Last month, I made the final touches to my custom skateboard. It's been at least 6 months since I first purchased the blank deck from America for a measly £30 (bargain!). From what started as a quick setup to build and go skating with, I soon became obsessed with the idea of creating a custom graphic and adding as many details as possible. I had a fascination in skateboards from the 80s that had plastic rails, tipex covered griptape, wear and tear and alot of character. For a brief month or so I got to ride my Uncles original Powell Bug board and loved the way it soaked up turns. It was a really fun board which I was keen to continue riding until he made the decision to put it up for auction. So that's why I went for this type of board. The custom stuff was just an after thought. This is certainly no show piece but a full working board that I intend to wreck.

A brief recap of my process:

  1. Sand down board ready for painting
  2. Photoshop together a few rough ideas of graphics to stencil or silkscreen
  3. Cut out graphics in paper to judge size of area to mask.
  4. Mask areas I want spray paint
  5. Spray paint both topside and the bottom of the deck
  6. Install black rails, tailtap
  7. Settle on a design to try silkscreening with
  8. Badger my good friend Josh into exposing a screen and getting a weekend sorted to try printing
  9. In the meantime, saw and glue together something to hold the board in place ready for printing
  10. Decide on silkscreen ink and colour. Order Fire Red pot ready to print with.
  11. Umm and arrr over design
  12. Buy another board and start messing with that
  13. Badger Josh one last time to settle a date
  14. Screen gets exposed with design
  15. Get to London to print.
  16. Measure, think, wait - twice. Print - once
  17. Because the board is concave, ignore traditional silkscreen printing method and apply a custom solution. I roll the screen across the board whilst Josh pulls the ink through.
  18. First try fortune! Silkscreen done
  19. Mask and spray paint logo on topside of board
  20. Measure and figure out how to grip board
  21. Design griptape on the fly using paper cutouts and playing it by eye
  22. Slice grip to size and apply to board
  23. Fix trucks to board along with wheels and bearings
  24. Take for a skate

For a first try it came out surprisingly well. I'm stoked how it came together and I've ridden it load of times now both at the skatepark and on the streets - it works well across all of it.