Now You have the mold, but how to press it?
At first I used the applejuice presses. They worked just super... for a while - the physical part was a bit stressing and a waste of energy. So I had to do something about it.
I was surfing around in the Internet and saw some kind of used skateboard manufacturing machinery sales page. I drew the construction of the skateboard press down on a paper and went with it to my father. He was kind enough to search the material and to start the welding. It took a few days before the construction was finished. Then I painted it red - it became The Big Red.
And here is the press with mold attached to it:
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Skateboard Press
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The Skateboard Mold
Now, what about the mold?
I've always had a wish to do something, anything. I thought about making a skateboard but it was unreachable for me at the time - I didn't know anything about it. But the idea, the BIG wish to make my own skateboard, remained somewhere.
It all began when my little brother found a dude on the internet who made his very first and very own board in the carpentry class . That was "awesome" or "hep" according to my verbiage and vocabulary back then. I was psyche'd. I found out that it could be done in home environment. And as simple as that.
Me and my brother were already skating a few years at the time and the old used boards were always lying around somewhere. I took some old AWS board and drew the concave and kicktails on a piece of wood. Then carved it out with chisel. Upper and lower half of the mold separately.
I was eager to upgrade the shape of the board - someone told me that it was no good. So I made another mold using planks and jigsaw (now I have 4 of them). I just drew several shapes of the board on the planks and glued them together at the end.
Wood has a disadvantage - it swells when it get's a little amount of water or stays in the unheated room. It sorbs the humidity, get's randomly bigger and the hubbles arise. Fine filler make's it all go away for a while but not forever.
The one and only, the easyest way to make a mold is to use cement, sand, water, reinforcing wire and a mold into where the components are effused. For the mold-for-concrete-mold You can use an uncut skateboard blank. Build a tight box around it, effuse the liquid cement-water-sand compound into the mold-for-concrete-mold with the reinforcing wire and wait when it's dry.
I've always had a wish to do something, anything. I thought about making a skateboard but it was unreachable for me at the time - I didn't know anything about it. But the idea, the BIG wish to make my own skateboard, remained somewhere.
It all began when my little brother found a dude on the internet who made his very first and very own board in the carpentry class . That was "awesome" or "hep" according to my verbiage and vocabulary back then. I was psyche'd. I found out that it could be done in home environment. And as simple as that.
Me and my brother were already skating a few years at the time and the old used boards were always lying around somewhere. I took some old AWS board and drew the concave and kicktails on a piece of wood. Then carved it out with chisel. Upper and lower half of the mold separately.I was eager to upgrade the shape of the board - someone told me that it was no good. So I made another mold using planks and jigsaw (now I have 4 of them). I just drew several shapes of the board on the planks and glued them together at the end.
Wood has a disadvantage - it swells when it get's a little amount of water or stays in the unheated room. It sorbs the humidity, get's randomly bigger and the hubbles arise. Fine filler make's it all go away for a while but not forever.
The one and only, the easyest way to make a mold is to use cement, sand, water, reinforcing wire and a mold into where the components are effused. For the mold-for-concrete-mold You can use an uncut skateboard blank. Build a tight box around it, effuse the liquid cement-water-sand compound into the mold-for-concrete-mold with the reinforcing wire and wait when it's dry.Glue
The endurance of a skateboard depends besides the quality of the veneer also on the quality and type of the glue. I'm using PVA-B3 - "PVA" stands for PolyVinylAcetate (it means that this is the mostly used glue in wood-working industries :D it's pretty cheap also) and the B3 stands for the level of the humidity endurance.
To enhance the durability of the glue the big skateboard manufacturing industries are using some kind of an adhesive (it makes the glue stronger) of which I have no valuable and trustworthy information. Sorry, I really am.
The PVA is a thermoplast - it means that the glue melts up again at certain level of heat - so be careful with Your board and where You leave it. Minus degrees are also harmful because the glue (also the wood itself) becomes brittle and the board may crack easily.
The process of glueing:
Before You start the glueing process You have to choose 2 the most decent layers (top and bottom layer) – when you do that, then the final result is also better. If You start glueing better hurry up because the glue dries on the first layers at the same time when You're glueing the last layers. ;) To appose the glue I use a paint roller.
Assembling of the layers:
At first 2 layers (cutted along the fiber), then 1 layer (crossways), then 1 layer (cutted along the fiber), then 1 layer (crossways) and then the last 2 layers cutted along the fiber of the veneer.
The PVA needs no heating. Most of my acquaintances believed that skateboards were made of heated and bent plywood and they thought that a heating process is necessary. When I told them about the real process of skateboard manufacturing they were surprised how simple it actually was.
Veneer
Before You even start building the mold You'd have to do some researching from where You can find/buy/get some veneer (it's kind of hard to find veneer with appropriate thickness or quality etc.), otherwise the building of the mold and press is pointless when You cannot use them.
I am using estonian birch, it's not the best (the canadian hard rock sugar maple or whatever it's called is :D), but it feeds my needs, it's not so expensive and it is basically the only veneer a can get my hands on (I've planned to try european maple but it's just a plan).
Usually a skateboard consists of 7 layers veneer. 2 middle-layers are the cross-layers, they are holding the concave. 5 other layers are cutted along the fiber and are holding the kicktails and give the basic strength to the board.
I'm cutting the veneers (now using a carpet knife with a very thin blade) 23 by 88 cm to give some extra space for the ecxessive glue to stream out when the board is in the press.
Well, that's the basic information about the main thing - veneer.
Video
First of all I'd like to show You the process of the skateboard manufacturing in LIVE.
Almost two years ago I had a chance to document it, watch it here: VIDEO.
It's in estonian language but I hope that You'll understand it anyway - it is said that one picture says more than thousand words, but hey, this is a 10 minute video with MANY pictures (frames), now calculate how many words you get out of it!
The time has past and with the two years the methods have developt. In this video I'm frustrating myself with a lot of physical job (pressing and routing the board by hand). Now I'm using 30T hydraulic bottle jack combined with new pressframe (thanks dad!), electrical router etc.
Thanks alot Teip.ee for documenting it!
Enjoy!
Start!
It's not that hard at all to start making your very own skateboards. You just need some patience and a bit of carpentry skills.
Thru this blog I'm trying to pass on the experiences that I've obtained in a miniature skateboard manufacturing of my own in a home environment.
So stay tuned with my new blog because I'm guiding You through the process very soon.
Donn.
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