hahahaha @longhairedboy U have one of these?
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AWWW DAMNN. I neeeds this.
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Shoot me a PM with your size, color preference, and what you want embroidered on it and I’ll see what I can do 
Also include what style (vest/jacket/hoodie/sweater/etc)
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Nice grip pattern! Once it’s cut out, how do you transfer it to the board while maintaining the spacing between all the cuts?
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Now THAT is the million dollar question lol. I’m still experimenting with different transfer options. There has got to be an easier way than what I did for this first one, but I got tired of experimenting and wanted to see it on there!
For this specific one I did it manually. Once I lasercut the sheet I laid it on top of the board, then pulled a piece without moving the rest of the sheet, peeled the adhesive backing, and put right back on the board. Basically I used the sheet itself as a stencil. It was very easy to line up accurately, however with so many small pieces it was very time consuming
I think for my other board I will do a nice big pattern, then make an actual stencil out of cardstock or something. Doing it through the tape as a stencil works fine too.
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you could also use something like vinyl tape as a transfer medium. Typical transfer tape wouldn’t work well with grip, but if you make your own with something gummier, like generic low quality duct tape (i wouldn’t use Gorilla tape!) or something akin to Gaff tape, that would work well i imagine because the glue from grip tape is stronger than the crap vinyl tape when applied to what is essentially a sandy surface.
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Thanks for the input I will give some cheap duct tape a try!
So far I have tried regular transfer tape and hot pink vinyl lol. The transfer tape did not work at all and even the vinyl’s adhesive wasn’t strong enough to hold the grip while I peeled the grip. It worked in some areas but did not hold strong enough for others. However that pink vinyl was the last of my vinyl stock and is at least 5 years old, so the adhesive might have degraded over time.
I’d love to find an option that works well, because intricate full sheets are much more doable when you can transfer the whole design at once.
I feel pretty confident that the colored “duck tape” at Wal-Mart in the craft section would totally work if you simply laid it in strips across the rough side. Its probably sticky enough to stay on the grip but weak enough to be removed.
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Perfect! I’ll see if I can pick up some on lunch, I still have some scraps of 10" and a full sheet of 9" to test with
Would anybody happen to know a good source for 10" wide sheets that come flat, not rolled? I have used both flat sheets and a rolled sheet and the flat was 10x easier to get good equal focusing across the sheet. The rolled stuff likes to raise in sections while it cuts
keep us posted! i want to know if this works because if it does i may try to kiss some grip from the glue/paper side on the x-carve after taping the front side. Also they have laser cutter mods for the x-carve which i want to try also, hopefully later this year. I want to get into custom MOB grip cutting as an option.
if you can’t find any, try this: roll out a section grip side down. Peel the backing down almost all the way length wise, then reapply as you hold it flat. For example, use your right hand to hold the backing up while using your left hand to creep across and press the backing down while keeping it flat simultaneously. It worked for me a couple of times.
Another option is the 12" squares MOB sells.
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MOB tape laser cuts beautifully! I’ve tried MOB, Black Diamond, and Jessup so far all gave clean crisp results running at high speed. Make sure you have fume extraction setup or you will be choking on that chlorine gas, which is also bad for machine components. The 3w mod may not work for this application but it might. I would stick to at least a 30w CO2 or comparable strength laser. For this design I used 80% Speed 100% power on a 60w CO2 laser, and while you can’t up the power you can always drop down the speed. 1/8" birch ply is around 15speed/100power on a 60w, so if you can confirm your laser will cut veneers or thin wood it should be fine.
Thanks for the tip on the rolled grip, I can see how it would work with the backing holding the tape into its new shape. Will give it a try if I can’t find any full sheets. I’ve been eyeing that big roll of Jessup on Amazon for a week now lol
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Came back to the office after my girls went to bed. (the mother is one of the girls don’t freak out they’re not alone lol)
@mmaner Thanks to the wonderful idea from @longhairedboy, I believe we have a workable solution for transfer the design.
