kraffft work

[spoctopus]

chairboard- make me one
sawboard- bad ass
slide wheels-need some

as said by someone in FLASH CHAT
"compation breeds hatred, luke kraffft breeds innovation"

[speshlspeclsteak]

as said by someone in FLASH CHAT
"competition breeds hatred, luke kraffft breeds innovation"

hey i said that

fixed it for ya btw

[kraffft]

Two new boards in one epic video late tomorrow night: "The Death of Kraffft".. then I'm going to try not to make any more boards until after Halloween.. and focus on building a haunted skate park instead.

If you're nearby and looking for an insane time on Halloween.. get in touch. Providence weirdos do it right. 500+ people, 30+ bands, haunted house, multiple dance parties.

In other news.. UHMW is a little tricky for bearing seats.. The surface compresses somewhat easily. If a bearing fits snug into the seat, all the riding/sliding causes the seat to enlarge and the bearing to become loose in the seat. The way I'm addressing this is to make the seat diameter smaller than the bearing, which makes it moderately hard to press the bearing into the wheel, but solves the seat wear problem.

This means I will be offering slide wheels with/without bearings and spacers already installed. Your choice.

Just got a shipment in:



VXB bearings ($4.50/set).
Eureka spacers and speed rings ($0.50/set).

So adding bearings/spacers/speedrings will add ~$10 to the cost of of a set of wheels. ($5 labor: install, check free spin, make adjustments).

Expect to see a full write-up on the slide wheels within the week, along with the official notice that they are ready to sell and ship.


Full details on the parts:

Spacers and speed rings:

Decent quality steel spacers, width varies from .400" to .405". Parallel or very close to parallel faces (within .001").

Speed rings are similar quality. These obviously don't come installed. But they're cheap and nice to include.

Spacers: 6.5 cents each ($6.50 per hundred)
Speed Washers : 0.75 cents each ($7.50 per thousand)

1000 Washers - $7.50
500 Spacers - $32.50
Shipping - $8.60

Skateboard Bearings & Hardware

Bearings:

VXB are the best cheap bearings I know of. Currently testing them for longevity with sliding, and they're holding up fine so far. These are steel cage and steel shield, ABEC-7 bearings.

100 Bearings: $44.95
Shipping: ~$15

100 ABEC-7 Sealed Skateboard/inline/Rollerblade Skate Bearings:Ball Bearings:VXB

[speshlspeclsteak]

if you know of a decent location with lots of space id love to see some east coast vigelante tranny goin on.

[kraffft]

my camera is dead.. it got filled with blood. here's the last two pictures it took:




here's what I managed to record of the last two halloween boards:

car board:



12 foot 2x12 deck mounted with hinges to the roof of my civic, with control arm that pulls a steel cable connected the steering wheel to steer the car.
Instead of rigging up gas/brake controls, I just had a person in the drivers seat to press the gas and brake (and grab the wheel if necessary), shouting to each other to coordinate.

Just the resistance of the steering wheel instead of any type of bushings in this version. though it'd be easy to add bungee cords or springs. The resistance from the steering wheel made it hard enough to lean that any 'bushings' would have been too much. It would be more ideal to do this on a vehicle with true power steering (most passenger cars only have a power assist) or figure out a way to boost the power steering. Another approach would be to decrease the range of steering in exchange for easier lean, or possibly experimenting with having the control cable be stretchy/springy)

It also has the problem that it's not that fun at low speeds, but extremely dangerous at higher speeds..

YouTube - car board

tombstone board:

150 lbs of solid marble. so luxurious to cruise on. so stylish for your bereaved skater friends to admire.

now back to being a normal adult.

[luftywaffles]

hahahahahahah car board ####### epic

you win Kraffft.

[spoctopus]

omg haha

10char

[pete..]

Coolest Civic Ever!

[sean94]

lol, awesome civic.

[SeanML]

You're insane.

And I mean that in the best way; you're insane like my philosophy professor last semester was insane.

"you all can feel free to come to class late, but just keep in mind... I'm a bastard." (immediately after sneaking around behind a student that just walked in late, then tapping his shoulder and scaring the crap out of him)

[wardlarson]

#### yes i love you

[B-Boy Megatron]

i hope someone hasn't thought of this, but I wouldn't be surprised:

connect some kind of quick-release clamp (like the kind that holds a bike wheel on the frame) or some kind of dial, on the kingpins of a setup that is dropped through, so that you can adjust truck tightness while riding.

the idea is to clamp down for straightaways, and unclamp for tech sections in a course.

can you make this happen?

