Day 8 / Tag 8: Our final project day - Finishing up our Longboards

The metamorphosis of an upper side of a deck 

Die Verwandlung einer Oberseite eines Longboards

And our first longboard is completed in about 12 hours stretched over 7 days.

How I built my Longboard ...

The first step I did was I researched my favorite design on the Internet the size of oak board I had in front of me. After I had decided what I wanted, I drew a template on paper. I didn’t forget to keep an eye on the dimensions of the trucks. I marked a center line on my oak board and transferred the template onto the wood. After that, I cut it with a band saw. I marked and drilled the holes for the trucks. When I was done with that, I sanded the board until it was "smoother than butter". Next I coated the board. Last step was to mount trucks and wheels on to the board. And then the board is ready to cruise with it around the entire world.

Tom

Days 6 & 7: Coating and final design

Tag 6 & 7: Lackieren und das endgültige Design 

Tag 5 / Day 5

Design and coating

An adaptation of our logo design is ready for spraying.

The story behind my build

I’ve been skating regular boards since I was eleven years old and until about sixteen there were very few days without a board beneath my feet. For some reason I lost interest in skating for some years but a while back a good friend of mine who I skated with back then had the idea to get boards again. Just to “goof” around a bit. I discovered quickly that I still love skating which is why I was really excited when I heard about our project.

So my first thought was: I want to build a cruiser! I want a short wheel base for the narrow streets of Berlin and I need a kick tale because I’m used to normal decks and I need it to feel to feel safe.

Also I wanted the design to be very simple which is why I chose a droplet shape for the deck, a short round nose and a pointy tale. My classmate Tom managed to get his hands on oak boards for our project and the look of the wood itself is beautiful enough. No paint job needed! I am planning to spray paint the logo of our long board collective on the bottom of my board. I will just use a simple stencil with black paint and a clear coat for the whole deck afterwards and to finish the project I will put a few strips of grip tape on the top.

Because of the bit of experience I have with skateboarding I am able to show the others how to assemble the wheels, bearings, trucks and so on.

Søren

Tag 4 / Day 4: Starting to fine-tune

 Checking wheel bite

Design questions: Which template should I use? 

Decisions, decisions: Which grip tape patterns should I apply?

More sanding 

At the end of our day four. 

Day 3 / Tag 3


All longboards have been cut out by now. On many of them, wholes for trucks have been drilled but otherwise today again was all about sanding, sanding, sanding. Some boards underwent some "beauty corrections" for straighter lines; the surface on other boards now are now as smooth as they can be.

Nun sind alle Longboards ausgesägt. Viele haben Löcher für die Achsen gebohrt und ansonsten hieß es auch heute wieder: schleifen, schleifen, schleifen. An manchen Brettern wurden noch größere Schönheitskorrekturen vorgenommen, um geradere Linien zu erzielen; an anderen ist die Oberfläche nun schön glatt.

And this is another picture of the evolution of the longboards at the end of day 3.

Und hier ein weiteres Bild in der Evolution der Longboards am Ende von Tag 3.

Tag 2 / Day 2

Die Hardware ist angekommen. Gestern haben wir den Tag 2 des Projektes mit dem Auspacken der Achsen und Räder begonnen, die wir bei Skateshop24 bestellt hatten.

Hardware arrived. Yesterday was day 2 of our project which we started with unpacking trucks and wheels. 

Dann ging es los mit dem Aussägen der Formen, die vorher auf's Brett übertragen worden waren. Danach folgte die Nachbearbeitung - Schleifen, schleifen, schleifen.

Then we started with cutting our of our board shapes which had been copied to the oak planks. What followed was sanding, sanding, sanding, ...

Am Ende des Tages waren die Boards ausgesägt, einige schon fertig geschliffen und zwei schon fertig mit angeschraubten Trucks. Gar nicht so schlecht für 180 Minuten. 

At the end of the day, almost all boards were cut out, a few were done with sanding and had already assembled and mounted truck and wheels. Not too bad for 180 minutes. 

Mit Schülern der Fachoberschule startet ein erstes Projekt in der Zentralwerkstatt: die Longboard Collective Berlin. Die Teilnehmer werden, wie beim Vorbild der Longboard Collective aus Hanover, NH, USA, aus einem Stück Holz innerhalb von 2 Blockstunden pro Woche ein Longboard selbst bauen und gestalten.

Heute kamen die Eichen-Planken an und die Arbeit begann.










Jeder Teilnehmer musste sein Design für das Longboard finden und auf das Brett zeichnen.