Hey Guys, It’s Mike from The Geek Pub! And Connor! We’re going to show you how to make an old school skateboard, right in your garage!
In the old days, you couldn’t just drive dive to your local big box store and buy a skateboard. You had make your own!
To make our old school skateboard we’ll need a roller skate and a piece of scrap lumber. In this case, oak. Look for an old roller skate at an antique mall, and try to find one with good bearings. On piece of paper larger than our board, draw a design for your skateboard. It can literally be any shape you want, so have fun with it. Only draw half of it though, because we’ll flip it to make the other side. Now, cut out the half pattern carefully using some sharp scissors or a knife.
Find the exact center and then draw a line down the center of the board. We’ll use this line and a piece of tape to attach our paper template to the board. Then using a pencil, carefully trace the paper pattern onto one half of the oak board. When you’re finished, carefully turn the board around and flip the pattern over. You can then trace an exact mirror image of our pattern on the second half.
Now using a scroll, band or jigsaw, cut out the pattern from the oak plank. Take your time and go slow, but don’t worry too much about accuracy here. Just cut about 1/8” to the outside of line to leave room for sanding and clean up work. Using a belt sander, gently sand the board to the template lines. You’ll also want to use this opportunity to gently round all of the sharp corners. If you want a nice look, it’s really important to take your time and slowly refine the pattern.
Using a router with a round-over bit take the edges off of the board. You’ll want to flip the board, and round-over the bottom side too for a really clean look. Then gently hand sand the whole board. And after a little paint and stain of your choosing your board should look something like this.
Now take that old roller skate and remove the plate and trucks from the bottom of it. It should just be 4 lock-nuts or similar. Once you’ve removed it from the shoe, remove the trucks from the plate. Put it into a bench vice and cut the center section of the plate, but don’t cut into any of the supports or slots for the trucks. Then remove any burs or sharp edges using a standard bench grinder and wire wheel.
To attach our newly halved plates to the board, we’re going to need two addition screw holes on each one, so drill those out using a drill press. Mark and pre-drill 8 holes on the bottom side of our board. Then using some large pan-head screws attach the plate sections tightly, but be careful not to strip out the oak board.
Finally, reattach the trucks to the plates, and that’s it! You’ve got your very own old school skateboard! and Connor can’t wait to try it out! Well that’s it for this episode. If you liked this video, please like, subscribe and comment below if you have an idea for a future project!
