John Pollman
Member
- Messages
- 1,338
- Location
- Rochester Hills, MI
Hi all!
My son is twelve years old and an avid skateboarder. He's been skating for about three years. He absolutely loves it! He also likes to "fingerboard". These are basically miniature skateboards that are roughly 1" wide by 4" long. They "ride" them with their fingers instead of their feet. It seems strange to me but he and his friends have a ball doing this. I've made him a bunch of ramps, rails, half pipes, etc. A while ago he graduated from store bought plastic boards to laminated wooden boards. He bought a couple and really liked them better than the plastic. He asked me if I could make him some wooden ones. Well it took some trial and error but I figured it out. I made a form and bought some veneer and got to work. After several attempts it started getting close. But the one trouble I had was making sure that both halves of the form were identical. Then I had an idea. I made up one side of the form out of wood and carved and shaped it. This was the convex side. Then I bought some casting resin and put a form around the top side of the form and poured it in. This would ensure an identical mirrored form for the bottom. It worked very well! I have several versions with different concave and head/tail sizes. I can just put whichever version I want to make in the jig and I'm ready to go.
We just cut four or five pieces of veneer to size and make sure to alternate the grain. We glue them up and place the pack in the form and clamp it down then let it sit to cure. While in the form, we trace the shape onto the blank with a pencil. When it's set up we remove it and trim the board to shape and sand then finish it. Drill the holes to mount the trucks and it's ready to go. I'll have to get some pictures of the boards up the they look REALLY COOL! But at least I've got a picture of the jig. Here it is...
I'll have to get some pictures up of the stair sets and the mini park that I built for him also.
John
My son is twelve years old and an avid skateboarder. He's been skating for about three years. He absolutely loves it! He also likes to "fingerboard". These are basically miniature skateboards that are roughly 1" wide by 4" long. They "ride" them with their fingers instead of their feet. It seems strange to me but he and his friends have a ball doing this. I've made him a bunch of ramps, rails, half pipes, etc. A while ago he graduated from store bought plastic boards to laminated wooden boards. He bought a couple and really liked them better than the plastic. He asked me if I could make him some wooden ones. Well it took some trial and error but I figured it out. I made a form and bought some veneer and got to work. After several attempts it started getting close. But the one trouble I had was making sure that both halves of the form were identical. Then I had an idea. I made up one side of the form out of wood and carved and shaped it. This was the convex side. Then I bought some casting resin and put a form around the top side of the form and poured it in. This would ensure an identical mirrored form for the bottom. It worked very well! I have several versions with different concave and head/tail sizes. I can just put whichever version I want to make in the jig and I'm ready to go.
We just cut four or five pieces of veneer to size and make sure to alternate the grain. We glue them up and place the pack in the form and clamp it down then let it sit to cure. While in the form, we trace the shape onto the blank with a pencil. When it's set up we remove it and trim the board to shape and sand then finish it. Drill the holes to mount the trucks and it's ready to go. I'll have to get some pictures of the boards up the they look REALLY COOL! But at least I've got a picture of the jig. Here it is...
I'll have to get some pictures up of the stair sets and the mini park that I built for him also.
John
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