Evaluation - Problems Encountered

Our brief for 2009’s 11DTM class was; ‘Post a picture of you and your final design [skateboard] in a location in Wellington that is perfect for skating in/around.’ It seemed simple enough, but over the past year I’ve encountered many problems. It all began in Term 1, with our focus on flax…

Terry came up with this idea that we could make a flax stringer, and use it in the centre of the board in place of fibreglass. I was always skeptical of this idea, as I thought the flax wouldn’t increase the strength much. So we spent the majority of Term 1 cutting flax into thin strips, and tying them to together to make a flax stringer. We flattened them, and stuck them up in the boiler room to dry. However (later in Term 2) we discovered they had began rotting and Terry realized a flax stringer wouldn’t work UNLESS we’d stripped down the flax to its fibres (but that’d take more time than we had).

In Term 2 we began making our moulds. Even though Terry said we could only use 6 pieces of MDF (to sit upright), I had to use 7 in order to get the correct curvature (as I wanted both a kicktail and nose). I spent the most of the term sanding down the 7 pieces to the correct curvature. A week before I was to lay down my board, Terry told us to only use 4 pieces, meaning I had to remove 3 of my MDF pieces. I dismissed the idea and continued on with my 7 pieces. As we had a shortage of clamps, I only had 5 clamps, which I placed on the sides and front, but unfortunately NOT on the back, which resulted in a smaller kicktail.

In the first week of Term 3, I cut out the basic shape of my board, with no hassle. In the following weeks, I just sanded and sanded and sanded until it was soo ultra smooth it felt unreal. I painted a white primer over the whole board too.

I realized the excessive sanding was actually a waste of time in Term 4. In my head, I had planned for the board to have a smooth, fine finish, but when the black came out from the sprayer, it came out all blotchy and bumpy. The finish didn’t actually look that bad though; as Terry pointed out, it looked as if it had been powder-coated. I also pictured having a stencil or vinyl (or even masking tape!) to spray on my bottom artwork, but discovered I didn’t have enough time to create a stencil or vinyl, and masking tape wouldn’t work because of the wavy design. So I drew on the design with pencil and hand-painted on my design. The hand-painting would’ve looked really bad IF it the base had a fine finish but didn’t, because of the blotchy base coat, (giving it the ‘Handmade’ finish) that only a hand-painted graphic can produce. At the beginning of the year, I thought I'd paint both sides (Top & Bottom) with a different designs (and have clear griptape), but unfortunately, I ran out of time, and only got the bottom graphic done (and got stuck with clear griptape). I also encountered a problem when it came to applying the griptape to the board. The clear griptape came out with heaps of air bubbles which gave the impression that the griptape was poorly stuck down. However Big Sam came up with a solution which involved using the rubber end of a file to press the air bubbles out.

Even though I encountered many problems with this 'longboard' project, I overcame the majority of them and came out with a pretty awesome looking board. If I was to do this course again, I would change several things; 1. NOT make a flax stringer (which'll give a whole extra term, which could be used for the enhancement of my board). 2. Make the mould with STEEPER curves (which'll give the board more strength, and easier riding). 3. Use a CLEAN sprayer (which'll make the base finish smoother and better, in general). 4. Make a STENCIL for my artwork (which'll make the edges finer) 5. Use BLACK GRIPTAPE (So the griptape finish won't look all bumpy & blotchy). However I'm happy with my final product, and proud of my success.