Here’s an example of salvaging mistakes and eliminate something that would have otherwise been totally wasted.
I was laying up a panel of fiberglass to make fin bases. This was an iteration of one of the earlier fin making methods I experimented with. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t a good one.
I was using a large, thin piece of plexiglass-like material to wet out and sandwich my fiberglass panels. This method was actually working well for a few test runs, and I was able to produce nice, uniform fiberglass panels.
In this instance, I was making a larger, thicker layup so I could make a bunch of single fin bases all at once. I failed to account for the excess heat that this would create.
So, I wet out all the layers of glass, and sandwiched my layup between two sheets of plexiglass with some weight on top. I closed down the workshop and waited for it to cure.
When I returned a few hours later and removed the weights, I noticed something was wrong. Despite being weighed down, the plexiglass sheets were completely warped. They must have melted and twisted due to the heat that was created by the epoxy.
I pulled it all apart and wound up with a large, concaved fiberglass panel that was going to be completely useless for making fin bases.
Just a my frustration of my carelessness was setting in, I remembered this really cool mini Flexdex fiberglass skateboard a friend of mine had growing up. I measured the warped panels and figured I could fit two mini skateboard in there.
I traced the outlines of the decks to work with the weird, unintentional concave the heat-warp created. From there I cut out the shapes on the bandsaw, sanded the edges, added some logos, drilled some holes, and bolted on some old trucks. The result was a pretty rad looking mini fiberglass skateboard.
Here’s how to make your own fiberglass skateboard (intentionally):
- Use a mold or a flat surface depending on whether or not you want your board to have concave, a kick tail, etc.
- Wet out your fiberglass sheets.
- Go for about 3-6 sheets at a time making sure to get rid of any air bubbles.
- Weight down the layup and allow to cure.
- Sand/trim any sharp edges.
- Align and drill your truck mounting holes.
- Add some grip-tape.
- Go shred.
