Hey, a little off topic, but I know that a lot of people here(Herb Spitzer, Paul Jensen…) have built skateboards before. I do as well, but i’m getting myself a set of freebord trucks(insane boarding. check the link) by trading one of my decks for it. One of the team riders wants me to build him a deck, but he wants aluminum (aircraft grade, he’ll provide it) integrated into the deck for strength and grinding etc… So i was wondering if any of you have experience with bonding aluminum to wood, if it even does bond. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. deck length is 4’ approx by 12" Thanks. http://www.freebord.com/floater/3863.htm
Hi I tried that back in the '60’s, but bonding is poor due to temp changes, as aluminum really gets hot and cold. You can bolt on, of course, every 6". Aluminum is very soft, and won’t help stiffen the board. Better is aluminum L shaped lengths, availible at hardware stores. But that’s too stiff, IMO. Not sure reason for rail grinds on a longboard.
Hi i’ve just built a couple of longboards, why don’t you laminate carbon unidirectionals between your plys? You can make the board as soft or stiff as you like, we were thinking of carbon tubes glassed underneath if extra stiffness needed. Don’t like the idea of grinds on a longboard though!
Hey, ya, I don’t like grinding on a longboard either, but these are pretty much snowboard trainers(as you can see from the video) and guys like to do rails and stuff like that on them. The aluminum is for strength in those grinds more than stiffness because they still want a fairly responsive board. Because of the end to end distance, wood and glass is still pretty weak for this(unless the board gets really heavy). maybe parallel, flattened semicircular, bolted on gaurds in the centre? Thanks. http://www.freebord.com/floater/3863.htm
sweet video. guys flying!! whenever i get goign that fast i puss out…i can never do it, normally my deck starts to rattle out of control though
Hey Dj Tight trucks for riding fast, loose trucks for riding slower. I’ve had guys in cars yelling I’m going 40mph with 18" wheelbase freestyle decks.
Hey, The guy in the video sure has control. And balls, at that speed with no piece of protection equipment. To stay on the subject, there’s a guy who put a how-to guide to building a wood/alu longboard on the web. Check the link below under wood/alu thing. You might have to ask him how it handled delam in the longrun though. Ciao http://www.geocities.com/toothlesslongboards/
…A good/ high bond grade of epoxy will do the job,just use some pressure.Herb
Whats up, is he clipped to that board or what? -Carl
Yah, you can either balance on the deck, or if you want to be able to handle more airtime like a snowboard, guys hook in. Coryell, thanks for the link to Ive’s site. It has been quite a while since I’ve been there, and I had no idea that he tried this… anyways, whatever happens, I’ll keep you all updated if you want. Thanks
…my fav www.ncdsa.com …Herb
A little of the topic but… Just got back from Canada and “discovered” a quality skate mag: Concrete Wave. Similar to Surfer’s Journal in many ways: quality, readership, pics, advertisers, layout, attitude. Recent issues focused on Warren Bolster’s photography, “the other” Jim Phillips artwork, and “Rage against the Marketing Machine: Where are we headed?.” Worthy of our support. Rob Olliges http://www.concretewavemagazine.com/
Check the link bellow (in french). This company as been making sk8boards, snowboards and ski using aluminium for almost 10 years. Use to to know them, back in the days. Basically the use Titanal, a commercial name for some sort of high strenght alumium alloy. Same stuff as been use for decades in the ski industrie to reinforce ski where binding are screwed in. The use epoxy resin to bond it to the wood core. Pressure and heat to cure the resin. I’ve got 2 of there skateboards. I don’t use them that much as I’m more into shortboards. But they ride well. The 40" board I’ve got from them with kick tail is funny to pop ollie with. Some sort of a spring effect. But I’m not sure that’s what you are looking for. 7-8 years ago I did some dowhill with some of their riders in the Alps. Closing a 7km road and going for it! Fore sure it has more to do with the guys (nutters!) but the 4’ downhill model was really fast! http://www.aluflexski.com/skate.htm