EVALUATION - BOARD PROCESS

EVALUATION

This year in 11DTM my design project was based on designing and creating a longboard. The brief given to me was 'Post a picture of you and your final design (skateboard) in a location in Wellington that is perfect for skating in/around'. After given the brief, I researched some pre-existing longboards and found the pros and cons of each one. I then made some concepts for my own longboard keeping in mind each of the pros and cons from my research. I initially decided to make a simple oval shaped longboard with the length of 800 mm. I then decided to change my shape to a more abnormal type of oval but still very symmetrical. Once I had my board shape decided I worked out what curvature i wanted in my board. I decided to have two curves going through my board. One making the board bouncy when stood on and one to give the board control and handibility. Once I had an idea of what i wanted my board to look like I then researched the materials. I originally was going to use plywood, epoxy resin and flax. I started with the flax by stripping it down to thin pieces. The flax was going to be used as the stringer for my board to make it flexible and strong. After working on my flax stringer for four weeks my teacher realized that it would just take too long to make a reasonable flax stringer so we decided to just use fiberglass instead. I then had to make my mould for my longboard. I used 7 pieces of 18 mm MDF. 1 piece to hold the mould together and the other 6 to form the shape and curves i wanted. I first drew out the shapes of each piece, then cut out each piece, then sanded down each piece. To put the pieces together I used several screws and an electric screwdriver. My mould was then ready to have my board laid onto it. Once I had collected 2 pieces of ply, r180 epoxy resin and a fiberglass sheet I laid my board down. Firstly I got 3 others to help me as it takes quite a few hands. Next I lay one sheet of plywood onto my mould. Then I spread a layer of epoxy resin onto the topside of the plywood. Then put down the fiberglass sheet onto the resin. Then spread the remaining epoxy resin on the fiberglass before putting the second plywood piece on top. Lastly I clamped down my board to my mould with 6 clamps. This made sure my intended curves would be moulded into my board. I then left my bard clamped for 2 full days then took out my board. At this stage my board was a rectangular shape so I then drew out my abnormal oval shape onto my board, ready to be cut. Then I used the bandsaw to cut out the shape of my longboard. Once cut I then sanded down my board in a sequence using coarse sand paper to very fine sand paper. This made my board smooth. I got my teacher to bog up some small holes in my board to simply make it look better. I then went on to priming my board. I used a white undercoat primer. I did one layer of primer then let it dry before sanding it down. I then painted on a second layer of primer and sanded it too. Next I got the teacher to spray down the base coat onto my board. I chose a black base coat to contrast with my bright artwork. Once the base coat had dried I was ready to paint on my artwork. I had previously designed a rasta type of design which I decided to go through with. We bought test-pots of paint for our artwork from Resene. I got a red, green and a yellow. I drew out my artwork onto the underside of my board using pencil. Then I masked down one part of my artwork using making tape. Using masking tape makes the edges of the artwork more crisp than just using a paint brush. I used a paint brush and painted each coloured within the tape. I used a small paint brush to do some slight touch ups on the paint later on. Once i had finished my artwork I painted on a layer of lacquer to harden and protect my board. I then put on my clear griptape to finish my board. I laid it down, rolled it down and then trimmed the excess griptape from the board.