SKATEBOARDING PROHIBITED

We finally finished our first board today! The gripatape has been applied, the board is sprayed with blue paint, clear coat, and polyurethane. Right now, it's set up with some Cast Ronin 42.5˚ baseplate trucks, standard Cast Ronin bushings, a set of my old Sector 9 Butterballs, which as some of the most fun slow freeride wheels I've ever used, and the classic Zealous bearings. I took it for a spin today, and it's incredibly fun to ride. The wheelbase and topmount make it agile, but not a bad cruiser. With bigger wheels, this board could easily be a great commute board, but while riding it it also promises to be a fun freeride and downhill board. Takaaki and I are going up to Stanford on Sunday to test the board, and we're gonna bring back some footage to show off! We're also going to see if we can get Black Diamond Sports to give out some of our stickers.

Here are some pictures:

Doing some simple heelside checks on the board outside Piazza's

#SKATEBOARDINGPROHIBITED

Altus Boards: A New Aphrodisiac

This week we finished painting two different boards! They look great. I'll post a picture at the bottom of the post. Takaaki and I have each designed one design. Takaaki's design is the horizontal block of blue, while mine involves the slanted triangles. We're not sure who is going to design the third board and what the design is going to be, but you can rest assured it'll be something to get stoked over.

I'll be finishing the board that I designed this weekend, and hopefully bringing it in to school over the next week. All thats left for me is some small wetsanding to touch up the paint job, a couple polyurethane coats to make sure that it's well sealed and weatherproof, as well as adding griptape. I'll be testing it out with my own setup. We'll hopefully have 3 boards to present to our audience during our presentation.

Here are some pictures of the painted boards:

Takaaki's design:

My design:

Side by side:

And of course, some shenanigans with the boards:

Strange Things Happening 'Round These Parts

This week at Altus Boards, we've mostly just been focusing on getting our various boards sprayed with the appropriate coating. We have to prime the parts of the board to be painted, paint those parts, and coat with polyurethane. All of these require separate coats that take several hours to dry, so progress is limited. However, it is only a matter of going as often as possible to spray the boards, and the boards will be completed.

On Sunday, the Altus team is pulling our final 100% work day. Takaaki And I plan to come in at 8 A.M. and leave at 8 P.M. We have a pressed board ready to cut out, and we plan to have it stained by the end of the day. This work day will hopefully give us another board to present to our audience during our presentations. Overall, we hope to have 4 separate boards to present at the talk. Not all of the boards will be 100% functional, but this will allow us to delve into the learning aspect of our project.

Some unfortunate news is that while team member Shiv Matta was sanding the board at his house, it somehow warped out of the concave. We'll be trying to repress it, and are working our hardest to deduct what the source of this strange reshaping is. Here's a picture:

The Tape Job

Today at Altus Boards, Takaaki and I worked on boards number two and three. The first one, as we all painfully remember, was misdrilled. However, we painted it anyway, and it turned out so pretty that James Wang is holding it hostage at his house. We'll get it back, don't worry. I got the second board all taped up and ready to be painted with my design. My design was slightly more complicated than Takaaki's, so it took a longer time to set up the template and tape job. However, it paid off after we sprayed on the first coat of paint because I can already tell it's gonna look great. By the end of this weekend, there's a very large chance we'll have a completed longboard, as long as someone is able to periodically go in and apply 1 more coat of paint, wetsand it, and apply two coats of polyurethane sealant. Here's a picture of me doing the tape job:

It Rides!

Altus Longboards has made a huge step forward today. We finally slapped a pair of trucks on a longboard and took it for a spin, and it feels great. The board itself hasn't been finished, and still has to be finished with a file and fine sandpaper. After that, we will stain it, spraypaint it, and seal it with polyurethane. All that's left after that is to purchase a setup and grip the board, and it'll be ready to set up!

We also finally decided on a design, but we're not gonna be revealing the actual design on the bottom of the board until we bring it to class sometime next week, because it will be completed then. We're experimenting with the design on the bottom of the board that we misdrilled. Here are some pictures from this week.

The beginning of the practice paint job:

Altus Board's first test ride:

We're gonna be working almost all day on Sunday, so hopefully we have a board ready to sell by next week!

