Behold the last fucking third party deck I ever build on because I hate glassing custom boxes! If you’re going to do a last something with a board, make it a James Kelly pro model 2016. I mean, damn. You know? This deck was in such demand that I couldn’t fucking buy one when the time came. I had to buy a complete on Paris trucks with sugar wheels. I’ll probably sell those here later, they’re pretty sweet.
Then I sort of stopped in the middle of that and shaped a form and glassed a box directly on the board like a peasant. I hate this part. It smells. But I discovered that hot glue makes an excellent filler for between the form and the deck in the places that it doesn’t touch because of the concave. Stuff the gap with paper towels and fill it over with hot glue, follow that with a razor and you have a clean edge all thruway to the deck. Then I covered it all with blue tape.
later I had a rough box that needed a lot of touching up. It broke my cutting wheel, and it had gaps and defects that needed filling in and sanding down, but eventually I got it usable.
Then I finished it up with a glossy spray gradient on texture to match the color of the trucks and mounts and motors. Black fading into blue.
Chopped some trucks, and also chopped the pulleys. Took about 4mm off the pulleys with a chop saw and then chopped 2cm of aluminum from each side of the truck with a dremel. I don’t know why evolve loves to consume so much fucking axle space with those pulleys. Their flywheel pulleys are just as bad. They need to take a cue from enertion’s pulleys. 8mm for Enertion pulleys, 20 fucking mm for evolve pulleys. Isn’t evolve in Australia? Can’t they just walk over there to Jason’s house and be like hey bro how do you pulley so good bro or something, shit.
So I’m still waiting on VESCs from Ollin but I’m going to go ahead and build it out with some from my personal stash because this dude needs his ride by a certain date. I haven’t stuffed the box full of watt hours yet but it’s going to have a 12S4P with my favorite Samsung INR18650-25Rs and a 60amp BMS and 4amp charger. in the mean time, this is basically how it looks with an empty box.
I thought i read that around here at some point as well. I like their designs, but i don’t like the amount of aluminum you have to remove. If they figure out that trick with the F608ZZ bearings they’ll have better pulleys. Right now they’re using an interchangable bearing design which i respect because its customizable but no one is going to want to break up a complete set of bearings just to have two for a set of pulleys. It bugs me to death that they don’t ship with at least some ABEC 9s or something. But then again, they’re selling replacement parts for their own proprietary completes, not trying to supply the DIY community with parts.
you know what i think i’m going to brush a coat of clear on that deck. it came from the skateshop a little dull and scuffed, so maybe it needs a nice sanding and clear urethane before i ship it.
I charged this board up fully for the first time friday night and on saturday morning I took it out to test. Rode like an absolute dream. I really like the arbor decks and it makes me want to do a more conventional concave press mold. The only downside is that the aggressive concave makes the box look bigger, but the handling is amazing.
this thing was doing 30mph with plenty of throttle left.
Because of the size of the pack and the fact that i had to cram two VESCs in there, the box was a little longer than i liked, and because of the concave it sat taller than i liked near the rear wheels. In order to eliminate any possibility of the motor mounts rubbing the box i made some modifications to the drive train, and now i’m shooting myself in the face for not taking pictures, so i’ll try to explain.
First I sanded the motor mounts with a dremel to a nice bevel in the area where it may rub to eliminate the hard corner that usually is what jabs the box. I blended the bevel in smoothly so there’s an attractive transition between the bevel and the rest of the mount’s edge. The other thing i did was to add an additional flat steel bushing washer on the hanger side of the boardside barrel bushing. This gave it an additional 2-3mm of clearance as it ever so slightly shifted the angle of the hanger up. Adding it to the hanger side was done for aesthetic reasons, the washer completely disappears in there and just effectively increases the thickness of the hanger’s bushing slot.
I love kegals now. And now that I know they can be dyed i really want to start using them more. Chopping the evolve pulleys down to 9mm belt size is pretty easy if you have a chop saw and a steady hand. The only thing i don’t like is how much aluminum you have to remove on the hanger.
@longhairedboy Awesome job! Colour combo looks like a monster! Quick question: what type of concave do your decks have. I think I am going to do a flat tub for my decks.
Not sure about size, but look up sector 9 Roxanne longboard. The shape is super similar, just a sharper front and more curved back only slightly though. I was going to use it for my build. Depending on where you live, it should be cheaper than the James Kelly pro model.
Edit: while looking for decks a little while ago I came across a lot of decks similar in shape. I’ll link them if I find them again, this one was just in mind.
i think this is one of the best looking projects ive seen in a while…
wish i had the tools to do it as well i think the look of your board is just perfect!
my decks have sort of a soft-dome w-concave with the bump starting and finishing a few inches before each truck. Its kind of hard to see exactly what’s up in pictures, but here’s a few with the light hitting it just right.
This is a Witchblade AT but all of my decks have this concave profile and a tail curve:
you can see it from a different angle here:
and here as well:
and here:
and this one you can really see it:
and here’s a blank prior to being cut that shows you what the press is really doing:
and a video where i’m rotating it around:
and here’s a downshot of my press mold so you can see the concave curve a little better.
Its an exotic design, I came up with it while trying to solve a number of problems. The shape substantially reduces flex even on 7 ply (though not quite enough on 7 ply for a monolithic box at this long ass wheelbase, so i moved to 9ply to finish eliminating the flex) while giving the box a little more room for wires and things. But it also gives you quite a bit of choice as far as foot placement. The gutter fits your foot’s heel and/or ball for grip in turns and the dome top kind of cradles your arches a bit depending on how wide your stance is.
And now you can clearly see why i had to either make or have made my own boxes. This is by no means a standard concave, and designs for boxes such as the space cell pro that support a regular curve and flat bottom boxes such as those that are generically vac formed just don’t work.
LHB as always you are inspiring us all with your work.
If I may add though, I believe that separating/spacing the wires so that they don’t stick on each other after pouring the resign in your beautiful wire channels would have a very positive aesthetic impact.
Anyway that is subjective.
Keep up the amazing work
Now that i have an xcarve doing my channels and i’m not out in the driveway for three hours dremmelling them and screwing things up, i’m probably going to try and come up with a pattern that allows each wire to have its own channel. Even with 12 awg wire its going to be a challenge getting six channels between the bolt holes for the trucks on a dual rear setup, but if i can get it to do that you’re right, it will look better. I’d probably have to make it an extremely snug fit to the wire and also use a smaller bit on the router which will make it take longer, but who cares how long it takes when i can be elsewhere doing something else. I’ve got my machine running well while unattended.
I may even move to 14awg for phase leads so i can do this, though i will of course still use the high strand count silicone insulated wire to maximize the wire surface area available for all those electrons. Most motors seem to come with 14awg leads anyway.
Thanks for all the pictures @longhairedboy ! Do you think a flat tub concave would be alright for the first decks I press? I think I am going to make a ribbed press.
i think the look of your board is just perfect!