Skateboard Press.

[goodwood]

i am wondering if anybody on here would know of a good place to get skate decks pressed, or wheels made or even trucks?

Just throwing it out there to see if anybody has any info.

Edit- anybody know where to get some good BLANk denim jeans? With no min. order perfered.

Thanks guys.
peace.
goodwood.

[spyro]

Why would you want to get decks pressed? Wouldn't you want to buy blanks and put your designs on them? Same with wheels..... What are you trying to accomplish?

[Aletheides]

Edit- anybody know where to get some good BLANk denim jeans? With no min. order perfered.

Ummm I think they call that retail.

[SlideRiceFC]

At the moment I'm not too sure. I looked into this myself. I went the cheap route and ordered samples from Evermore in Taiwan. They do decks, wheels, trucks and hardware. Their prices were great and minimums were pretty low. Boards were 7 ply Canadian maple so I figured I couldn't go wrong. Wrong! On my sample order I would snap decks withing 20 minutes of building boards. I couldn't believe it. There's a big deck supplier...I think in Arkansas. Maybe you can google it. They were up there price wise but I think the quality is probably much higher. Decks that are good for fire kindling won't be good for long term business.

[goodwood]

Why would you want to get decks pressed? Wouldn't you want to buy blanks and put your designs on them? Same with wheels..... What are you trying to accomplish?

Ya I know dozens of places to do that. I was just wondering about presses for myself to start a biz like that, where I can make decks and wheels for other people. I own a Snow/Skate shop and I wanted to branch out into doing this aswell maybe.

As for the jeans, I am just looking for a place to get some blank jeans so I can put my own lables on, I know of a few places but they have min. of like 250 or 500 and that kind of stuff, I just want to be able to get like 10-20ish if its possible.

Thanks for the help.

[Slevin]

Pm chopper on these forums about the jeans, he set up a company buying jeans and personalising them

[goodwood]

^^
Thanks a bunch.

[Mechanical]

Goodwood

Are you looking to make a press of your own and start pressing them out?

[goodwood]

not to "make" a press but yah, to press my own, for people and myself. It was just an Idea my friend and I had and wanted to see about it.

[Mechanical]

The only reason I ask is that a press system for skatebords is definatley a garage project, but you have to be willing to work at it and have some mechanical ability.

I was helping a guy on another forum, he was making a big snowboard press. He said the pressure required, based on his buddies press, was 80 psi. Figure out your board's area and multiply it by 80 and that is the pounds you should need to make one. Divide that by 2000 and that is the tons you would need. This estimate will be high because a snowboard is probably 30 to 40% thicker than a skateboard. I just did a rough calc and it comes to 8 tons, a decent car jack can do that. Can you get metal welded?

http://cgi.ebay.com/SKATEBOARD-FACTORY_W0QQitemZ330013929030QQihZ014QQcategoryZ16265QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Look at the fourth pic in that ebay add, that is an economical way to approach the forming. All that other stuff is way overkill for a garage aoperation.

[OneOfEm]

I posted a video last night on YouTube showing how I plan to make my own skateboard press. This will be higher-end than the vacuum press idea that's floating around (search google for "make a skateboard"), but won't cost $5000+ like the commercial presses.

Take a look at it, and you might decide (like me) that it will be something you'll want to do for yourself. It's really not that big of a hurdle. The best part is that you'd be able to control the quality so you won't have to put your name on junk.

What I really like about the idea of having my own press is that I'll be able to branch out if I want. I'm already finding good suppliers of bamboo veneers so I can make bamboo boards as well as maple.

Good luck in your quest and with your business!

i am wondering if anybody on here would know of a good place to get skate decks pressed, or wheels made or even trucks?

Just throwing it out there to see if anybody has any info.

Edit- anybody know where to get some good BLANk denim jeans? With no min. order perfered.

Thanks guys.
peace.
goodwood.

[Gaulkin]

Where are you going to get your wood at a good price?

[yourhostingspot.com]

I've made my own press for skateboards before. Its not that hard, the hardest part about the whole process is getting good wood that wont break for a reasonable price. As far as Jeans, I'll send you a PM.

[suav]

What I really like about the idea of having my own press is that I'll be able to branch out if I want. I'm already finding good suppliers of bamboo veneers so I can make bamboo boards as well as maple.

Good luck in your quest and with your business!

Good video,
got me thinking this would be a nice addition for my soon-to-be shop, as skating is pretty popular here...
Would you mind telling me the sources you've found for bamboo and maple?
I think cedar or teak would be cool too.

Thanks!

[hub138]

well, basically as i see it, really your only route if youre actually starting a skateshop, is to not press boards at all, but focus on the "shop" end of things, because frankly you'd be spreading yourself far too thin trying to manufacture, and have wholesale deals with distributors.
you want to start one thing at a time.
as for the manufacturing, ive been toying with this for a while, ive done the carjack press, ive played with the toothless method, and the roarockit method is just simply put, not nearly economic enough at all to make any money off of it. And frankly the best way to go about things, would be actually get your hands on a real hydrolic press, and yeah, they are over 5000 big ones, but hell. If you can take out a loan to buy a car, why cant you take out a loan to start a business? These prebuilt presses can make boards far faster, and with far more accuracy than anything you could do DIY, and the combination of a routerhead CNC machine, and your new hydrolic press, you can easily pump out a few hundred boards a month. which is more than enough to pay off the debt you enacted to fund your business.

and secondly as for the materials of which to press, Maple, and Bamboo are obvious choices for core materials, any other hardwood can be dado'd into the board, and inserted in stringer form [research hardwood surfboards for more on stringers] , now when it comes to bamboo, theres the tricky part, only certain species of the grass have vertical running fiber, unilateral fibers are no good here in this application, and not to mention before you can even begin making bamboo boards, you have to treat it, so its no longer reedy, using a process involving bleaching the wood, then it needs to be planed, and cut into strips, and then laminated into your board, usually sandwiched inbetween fibreglass [tri axial is fantastic i find]

but for simple enthusiasts and maybe hobby builders, i would highly recommend the toothless method, [just google it] That is the method i learned skate fabrication with, and am currently attending business school, and upon graduation, will be bringing to bear my plans of longboard manufacturing.

hopefully this helps, to anyone learning to build, or actually wants to pursue this as a career