Foam molds used for making a skateboard deck.
Manual vacuum pump used for making a skateboard deck.
Pre-cut veneers for making a deck.
Playing around with PINCH
Turning it all into a way to teach people about the joys of building things.
Ted
I love the breast pump story. WOW who knows where that could lead you too.
How innovative are you?
