I need to show off

[Gecko]

...If you belong to the Fish please vote for me.....Well I’ve always wanted a build a Vlam, this will replace the Eastbilt 60” that I just couldn’t get used to. Woods are Rock Maple, White Oak and Cherry (a blond a brunette and a red head) with a Zebrawood tail block. All but the Zebrawood I got from a local mill that sells furniture grade lumber…this is to say I probably paid too much but it’s very high quality lumber. The Zebrawood is from my stash of exotic lumber chunks. I would have preferred to use Cocobolo but this piece was really close the final size to start with and shaping Cocobolo is a PITA so Zebrawood it is. My dad has a very nice wood shop that I had been wanting to get acquainted with…this board is my way of using nearly every tool in the shop. I spent about an hour plotting out a ton of different layouts before deciding on 9 layers. Having a table saw and a joiner made getting everthing to the glue up point was faster than I was expecting. Saying that I overbuilt this is an understatement…I initially planned on biscuiting around the trucks but then I saw a broken Vlam last weekend and started plotting out a pattern that that would strengthen it wouldn’t be bad…well I went overboard, there are 38 biscuits in the board not including the one hold the tail block on. Then again I weigh 215lbs so there is really nothing wrong with overbuilding and besides it runs in my family. I also used way too much glue and which I got mocked for by everyone in my family but I didn’t have a brush so I was applying glue by hand. Cleaning up the dried glue sucked until I got enough off to be able to use the planner then it went fast. Shaping was easy on the bandsaw and I actually cut it out nearly even on both sides requiring little evening out. I biscuited out the tail and glued the block on. Routered a 1/2'” round over on the top and a wedge on the bottom and then sanded it for a coupe of hours one day and a couple more then next day….I do love my Festool orbital sander. Next come coat after coat of Polycrylic with wet sanding in between…I think the bottom has about 10-12 coats the top 4 then two coats with Tread Tex salt shaker’d on wet poly for a total of 6. The Complete has Angel R7 (Force clones) and Pink 7-0’s…I still haven’t got a good bushing setup on this but I will figure something out. it skates soft and smooth

And of course the oh so patient shop dog who watched me the entire time...Muji

[willywhit]

Tony,

where is the link to silverfish for vote for that board ? I miss my 60" pintail and would be so stoked to replace it.How many hours did it take to build that vLAM ?

[Gecko]

Voting begins next week I think and I have some good competition though nothing as long as mine. Building took me 3 days but it would have been much longer without a table saw, planner and joiner (add a day at least) Finishing took 3 weeks because I wasn't really that dedicated to wetsanding and such. I used 3/4" and maybe I should have used 1" but I also wanted the board to have a soft feel....there are a lot of things I would do differently had I to do it again but alas hindsite is always 20/20...My eastbilt 60" is up for sale

[dingbat]

Nice! Love the bread board end on the tail.

[jetkin]

Bump this thread when the page goes up on the 'Fish.

You've got my vote.

[KingCrimson]

No magical glowing foil and 12 volt resistors?

No way you're getting my vote. You need to incorporate more useless, ugly, and heavy stuff for that to be worth it.

Grind some random letters into the wood too, especially ones with a weird style.

Real beautiful work there Gecko!

[jetkin]

Yeah, but I've heard that the preacher at Gecko's church said some really outrageous things about Randal trucks so I might have to reconsider.

[KingCrimson]

Hey, well at least he didn't say gullwings are the best trucks ever made..

[Gecko]

Hey, well at least he didn't say gullwings are the best trucks ever made..

I may be old but I'm not senile

Yeah, but I've heard that the preacher at Gecko's church said some really outrageous things about Randal trucks so I might have to reconsider.

that really depends on what you want the trucks for...the new Randal's are very well made...I am waiting for the promised wider than 180mm (rumors say 200mms) to put on my drop through. The 42 degree plates have a nice feel at speed

[KingCrimson]

I may be old but I'm not senile

There's no such thing as one without the other.

And I refuse to accept anything else.

[Gecko]

There's no such thing as one without the other.

And I refuse to accept anything else.

25years on Indy trucks...tattoo of a Maltese Cross on the inside of my right wrist...10 skateboards in my quiver, 6 on Indy's, 1 on Force, 1 on Randals, 1 on Ace's (Stage 3 Indy Clones), 1 on Fastracks. I would never consider Gullwings the Fastracks were only because their reverse kingpin otherwise even Trackers feel wrong

[paragonUE]

its....sooo ..... pretty:1luvu:

I really like it, what adhesive did you use?

[KingCrimson]

25years on Indy trucks...tattoo of a Maltese Cross on the inside of my right wrist...10 skateboards in my quiver, 6 on Indy's, 1 on Force, 1 on Randals, 1 on Ace's (Stage 3 Indy Clones), 1 on Fastracks. I would never consider Gullwings the Fastracks were only because their reverse kingpin otherwise even Trackers feel wrong

I'm a bit of a Randal 180 fan.

I have to say, I want those Independent 215's. Ahh the wheel lift has to be atrocious.

[photodad2001]

That is a thing of beauty!!!!:1luvu:

I have some questions about the construction. What is the flex like on a board that is put together that way? Obviously not a horizantal ply board. Is the choice of wood and possitioning of the wood a thought out design or more an esthetic choice? Dimensions? Is this a "show board" for cruizing or did you design it for serious charging? I've got a pair of Indy 215's, would love a deck like that to mount them to, what would you charge for one similar?