Tragedy Strikes

During Spring Break, Takaaki Sagawa and I really put in hours at Make X working hard on boards. We were almost at a point where we were going to slap some trucks on the board and quickly test it out in the parking lot, but we misdrilled the mounting holes. Board #1 has officially been retired as a scrap board, used for practicing staining and painting designs.

Luckily, we worked so hard that we're about to drill holes in our second board, and we're pretty sure we can get it right this time. Takaaki and I are also in the process of deciding a final graphic for the bottom of the board, we plan to make it simplistic, yet recognizable. This weekend, we plan to work long enough for me to quickly test the board out in the parking lot. If we correctly drill the holes in this board and it checks out in the parking lot, it won't be long before that board is completed. Here's the template that led us astray:

If There's a Drill, There's a Way

Punny titles aside, we've been getting lots done at Altus Longboards this week. The board that we said was finished being filed has now been drilled, so trucks can be topmounted. I plan to take a set of wheels, trucks, and bearings out of the many that I own to go and attach to the board, so I can briefly test it out. There are essentially 3 steps that remain.
1. Cut out the drop-through mounting hole so that it can be switched between topmount (baseplant screwed in on bottom of board) and drop-through (baseplate screwed in on top of the board and 'drops through' the board to connect the kingpin to the axle).

2. Take fine-grit sandpaper and make sure our board is divinely smooth.

3. Stain our board and paint the design on the bottom.

After all these steps are complete, I'll be taking the board for a full test ride up on the Stanford hills.

Here are some pictures of our work today:

First Board!

Today we finished out first board!  It is all cut out and we're just doing finishing sanding and filing now. It's not completely finished, but the overall outline is finished being cut out. We plan to sand it to perfection, and then stain it a dark brown color. The second board is still getting cut out. The rough outline is visible, but we still need to sand it. We got a lot of work done today. Takaaki and I went to the workshop at 6:00 right after track practice, and we worked till 11:00. That means we took 1 board out of the press, totalling 4 boards in progress, and finished one and got another to the stage where we just need to file it. There are two pressed boards that have not been cut out or filed yet. However, we're making noticeable progress towards our final goal. Here's a picture!

Filing and Filing

We're making slow progress toward our goal of finishing a deck. The power sander in Make X is not working, so we have to file by hand to get rid of the excess wood around our board. This is problematic, because filing by had takes an extremely long time. We hope to acquire a handheld power sander from our mentor soon, that will speed up the process enormously.

On a happier note, the second board came out ever better than the first! It contoured to the press perfectly due to the increased 1800 pounds of force that we put on it with additional clamps. Just like the last deck, there are absolutely no air bubbles in the construction, meaning that it is extremely unlikely to delaminate as well as sturdy for the ride.

On the bright side of having to file manually, we're getting the deck extremely precise. Here's a picture of our filing progress:

1 Board Out, 1 Board In

We took out the 1st board in the press this week. It turned out great, it has contoured to the press as well as laminated without a single air bubble. The press was unscathed after its first job, and we tossed in another board that we're gonna be taking out in about a weeks time. We spent this week beginning to cut out the actual board. All thats left is to file it down precisely, sand it, and finish it. We may or may not include a graphic on the bottom.

The only problem we encountered with the board was finding that it didn't completely contour to the press. We found that the curves that the board had by the end of being pressed were not as steep or extreme as those in the original press. We solved this by using more clamps this time around. Hopefully we'll have our first completed deck in a couple weeks!

Here's a picture of the second deck being pressed along with the first one, already pressed:

The Suck is Dead

This weekend, we finally got ourselves out of the suck and threw our first board in the press. At the moment, it's sitting in room F6 of the Cubberley Community Center being pressed. This weekend we are going to remove the board from the press, cut it out, and begin to sand it and begin other finishing procedures. We will also be pressing a second board while we sand and finish the first board. We are still looking into finding an artist or some method to design the bottom of our board. Hopefully the press was able to apply enough force to the board so that the board was able to contour perfectly to the press. After we finish the board, we will be placing some of my spare parts on the board so that I can go test ride it in Stanford. Below is a picture of our press: