donheff
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Wow TD, just saw the videos. Makes my old windsurfing moves look like sh**. That looks like it would be good for improving my balance on a snowboard. I may build one too.
Help! I'm trapped inside a 53 year old body!
- Thread starter tangomonster
- Start date
TromboneAl
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2006
- Messages
- 12,880
For any of your planning to make your own here's what I learned:
The 6 inch pipe that I got wasn't rigid enough, and was a little out of round. If you get pipe like this, you need to reinforce it with round inserts. This is a tricky thing -- you need to determine the true inner diameter. My first go at this resulted in inserts that seemed to fit OK, but when I used the roller, the movement unlocked the glue, and the inserts failed. The key here is to make them snug, requiring major hammering to get them inserted (put them in edgewise, then rotate and hammer). If they are too big, they will create a bulge in the pipe (you can see that in the roller on the left, just below the tape).
A 4 inch pipe (inner diameter), is just about as good as the larger size (see the black pipe in the picture). It's just a little more fun with a larger pipe.
You can get by without the friction tape. The tape I got was pretty sticky on both sides. When I first tried it, It not only came off the roller, but pulled paint off the bottom of the board. You can make this better by wiping it with acetone after you apply it, and giving the paint a few more days to cure.
I used a beautiful blue latex paint from the reuse shed at the dump. If I were doing it over, I think I'd start with maple or oak-faced plywood, and just stain it.
I haven't yet put a non-skid surface on the top. The current surface has worked OK for bare feet or sneakers, but would be too slippery with socks.
It's more fun than it looks. I spent about 30 minutes on the board yesterday, and I can feel it in my leg and back muscles. I haven't crashed yet, but had one almost fall/almost pull muscle unintentional dismount.
The 6 inch pipe that I got wasn't rigid enough, and was a little out of round. If you get pipe like this, you need to reinforce it with round inserts. This is a tricky thing -- you need to determine the true inner diameter. My first go at this resulted in inserts that seemed to fit OK, but when I used the roller, the movement unlocked the glue, and the inserts failed. The key here is to make them snug, requiring major hammering to get them inserted (put them in edgewise, then rotate and hammer). If they are too big, they will create a bulge in the pipe (you can see that in the roller on the left, just below the tape).
A 4 inch pipe (inner diameter), is just about as good as the larger size (see the black pipe in the picture). It's just a little more fun with a larger pipe.
You can get by without the friction tape. The tape I got was pretty sticky on both sides. When I first tried it, It not only came off the roller, but pulled paint off the bottom of the board. You can make this better by wiping it with acetone after you apply it, and giving the paint a few more days to cure.
I used a beautiful blue latex paint from the reuse shed at the dump. If I were doing it over, I think I'd start with maple or oak-faced plywood, and just stain it.
I haven't yet put a non-skid surface on the top. The current surface has worked OK for bare feet or sneakers, but would be too slippery with socks.
It's more fun than it looks. I spent about 30 minutes on the board yesterday, and I can feel it in my leg and back muscles. I haven't crashed yet, but had one almost fall/almost pull muscle unintentional dismount.
Attachments
Last edited:
