This page is part of our home made eskate build.
We used 1.5 inch foam and sanded it to the shape we want.
Sanding took an hour. It's easier to sand with quick movements and low pressure vs lots of pressure
We made two boards of different shapes. One with a kick and one with a regular mold.
We used these skateboard veneer kits.
Each had 7 maple veneer in 1/16 layers and unfortunately, they were too long for our vacuum bag. We cut them to 90cm.
The bags are advertised as 30*40in but only 36in veneer will fit with the foam.
The veneer sheets are stacked with the 2 vertical grain sheets positioned like this: HHVHVHH.
We tried to use a paint roller but it took way too much glue to be useful. Using a large plastering spatula is much easier and wastes less glue.
The glue we use is Titebond III because it is superior. This glue starts to set in 10 minutes, which is long enough for our application but doesn't need to be in the vacuum bag for weeks.
The amount of glue used is important. A recommended amount (from the roarockit calculator) is 25.55ml of glue per square foot of wood, per layer of glue (7 layers of wood == 6 layers of glue).
In our case, that's 25.55ml * (3*1) * (7-1) = 460ml
Too bad we didn't read about this value until after both boards were glued...
Board 1: ~300ml only. Result: Very Flexible.
Board 2: ~500ml. Result: Almost no Flex.
Make sure all layer is covered with glue and be quick.
Cover with glue on both layers of wood.
Insert in vacuum bag and make sure no air is left. Add a foam piece because the vacuum bag cap could leave a mark in the wood. We used "Space Saver Vacuum Storage Bags with Hand-Pump, Jumbo, 6-Pack" from Amazon.
We had a problem with the foam mold with the kick because it wasn't strong enough to hold the kick shape. Foam bends instead of the veneer. To fix this we should have used a strong piece of wood under the foam. It was too late for that so we forced the kick with a cement bag in a bucket.
Tape was added to in case the vacuum breaks.
After 20 hours, we unwrapped the vacuum bags and were very disappointed. Both decks had major air or glue bubbles. We still don't know if they were caused by pressure from the tape or too much glue (or not enough glue?). The top of the decks are perfect though.
A day later, most bubbles magically shrank on Deck 2!
Templates drawn on Sketchup and printed.
Boards were sanded and had to be pressed again. Some sides were unwrapping.
Read more here on the complete project!: home made electric longboard.
Next, Part 3: Battery Pack