PS,

What kind of epoxy or glue did you use?

[Gecko]

That is a thing of beauty!!!!:1luvu:

I have some questions about the construction. What is the flex like on a board that is put together that way? Obviously not a horizantal ply board. Is the choice of wood and possitioning of the wood a thought out design or more an esthetic choice? Dimensions? Is this a "show board" for cruizing or did you design it for serious charging? I've got a pair of Indy 215's, would love a deck like that to mount them to, what would you charge for one similar?

PS,

What kind of epoxy or glue did you use?

61" x 9.5 x 21/32"

as I said originally I spent way too much money on wood...$60...it could easily have been done for half that. This is pretty much a dance board which means that it's flexy/bouncey that is the intent. Use of 1" instead of 3/4" would stiffen it up so would shortening the wheelbase from 48"...side note the flex actually matches the 13ply Eastbilt 60" I bought last year though the Vlam has less torsional flex. by positioning of the wood you mean grouping together of the burled areas yes I did I little of that though only moving things around an inch or two. If you mean colors across the width that took a long time to figure out I placed bars of color together in photoshop on and off for 2-3 weeks before deciding on the layout you see. Wood choice was a desire to build it from North American Hardwood the exception being the tail block and I named it incorrectly above it's not Zebrawood it's Ziricote. As for building another...I woudn't make one that long again too many hassles with the pieces shifting while clamped even with biscuits, 45-50" is the longest I would ever do again, also what you see is too expensive...what you see cost about $80 in materials alone (my wife would not be happy knowing that). Dimensioning my own lumber would cut that in half, I will not be using the same wood supplier but I have a good one here in town I just need to visit and figure out what woods I want to work with (staying with NA hardwoods except for tail blocks) The glue I used is Titebond III which is fairly common cabnet makers glue derived from the glue used to make skakeboards (Titebond has a much longer shelflife but is essentially the same). I plan on getting back into the shop this summer and doing a couple of 40-50" cruising boards using what I learned from this build and making improvements. My guess is I could build a board for no more than $60-$70 plus shipping. Drop me a line at aikigecko at yahoo dot com if that still interests you and I will talk to you as I get to the point of building

My Indy 215's have been modified with 8mm axles and the adjusted to a be about 14mm wider than stock at 196mm (stock Indy 215's are 182mm wide at the hanger) I use these on a custom topmount speedboard that Andrew K (xxguitarist) made for me. This is one of my 3 primary boards the others being an Earthwing Supercharger for commuting and cruising and a Grativy PS35, my parkboard.

[willywhit]

how does it drift through the last turn on the bike path at 'brator ?

[Gecko]

how does it drift through the last turn on the bike path at 'brator ?

I haven't taken it there yet, I've been on my freeride board there (and nearly everyplace else) for the last month, If I wasn't so greedy I would probably sell a couple of boards as it is I'm lending my brother my Hyper Carve just so it gets some use

[photodad2001]

I showed this to a friend of mine who also skated in the 80's and is a cabinet maker (also makes wooden canoes as a hobbie) and we want to give this a shot. Besides the info that you have already posted do you have any other words of wisdom? My friend has a full wood workshop in his garage with all kinds of cool stuff including vacume presses. A while back we tried making skateboard decks much like the old 80's fish designs, but for our purposes we found that we couldn't make them strong enough for street style skating (he didn't have the vacume presses then). Also at the time we were experimenting with adding concave which was nearly impossible to keep symetric with the tools and knowledge we had at the time. The best we came up with was a Neil Blender copy and lasted about 2 weeks in real skating conditions. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and we'll be sure to post photos of our work. We're long past any thought of acid drops or launch ramps, so longboarding is right up our alley. If this works out we'll both have boards and if successful maybe offer our services here.

Thanks for the inspiration!

[Gecko]

Titebond III glue, lots of clamps, try not to use oily wood (like teak) if you have a joiner use it, Biscuits are good just make sure you know where they are when it comes to shaping as they are not very pretty. I am not a Vacuum press guy sadly (xxguitarist is though)

[wavechaser]

Nice work TP - I went the other route entirely...bought the new Gecko TS (http://www.geckodecks.com/), but still waiting for it to arrive. I'll vote for ya! Hope to see you at the Fells in June...but there may be a big race in QC that same weekend...choices, choices! I'm alerting Karl about the QC race in case he can push the Fells up or back a week.

-RF

[photodad2001]

Titebond III glue, lots of clamps, try not to use oily wood (like teak) if you have a joiner use it, Biscuits are good just make sure you know where they are when it comes to shaping as they are not very pretty. I am not a Vacuum press guy sadly (xxguitarist is though)

Is Koa an oily wood?

[KingCrimson]

It was used in ancient Hawaiian watercraft, including surfboards and canoes.

Unless they knew of a way to finish it, I would think it would have to be oily in order to survive in water.

Hydrophobic wood is great stuff if you want it to last more than 10 minutes in water. That said, the topsheet of my skateboard is Koa, so it can obviously be used.

[Gecko]

please vote for my board if you are a member of the Fish

[KingCrimson]

You're pulling second with 4 votes, Pete's got 7.

[Gecko]

.pete's board is very nice...sadly it failed and cracked but it's still very nice, I think he is a cabinette maker or something, regardless he's got skills.

BTW Koa isn't oily Paduak is.