[Delta]

your car looks like you drove it through hell. Twice.

[kraffft]

i hope someone hasn't thought of this, but I wouldn't be surprised:

connect some kind of quick-release clamp (like the kind that holds a bike wheel on the frame) or some kind of dial, on the kingpins of a setup that is dropped through, so that you can adjust truck tightness while riding.

the idea is to clamp down for straightaways, and unclamp for tech sections in a course.

can you make this happen?

This is one of my favorite types of things to hear/read... schemes.

I've seen a lot of adjustable truck designs.. and I think I've heard similar things mentioned.. but never seen trucks that are adjustable while riding. I could definitely make it happen.. but first I'd want to examine the situations they'd be intended for a little more closely..

For example if you're looking to win races, the idea you described isn't helping your potential top speed at all, just making it easier to achieve. Something like having the contact patch of your wheels decrease while in straightaways and increase in corners would substantially increase your potential top speed (and wheels like that might be easier to make than you think).

There's also an issue with bushing stiffness.. It's generally better to increase stability with shallower pivot angles or a longer wheelbase rather than tighter trucks. Tight trucks still get wobbles, and they are larger and harder to quell than with looser trucks (hence "loose trucks save lives"). But you could also have a board with on-the-fly adjustable pivot angles or deck length.

It brings up an interesting issue though.. Hills are selected for racing based on riders skills and limitations and the limitations of their gear.. A set of innovations that made it possible to race safely at 100mph would open up new hills that aren't currently raced (or even bombed).

[B-Boy Megatron]

hmm.

going along with the idea of changing angles, maybe you could try putting hinges on the nose and tail of a drop-deck (right at the top bend of the drops), maybe an old DHR, and use cables connected to a lever in order to adjust "wedging" on the fly.

[TheKraken]

My life just hasn't been complete without this thread.

Kraffft, A God Among Men.

[speshlspeclsteak]

i saw some stuff that chaput did on wackyboards his were adjustable angle not adjustable kp tension though cant find em on the new site...

[B-Boy Megatron]

wait, forget what i posted earlier.

There's this idea I really wanna see, but don't have any place to experiment with it:

it'd be cool to play around with a truck design that would not only lean, but also track from side to side. the idea behind this is to make a truck that moves the rider's weight towards the outside wheels. imagine the traction you'd have! i have some vague ideas of how to make it work, involving cogs or belts, but the only thing i have clear in my head is how it would move. the motion would look like this:

[kraffft]

wait, forget what i posted earlier.

There's this idea I really wanna see, but don't have any place to experiment with it:

it'd be cool to play around with a truck design that would not only lean, but also track from side to side. the idea behind this is to make a truck that moves the rider's weight towards the outside wheels. imagine the traction you'd have! i have some vague ideas of how to make it work, involving cogs or belts, but the only thing i have clear in my head is how it would move. the motion would look like this:

You just drew a picture of Chainmaillekid's Other Planet trucks, easily the most innovative longboard project I've seen this year:

http://www.silverfishlongboarding.co...ing-video.html

http://www.silverfishlongboarding.co...et-trucks.html

[jaytoo]

i hope someone hasn't thought of this, but I wouldn't be surprised:

connect some kind of quick-release clamp (like the kind that holds a bike wheel on the frame) or some kind of dial, on the kingpins of a setup that is dropped through, so that you can adjust truck tightness while riding.

the idea is to clamp down for straightaways, and unclamp for tech sections in a course.

can you make this happen?

I don't know about a quick-release clamp or anything, but you could easily make an on-the-fly adjustable kingpin, given you have a drop-through deck. Take a longer bolt as your kingpin (like, 5in), with a good amount of thread. Mount your hangers and bushings to the baseplate using TWO nuts, with the bottom nut (furthest from the bp) at the very end of the bolt, and the upper bolt affixed to the baseplate. This would let the head of the bolt extend above the baseplate, which you can adjust with a small wrench or skate tool. You could use a bolt with coarse threads for faster adjusting, I suppose...

This would be nifty, but I'm not sure how useful it'd be. If your goal is better speedboarding, time would be better spent training your tuck and strengthening your ankles. Not to mention you would probably lose stabilty just reaching down and trying to adjust something...