It's been a while. Just about finished with a new project. Long board rack.

John Pollman

Member
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1,332
Location
Rochester Hills, MI
Hi all, long time no see.

I haven't been doing much lately due to my health issues. But I'm fighting it as best I can.

A couple weeks ago my friend that owns a skateboard pro shop in town asked me if I could build him a new free standing rack for their long boards. I decided that I was up for the challenge. He said there was no rush, but he wanted it to be nice and look like a piece of furniture. At first we talked about me building a roughly 6" square box by about 7' high. But a couple days later he said that he was looking at those 8' round fluted wooden porch columns at the BORG. It sounded like a great idea and I had to come up with some way to build a nice stable base for it as well as dress it up a bit. We picked up the post and a preformed base and capital trim set and I got to work. I used some nice carved crown molding and attached it to the base and the capital. Then I built up a very stout 30" square buy 2" thick base. It is very stable just as is, but in the under side of the base, I have allowed room for me to install three 16" square pieces of 1/8" steel.

I built a jig so that I could use a circular saw to cut the slots and they'd be uniform. Once the slots were all cut, I used a 3/4" forstner bit at the end of each cut and lined it up so that it gave me a nice rounded end to the slot. It all worked very well. When I had all of the slots cut, I use my Harbor Freight 1/2" belt sander to get in there and clean up each slot. The came out beautifully. I just have to let the stain dry, then I'll put on a little satin clear and it's ready to go. It will hold 29 boards. I can't wait to see it in use!

Long board rack.jpg
 
Thanks Larry!

I've been going through some bad times and over the past year, I'm seeing a definite progression of the disease. It is very difficult for me to stand up from a seated position. If I'm on the floor, it's VERY difficult for me to get up if there's nothing to lean on to get leverage. About a month ago I quit being stubborn and started using the electric stair lift I put in a couple years ago. I can barely do stairs anymore. If there's a stairway without a hand rail, I can't use it.

It's getting very tough, but I'm fighting it with everything I've got. This time next week, I'll be on my way back to Minneapolis for more tests. I'll only be there a couple days, then home. Then in the middle of April, I'm headed to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD. It is the biggest and best research hospital in the world. They've accepted me into their LOTS study.
 
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Good work John, I know a few snowboarders who'd be plumb happy to have that (they might have to many boards :rolleyes:).

Glad to hear your still getting around. There's a lot of new stuff coming around in this area so hopefully one of the new therapies works out. Good deal on getting into that program.
 
Good to hear from you John!! That pole is really unique. Reminds me of the notches and boards the tree cutters stand on when chopping tree trunks up high. (can't remember the name right now). Very nice work! Keep on going on John!!!!!!!
 
I had a basic idea as to how I was going to do it. The thing of it is that these board they're displaying on this rack start at about $100 and go up as high as about $250. They have very nice graphics on the under side of the board. There are many different board configurations, but they're all a bit concave. I estimated the depth and how wide the notches would have to be and I bought an 8" sonotube try it out. They're about $8 as opposed to $139 for the column. I tried several angles and sizes of slots and when I had what seemed to be a good fit for the variety of boards, I took the prototype over there and showed them. It worked, but then she said "But I want the graphic to be facing UP on the lower ones so that they can see the design" But by the time you get about half way up, the boards would have to be put in right side up so that the graphic will be pointing down because they're up so high.

The challenge was on! :)

I played with some combinations of angle, depth, and width of the slots. Guess what, the slots hold the boards very securely EITHER WAY! The lower boards can be inserted upside down, and the higher boards can go in right side up. You'll be able to see the graphics on all of the boards without having to take them out of the rack.

Dang I'm good! LOL

I'll post pics of it once it's installed and stocked.
 
It's been done for over two weeks, but because of my trip to Minneapolis and a couple visits to the ER last week, we couldn't hook up to get it installed. He came by today and picked it up and it's now in place and working. Good news is that they LOVE it! To tell you the truth, I do too. This is my new favorite piece that I've built for their store. The shoe rack is a very close second though.

South Street Board Rack.jpg
 
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