Build from the Past: Longboards Part 1
I built some longboards awhile back. Actually more like a bunch hence the part 1 in the title. This post will cover some of my early builds before I started experimenting with fiberglass and other building techniques.
So since I like building things it was natural for me to attempt to build a longboard. I did not want to pay $70+ for a deck when I could get the materials for half that and make maybe 2 boards out of the sheet of wood. I began to read longboarding forums and the king of the longboarding forums is Silverfish and they happen to have a board building section. The resources they have in that section are pure gold to builders. It is the first place I refer people to if they are interested in building boards. With that said I absorbed what information I could get my hands on from that section. Along with a couple failed board builds I learned the in's and out's of board building and started making some reasonably nice boards.
I started off with some simple flat boards. This one in particular was made for the sole purpose of getting me to school and back so that I did not have to walk the short 1/4 mile.
As you can see from the pictures it worked. I rode that board for awhile and the only problem that arose down the line was that front and back began to delaminate. That wasn't a big problem since the mounting hardware held everything together.
This board was built for fast downhill riding. The lowered platform lowers the CG and increases stability however its also more prone to sliding in turns.
DogHat is what I called my longboard "company". There's a pretty funny story behind the name but I won't get into that.
This press was the next iteration of my drop deck press design. The press worked fantastic however the wood that my friend and I used for this board sucked hardcore. The wood was some birch wood from Home Depot. It had a super thin ply of birch on each side and then some soft filler wood in the middle which offered no structural support. The board broke with 5 sec of riding it.
The broken deck was quickly re-purposed as a mini board. The wood handled the shorter span much better than before.
This is just a deck that I cut out of a flat piece of my friends scrap Baltic birch. Nothing special about it accept for the cool panda.
Thus concludes part 1 of my board building adventures. There's much more to come.
So since I like building things it was natural for me to attempt to build a longboard. I did not want to pay $70+ for a deck when I could get the materials for half that and make maybe 2 boards out of the sheet of wood. I began to read longboarding forums and the king of the longboarding forums is Silverfish and they happen to have a board building section. The resources they have in that section are pure gold to builders. It is the first place I refer people to if they are interested in building boards. With that said I absorbed what information I could get my hands on from that section. Along with a couple failed board builds I learned the in's and out's of board building and started making some reasonably nice boards.
My next board undertaking was a little more complicated and almost out of my skill range range at the time. It was the first board I used a press to press individual layers of Baltic birch together. The press I used was pretty basic. It consisted of only a bottom side rather than a top and bottom like the press below. Clamps were used to pull the plys together.
Thus concludes part 1 of my board building adventures. There's much more to come.