The Mrs. picked me up some black Duck (brand) Tape from Wally World. Get ready for too many pictures.
I always like to mark the position of the final cutout first so I know what I need to cover.
5x5" test cutout image done. I sandwiched another board of ply over the first board, held tightly and flipped
I laid down plain paper strips so the rest of the grip wouldn’t come off when I peeled it back. Press down firmly.
With a razor or sharp object, gently remove backing from the places you’d like to be black. a few whole chunks got removed but as long as they are pieces you don’t want to be grip you’re fine.
So Satisfying. And took a fraction of the time from start to finish
Nice
Now let’s try something HARD! This one is for my daughters longboard, she couldn’t decide on a theme so I just did all her favorites
Should looks like this. I had to make sure to leave tape enough to cover the battery channels that are in the deck. The longer of her two boards is actually the spare BF2 deck from a deck swap
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Sorry for the super lengthy picture post. It kinda started as a step by step of how I did it but damn is that some scrollin’
Some pictures got flipped and some you need to enlarge to see all of it (Like what final tape is projected to look like. The 10 minute artwork that is my daughters tape finished while I typed this beast, so I’m going to tape it and clean up my office and head home
BUILD UPDATE
Had a couple connectors come in, so I made an adapter for my battery and soldered 5.5mm bullets on my FOCBoxes so they’d match my motors. I also installed the motor keys which came in
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Awesome work. I’ll have to try that.
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Oh hell yes!
glad it worked out. That looks amazing.
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that bill cipher is sick! 
If u make another I want it 
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Update o clock. Updated the firmware on both vescs again, configured them, setup an hm-10 receiver and connected to acks app.
Because I had to trim my deck I’ll be modifying the enclosure a bit to get a perfect fit. Bought a heat gun for some minor bending, and will cut out part of the back to fit the fins of the heat sink enclosure through. Received all inset hardware/washers, but cant measure hole placement until I’ve modified the enclosure. Just waiting on the 3dservisas enclosure which is currently floating around usps
Still waiting on photon to be shipped, received a mini in the meantime. Noticed i needed to grab rechargeable AAs so I just bought some. Plugged all 4 in to charge and 3 fucking inches away on the counter I spot a small pile of rechargeable AAs lol dammit
Am thinking about making a firefly, it looks awesome too
Daughters grip tape had too many fine lines, so we peeled it and painted the top of the deck hot pink. Will do a new tape for her this week when I get more full sheets
@trancejunkiexxl pm me your shipping address I should have big enough scraps to make you one
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Build Update!
Everything came in yesterday! Installed the grommets for the enclosure, went to program the remote, could not find my ppm servo cable. Went home it wasnt there either, but my girls saw me (and my wife had today off so her bedtime wasn’t early like normal) so I was “trapped” there lol
Came in today and I finally found the cable! I had thrown it with the parts I wont be using cause I decided to go can instead of split y, then changed last minute to can w/ split y just in case with both set to PPM+UART
Ran motor detection on both escs seperately, linked everything back up via can and setup the mini remote I have while I wait for Photon/Firefly
Everything works beautifully and it is actually quieter than I’d imagined.
As soon as I get off work I will swap the battery pack for a wooden “battery”, slap it on the deck and deform it with a heat gun. Then it’s time to mark and place all my pilot holes for the hardware, install the inset screws, make cutouts for charge/power/heatsink, and it will finally be rideable!!! (i’d say done but lets face it I probably won’t last a week before I start tinkering again)
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When you deform your enclosure with the heat gun do you have a specific technique to hold it in place while you heat? Do you strap it down to the board using something that can stand up to the heat? (flat nylon webbing, bungee cord, velcro strapping,…?)
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I use painters tape. Most of the bending will be done on the outside edges at the end, so put the enclosure where you want it and tape the crap out of it in the center of the enclosure.
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