Longboard

Among N's various projects, and believe me he's got a few, is making a longboard skateboard. This is a pretty ambitious project but I think it is very cool and one he should pursue, and I'll help him in any way I can. I'm actually curious to see where it goes because he literally wants to make it from scratch. This entails making the deck, which is akin to manufacturing his own plywood sheets, which is something I personally have never done and didn't even know was possible by the general public, but possible it is.

The first order of business was obtaining the wood, which was not as straightforward as you might think. If you've ever seen a longboard it's not a flat piece of wood but has bends in various places. I think the material of choice is plywood, but to get that distinctive shape it needs to be tweaked, and it seems like the best way to do that is with thin pieces laid over one another during the bending process. This, in my opinion, is a seemingly industrial process, but apparently it can be done. There are YouTube videos explaining how.

Whatever be the case, we are in search of the wood. The plan is to find sheets of wood as thin as possible, which means about 1/8 of an inch, and we found some at Home Depot but like much of the wood you get there, it's not the best quality. I've been told 1/8 Baltic Birch is the stuff to get, so the search continues. We may have to pay a visit to Baker Lumber, which specializes in hardwoods, though it's not always cheap. Then again, nobody said this process was going to be cheap.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to NoelleSkrobola for the pic.